What is the Plural Management Protocol (PMP)?

When many people make one thing together, someone has to decide "let's do this next" and "this proposal is accepted, that one is not". If one leader decides everything, that person becomes a bottleneck and the work stalls. If everyone is equal, it is hard to settle on a direction. The Plural Management Protocol (PMP) is a set of operating rules that tries to answer this dilemma.

In short

The PMP is a set of operating rules for when many people make one work (a book or software) together, so that what should be done next, and whether to accept a contribution, are decided by all the participants rather than by one boss or leader [1].

Contributors receive points that are not money (credits). They use those credits to take part in prioritizing work and in votes on whether to accept contributions [1]. The book ⿻ Plurality itself was made under these rules [2].

For example

Making Plurality (2024). Chapter 5-7 of the book links, as "The Plural Management Protocol we used to create this book", to an explanation posted on GitHub, the platform for sharing code. According to the book, this system tracked the types and extent of contributions from diverse participants, and decided the priority of work and which work to incorporate [3]. The explanation was written on February 26, 2024, by Petar Maymounkov, who built Gov4Git, the tool for this system. It sets the goal of making the book according to the principles the book describes [1].

On to community management (May 2024). Around May 2024, the co-author and economist E. Glen Weyl told participants that the project had entered the phase of full community management through Gov4Git, and asked them to review and vote on contributions. When Hirokazu Nishio asked how to add an endorsement that had arrived late, Weyl answered, in substance, that if no credits were needed, the contribution could simply be submitted; if credits were wanted, the first step was to open an issue, and after Weyl backed it, submit a contribution resolving that issue (in Japanese) [4].

Spreading beyond the book. Several other uses have been found on GitHub, such as an earth-science software project whose contribution guide says its governance is based on the Plural Management model [5].

How it works

Why it is needed

The February 2024 explanation lists four goals [1]:

1. To recognize contributions clearly, quantitatively and democratically, rather than in vague and opaque ways, and to prioritize work.
2. To keep credits from becoming an object of speculative trading.
3. To let the project's direction be decided collectively, and eventually hand over its running to the community.
4. To guard against malicious attacks by widening the scope of collective decisions step by step.

In a talk in March 2024, Hirokazu Nishio explained that in hierarchical organizations work piles up with the person who decides, while in organizations without hierarchy it is hard to move in one direction. Especially in software development that anyone can join, evaluating contributions and setting priorities becomes hard as a project grows. The PMP is what solves this, in Nishio's framing (in Japanese) [6].

Five steps

According to the explanation, the PMP consists of these five steps [1]:

1. Prioritization. The priority of issues to be addressed is set by a version of Quadratic Funding. Issues backed a little by many people get a bigger boost.
2. Subsidies. The credits used for the boost are provided by sponsors. The explanation says these will most likely be the largest credit holders, such as Weyl and Audrey Tang.
3. Bounties. Someone whose contribution resolving an issue is accepted receives credits in proportion to that issue's priority.
4. Approval votes. People vote for or against accepting a contribution. If the net votes are positive at the end of a set period (then one week), it is accepted. The cost of v votes is k × v² credits (where k is a number set for each contribution), which is the form of Quadratic Voting.
5. Predictions. A vote also doubles as a prediction of how the community will decide. On top of the cost above, you pay credits equal to the number of votes, and if the outcome matches the direction of your vote, you receive twice that.

A small worked example

This example plugs numbers of this article's choosing into the explanation's formulas. Take k = 1, and suppose someone casts 3 votes in favor of a contribution [1]:

• The cost of voting is 1 × 3² = 1 × 9 = 9 credits.
• For the prediction, they also pay 3 credits, equal to the number of votes.
• If the contribution is accepted (the outcome matches the direction of the vote), they receive twice 3, that is, 6 credits. Looking only at the prediction part, they gain 6 − 3 = 3 credits.

According to the explanation, this prediction mechanism lets people who have few credits but plenty of time earn credits by helping those who have many credits but little time to sort through contributions [1].

The Gov4Git specification describes the same system in the tool's own terms. A contribution's description can claim that it resolves a given issue, and when it is accepted, the credits accumulated on that issue go to the author as a bounty [7].

The paper behind it

The system as a whole is set out in the paper "Plural Management", released in January 2024 by Weyl, Maymounkov and others. According to its abstract, it is a model that replaces part of the authority of hierarchical organizations with a system in which authority arises within a network. Participants gain influence by predicting or achieving the organization's priorities, and use it to set priorities and verify contributions [8].

How it ran in practice

It did not run on votes from the start. In the March 2024 talk, Nishio reported that the project was then in a phase led by a single leader, with Weyl judging contributions and issuing credits, and that Nishio had not yet experienced an approval vote (in Japanese) [6]. For the printed English edition, Weyl set an editing deadline in March 2024, and wrote that changes after it would not go into the printed book, but changes approved through the PMP would be incorporated into the online version [9].

On the book project's dashboard (as of October 24, 2025), a total of 116 issues and contributions had been opened, with 135 votes on issues, 41 votes on contributions and 74 new members. Activity over the previous 30 days was zero [10].

Later, the Gov4Git team released "Waimea", a system reworked for software development. It regards credits as something like employee shares in a company, and also allows them to be passed between members [11]. The emphasis differs from the original policy of keeping credits out of trading.

