Bejamin Franklin started the original Junto in 1727

You can read more in detail in the wikipedia page. In vague terms, it's was small club of people who were interested in bettering themselves. These people came from diverse backgrounds and exchanged ideas.

Rules

Instead of butchering what he wrote, below how BF wrote it in his auto-biography.

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.

Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix'd opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at present.


In short:

  1. Every week one person provides a topic for discussion.
  2. Every three months everyone must write an essay about any topic they like for everyone in the club.
  3. Absolutes should not be used, there should always be explicit space for doubt in the opinions given.


Rules (1) and (2) will be enforced very simply with a shared calendar which will show who must do what when. As for rule (3), it will be discussed the day there are 5 members in the club.

How does this Junto work?

We work with two tools at the center: a mailing list, a shared calendar.
Why a mailing list?

  1. It's asynchronous.
  2. Writing forces clarity of thought.
  3. Some very large and complicated projects are led mostly through mailing lists: the development of the linux kernel for example.
  4. It uses tools everyone has already perfected to adapto to their needs - email.
  5. It's a standard format that can't deprecate in our life times - unlike telegram, discord, slack or other potential solutions.

Why a calendar?

  1. As far as I know, it's the easiest way to keep track of things that have to happen at a certain time.
  2. Calendars have a standard format used by all major calendar software - similar point to (5) above.

What's next?

If you find the above interesting and you think that the existing group and you could benefit from your participation. Send an email to external+junto@vitz.fr.