[Theforum] (no subject)

[javier velasco]

Hey all:

I think it's good that all said things were said, keeping tehm inside is
even worse. When Dan came here, we both tried avoid talking about
evolt.org. Of course it was impossible. I 'heard' that the evolticon in
Toronto had the same flavor: "Let's just chill out and talk about
whatever else". I also think this (no subject) subject line is related
to that feeling in a strange way. That's really terrible, it's the worst
thing to happen to a community of people. Because, if you hadn't
realized it, evolt.org is about people, computers here are our channel
of connection, sure, but they're just an excuse.

evolt.org is much more of a social experiment than a technological
experiment, there are thousands of websites out there that can publish
content (not with such obsession for perfection, sure) but the real
revolution in evolt.org occurs at the social level. What we have here, I
really doubt that has ever been done before at this level.

This is a true community, yet it's immaterial. We have thousands of
members at varying levels of involvement, and now we even can't
precisely how many of them there are out there, yet it's all been built
by those members and belongs to those members and we've built all this
over e-mail discussions. The bigger the community, the more
administration it requires and our main channel of communication is this
limited alphabet which supports a minimal part of what's involved in
human communication, yet we've been able to get all this far and the
only future there is for evolt.org is that we won't be able to stop it
from growing.

It's impossible to think that we'll break apart from one day to the
next, there's way to much skin in the game (invested personal effort),
and the people involved have too much respect for the members who get
the most benefit from this '.org' to do something that irresponsible.

Of all the creatures of nature, humans are the most complex and
unpredictable. We are the only ones that can achieve such levels of
pride, envy and suspiciousness. We managed to live in harmony for a
couple of years (I just realized I wrote something very similar some
months ago) but those awful emotions started biting us. I believe that
real, periodical board meetings would really help us get organized and
form the stability we need. One lesson here, is that e-mails aren't
enough, a real conversation is exponentially more communicative, that's
the only way out I see here.

Most of us who have been helping to row this ever-growing titanic are
very tired, this is a 'you can get in but you can't get out' kind of
stuff. The constant dedication throughout the years has a high cost for
our lives: work and family, and I think the healthiest thing we can do
is just what appears on the footer. It will surely take a lot of time,
and we'll always have the fear of letting it in the hands of other
people who don't have the same amount of invested life and commitment.
The plan we are working on is very good, I have lots of hopes in there,
it will help us distribute tasks and rotate people in the administrative
roles, always feeding the community with new blood, and allow the old
founders to enjoy a hard earned retirement.

What we have here is a huge achievement, the community is really great.
I was fortunate enough to read the case study on the upcoming O'Reilly
book and I really wish I could have you read it now; it studies some
part of our dynamics and has nothing but praise for our 'experiment'.

We have to keep on moving together in the org rebuild and achieve the
stability we need, and then migrate the admins in a silk smooth
transition. Our interpersonal relations have been like walking over thin
ice this last time (I'm embarrassed to say how long this has been
building up) and I'm really sad for all the pain we've all been through
this last month. It's still good that the deepest feelings were already
said in public and we must really purge it all out to keep on forward, I
believe there's a lot more to be said and here I'll send the only
personally directed message: Dan, please get it all out of your chest, I
know it's very hard for you, but I firmly believe this purge would
benefit all of us. If any of the others has left something unsaid,
please do it now, so we can finally close this chapter, learn from it
and move ahead.

I really want to work in the IA redesign project and I want it to be a
fun experience. The community structure redesign is also a lovely
project, but its way over my head and I really like the way you've been
taking so far. Let's keep on moving, but remember we all have to stay
together.

hasta luego
javier