Topics and status¶

A topic is a place for something that requires your attention: an idea, a problem, an unanswered question, a decision that needs to be made straight away, or a draft concept.

Every topic comes with the same tools – a chat, collaborative documents, any number of decisions in various modes, and tasks. You don’t have to use them all, and the focus shifts as you go along. When creating a topic, you select a topic type; this simply determines which view the topic opens in for you and others. ‘Idea’ and ‘Problem’ open the chat, ‘Question’ and ‘Quick decision’ open the decisions, and ‘Concept work’ opens the document.

A topic is created when someone opens it, and it ends when someone marks it as resolved – not automatically when a decision has been made. It is either open, solved or archived; it can only ever be one of these.

graph LR
    O[Open] --> S[Solved]
    S --> A[Archived]
    S -->|reopen| O
    A -->|reopen| O

Open – this is a current topic. Only when it is in this status can you post comments, create tasks and make decisions.

Resolved – everything has been discussed, decided, documented and ticked off. The topic remains visible, is summarised, but no further contributions will be accepted.

Archived – the thread has been archived. You can no longer post in this thread either. The difference between this and Resolved lies in where the thread appears, not in what you can do with it.

Where the term 'theme' comes from

In tension-based work, what defines a theme is called a tension: the gap between how things are and how they could be. We call it a ‘theme’ because ‘Spannung’ sounds like ‘conflict’ in German and usually means something else.

The approach is the same – which is why the topic has been deliberately kept so broad.

settle¶

Someone marks the topic as resolved. It doesn’t happen automatically.

No decision is needed for this. You can resolve an issue because the need for settling has been dealt with. Most discussions end like this.

When summarising, Rhizome asks for a conclusion: What did you come up with? Providing this is optional. It will later appear as a separate column in the archive and help you to recall what the discussion was about months later, without having to read through the whole thread again.

!!! Note: "Blocking pending decisions" As long as there is still a pending decision on the topic, you cannot resolve it. Only once all decisions have been finalised will the way be clear.

Reopening¶

There is only one way to return from Resolved and Archived: Reopen. The topic becomes editable again and reappears in its groups’ lists. Any deadline set is removed in the process.

So, if you want to comment on a closed topic, you simply reopen it. There is no intermediate stage where posts are still possible but no decisions can be made.

Archiving¶

Only items that have been solved beforehand are archived. An unresolved issue cannot be archived straight away.

Fourteen days after a topic has been resolved, it is automatically archived. If you don’t want to wait, you can archive it straight away.

Decisions do not affect the status¶

A topic can contain any number of decisions, including several at the same time. None of these changes its status.

The status of the topic determines what decisions can be made regarding it – but not the other way round. You can only create, initiate and extend a decision within an open issue. However, no decision moves the issue – not even if it fails, is cancelled or is subsequently declared invalid. Whether the issue is then reopened is up to you, not the system.

An exception: the experiment

When an experiment] expires, it reopens its own topic – whether it was marked as Resolved or Archived.

An experiment is a decision that you have, from the outset, set a time limit on so that you can revisit it. Rhizome is thus meeting a deadline that you yourselves have set.

When nobody clarifies¶

Any issue that remains unresolved will be left open. After sixty days of inactivity, Rhizome will ask the co-creator whether it should be resolved or deleted.

Deletion is possible at any stage and is also at the discretion of the co-creator. Only an ongoing decision prevents it.

The Archive¶

All closed topics are stored in the archive. You can link them to one another and refer to them as evidence in current discussions: what was decided, what the reasons were, and who objected.

The conclusion is the starting point. It sums up in a single sentence what you’ve arrived at, and saves you from having to read through the whole process.