What is debated

• Neither one person, one vote, nor one dollar, one vote. In the same talk, Nishio framed the PMP as neither a system where voice is decided by headcount nor one where voice is bought with money, but a "meritocracy" in which those who make contributions useful to the project have a bigger voice (in Japanese) [6].
• Voting uses up credits. Nishio, who received a first issue of credits in March 2024, wrote half-jokingly that since the points shrink when used for voting, perhaps only people who keep contributing and have points to spare can be "first-class citizens" (in Japanese) [12].
• Gaps between design and practice. In the Japanese translators' notes, Nishio wrote that while the design has approval of contributions decided collectively, Weyl was making the decisions alone until the English edition was published (in Japanese) [13]. The Waimea documentation also states that administrators can accept or reject contributions regardless of the vote, and can issue or delete credits (such actions are always left in the public record) [11].
• Difficulty of joining, and stagnation. On top of joining being difficult, as seen above there was no activity in the 30 days before October 2025 [10].

Where it fits in Plurality

In chapter 5-7, "Social Markets", the book names "⿻ management" as one example of going beyond the limits of markets. According to the book, the PMP "allows for some of the important components of hierarchy (evaluation by trusted authorities, migration of this authority based on performance according to those authorities) without any direct hierarchical reporting structure" [3].

Chapter 5-0, explaining how the book was made, writes that work was prioritized and rewards determined using the "crowd-funding" approach of chapter 5-7, and that future changes will be approved using the voting procedures of chapter 5-6, "⿻ Voting", together with prediction markets. It calls this approach a "⿻ Management Protocol" [2].

In other words, the PMP combines mechanisms introduced in the book's chapters: Quadratic Funding for priorities, Quadratic Voting for approval, and prediction for acceptance. In a December 2023 video, Weyl too explained that the PMP uses ideas from the book, including bounties, QV, QF and prediction markets, to provide a system in which people receive credit for contributions and use that credit to direct the project [14].

Further reading

1. "Gov4Git and the Plural Management Protocol overview" (English, explanation) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/issues/333
2. PMP specification v0.0.1 (English, specification) — https://github.com/gov4git/gov4git/blob/9d680797696ac662a9515f1e33272ccdf55848c7/doc/MECHANISM.md
3. The paper "Plural Management" (English, paper) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4688040
4. Plurality, chapter 5-7 "Social Markets", item "⿻ management" (English, book) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-7/eng/
5. The book project's documentation (English, documents) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/tree/main/docs
6. Hirokazu Nishio, "⿻PluralityとPlural Management Protocol" (⿻ Plurality and the Plural Management Protocol) (in Japanese, talk materials) — https://scrapbox.io/nishio/%E2%BF%BBPlurality%E3%81%A8Plural_Management_Protocol

Sources

1. "Gov4Git and the Plural Management Protocol overview" (2024-02-26) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/issues/333 ［CC0］
2. Plurality, 5-0 "Collaborative Technology and Democracy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
3. Plurality, 5-7 "Social Markets", item "⿻ management" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-7/eng/ ［CC0］
4. Japanese translation community notes, "完全コミュニティ管理フェーズ開始" (Start of the full community management phase) (2024-05-10, in Japanese) — https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/%E5%AE%8C%E5%85%A8%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9F%E3%83%A5%E3%83%8B%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86%E3%83%95%E3%82%A7%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA%E9%96%8B%E5%A7%8B
5. Search for uses of Gov4Git — https://github.com/search?q=label%3Agov4git%3Amanaged&type=issues ［MIT］
6. Hirokazu Nishio, "⿻PluralityとPlural Management Protocol" (2024-03-30, in Japanese) — https://scrapbox.io/nishio/%E2%BF%BBPlurality%E3%81%A8Plural_Management_Protocol
7. Gov4Git, "MECHANISM.md" (PMP specification v0.0.1) — https://github.com/gov4git/gov4git/blob/9d680797696ac662a9515f1e33272ccdf55848c7/doc/MECHANISM.md ［MIT / Apache-2.0］
8. South, Erichsen, Jain, Maymounkov, Moore and Weyl, "Plural Management", abstract (2024-01-09) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4688040
9. Japanese translation community notes, "プルリクエストの提出期限" (Deadline for submitting pull requests) (2024-03-02, in Japanese) — https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/%E3%83%97%E3%83%AB%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A8%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E3%81%AE%E6%8F%90%E5%87%BA%E6%9C%9F%E9%99%90
10. Gov4Git dashboard in the book's repository (as of 2025-10-24) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/issues/1094
11. Gov4Git, "WAIMEA.md" — https://github.com/gov4git/gov4git/blob/9d680797696ac662a9515f1e33272ccdf55848c7/doc/WAIMEA.md ［MIT / Apache-2.0］
12. Japanese translation community notes, "The public launch of the Plurality Book Project -- using Gov4git" (2024-03-01) — https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/The_public_launch_of_the_Plurality_Book_Project_--_using_Gov4git
13. Japanese translation community notes, "PMPを把握する(Bluemo)" (Getting a grip on the PMP) (2024-04-10, in Japanese) — https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/PMP%E3%82%92%E6%8A%8A%E6%8F%A1%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%28Bluemo%29
14. Glen Weyl's video for Plurality Seoul (2023-12-02) — https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/Glen%20Weyl%20on%20Plurality%20Seoul