Working structure
The Bega Valley Data Commons is presently a light formation structure: a registered domain, an initial local forum, a small group of early participants, draft founding notes and a working intention to develop place-rooted civic knowledge infrastructure for the Bega Valley.
This is not the final Commons. It is the first arrangement through which the Commons may be discussed, tested, constituted and revised.
The shared domain
The shared domain gives the project its first visible frame. It gives the idea a named place to gather around, but does not by itself create legitimacy, membership, governance or public mandate.
During Phase 0, the domain may hold orientation notes, founding drafts, source documents, discussion links, local node pages and records of the constituting process. It should be understood as an initiating artefact: a flag of intent and a practical container for early work.
The local node
The basic working unit of the Commons is the local node: a place-based online space attached to a real community in the Bega Valley. The first live node is Eden. Future nodes may be created for other towns, villages or hall communities where there is enough local interest, local stewardship and practical reason.
A node is not a topic category. It is intended to become a local civic room — a place where information, discussion, notices, documents, questions, needs, offers, issues and memory can gather in relation to a specific place.
Eden as first instance
The Eden forum is a test case, not a template imposed on the Valley. Its purpose is to let the idea encounter real use, real people, real limits and real questions. What Eden reveals about how a local node works — useful categories, workable moderation, reasons people return, realistic forms of local stewardship — should inform the Commons. But Eden should not be made to stand for the whole Bega Valley.
The founding circle
During Phase 0, the project is held by a small founding circle. This is not a board, executive, committee of management or representative authority. It is a temporary trust-holding arrangement formed by the people who have stepped forward at the beginning.
Its role is to hold the early infrastructure, clarify the founding documents, support the first forum, protect the space from premature capture or confusion, and prepare the conditions for wider participation. Its task is not to secure permanent control, but to help create conditions under which control can become more transparent, distributed and accountable.
Early participants
Early participants are not ordinary users of a finished platform. They are entering a constituting space. Their role may include reading and questioning the founding notes, joining forum discussions, testing the usefulness of the space, identifying risks, suggesting improvements and helping clarify what would be needed before participation becomes more open.
Phase 0 depends on a small number of people acting with trust, restraint, curiosity and care while stronger governance is still being written.
Local stewardship
A local node should have at least one local steward before it is treated as active. A steward is not the owner of the node and does not speak for the whole community. The role is practical and relational: welcoming people, tending discussions, noticing problems, linking useful information, encouraging clarity and keeping the node connected to real local conditions.
Over time, stewardship should become shared. A node that depends entirely on one person is vulnerable to fatigue, bias, absence and personal capture.
The forum
The forum is the first practical interface of the Commons. It allows discussion to persist beyond the speed of social media and can hold threads, documents, questions, local notices, reference material, meeting notes, resource lists and issue discussions in a searchable and more durable form.
The forum is not the whole Commons. Later, the Commons may include archives, maps, directories, shared documents, datasets, newsletters, public submissions, timelines or other tools. These should emerge from need rather than technical enthusiasm.
Founding documents
The founding documents are part of the working structure. They are not decorative. They are tools for orienting the project, testing assumptions, inviting critique and making the constituting process visible.
Each document should ideally have a readable web page, a downloadable source version and a linked discussion thread. Documents should carry a visible status: draft, under discussion, adopted for Phase 0, revised, or superseded.
Knowledge layers
The Commons should distinguish between different kinds of knowledge from the beginning: what may be public, what is shared only among participants, what is sensitive, what requires consent before being recorded, and what may not belong in the Commons at all.
This distinction is part of the working structure, not a later administrative detail. Without it, the project risks confusing openness with exposure.
Shared infrastructure
The shared infrastructure — domain, hosting, forum software, document pages, technical access, moderation baseline, data principles and common orientation — exists to support local nodes, not to centralise control over them. Its function is to provide continuity, safety, interoperability, documentation and support. It should protect the Commons from fragmentation without flattening local difference.
Phase 0 boundary
During Phase 0, participation is not yet fully open. This boundary exists because the project is still clarifying its purpose, rules, responsibilities, risks, governance pathway and ethical basis. A limited invitation-based phase is legitimate only if it remains clearly temporary, transparent about its status and directed toward a more accountable structure.
Transition question
The working structure of Phase 0 exists to answer one central question:
What structure is needed before the Bega Valley Data Commons can responsibly become more open, more participatory and more formally governed?
Until that question is answered, the current structure should remain modest, provisional and open to revision.