[theforum] Donation Wall - last chance to comment

[Martin Paul Burns]

Isaac

The evolt.org bank account is (nearly) there - see finance and steering
archives. While we don't have the exact accounting controls in place for
it, the basic framework of the accountability is all there.

Regarding Google AdSense - I'd agree with you that it would probably look
OK if we could style it. The FAQ suggests that you can pick colours and one
from 4 basic formats - not sure if the content is amenable to CSS. But
we'll also need to be OK with the method Google use to populate them, which
iirc is a Javascript.

Regarding the 2 models of running evolt - actually, this is a very well
understood challenge for *every* community. The trick is to ensure that the
group that actually gets stuff done doesn't get out of touch with everyone
else, and particularly avoids thinking of itself as the only group that
counts (even more important when a sub-group thinks that only *their* stuff
is important).

One way of accomplishing this is to give 'doing stuff' groups and
individuals a specific scope, and as long as each group stays within their
scope, and within generally agreed policy, everything doesn't have to be
subject to a referendum. This is exactly what evolt.org has done.

Cheers
Martin



                                                                                                                                       
                      "Isaac Forman"                                                                                                   
                      wrote on                 To:                                                                                     
                      21/08/2003 01:27         cc:                                                                                     
                                               Subject:  RE: [theforum] Donation Wall - last chance to comment                         
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                       




evolt.org is endlessly in a bit of a loop/rut because there are two ways
of looking at evolving an international community. One involves people
taking charge and just Getting Shit Done, while some people disagree.
The other involves making sure that everyone (or at least the majority)
agree on what should be done, but progress is limited or substantially
stalled. The individuals discussing/moving evolt.org have floated
between either camp.

We can stall over the united bank account forever, or we can just put it
in one person's lap, and leave them responsible for any tax burden. It's
not ideal, but that gets it done NOW.

Now, I disagree that the hierarchy is "cloaked in secrecy", but
obviously there is power vested in those who have made their name known
in evolt.org history through endless posts/participation/coding.

If we can style Google's adSense, then I'm all for considering it. If
not, I've seen it looking pretty ugly on a few sites and I'd have
reservations. We could, very easily, run it as a trial on the Browser
Archive, or thelist archives.