CB.13:1 - Problem frame

Use this pattern when people need decisions about a common activity but have not established who may make them, or when the mandate of an existing decision-maker is disputed or has expired. Several local groups want a joint event. A founder asks for comments and participants believe they are voting. A moderator’s decision is challenged, but every appeal returns to that same moderator.

The governed object is the arrangement that makes specified shared decisions possible: their subjects, participants, source of authority, decision method, limits and means of reconsideration. This is one branch of community governance. Performing an already assigned organising task belongs to CB.7; applying an established participation rule to an incident belongs to CB.8.

First useful result: the people who can establish the arrangement have made a usable mandate effective for the named questions, with its limits and challenge route understood. If they cannot do so, the result is the exact unresolved authority or agreement question and the work that may still proceed under existing conditions.

Start with an actual shared decision and the people or organisations whose contributions and rights it would change.

Ordinary non-use: independent carriers of a practice can continue using it without a common governing body. A single activity owner may already have adequate authority and consultation arrangements. Keep that basis; use this pattern only for the missing or contested shared decision arrangement. A legally constituted body or regulated decision requires its applicable institutional and professional basis.