[Theforum] (was) let's kill it

Martin Burns martin at members.evolt.org
Wed Apr 17 18:21:33 CDT 2002


Marlene Bruce wrote on 17/4/02 4:06 pm

>1. It remains a hobby and limps along piecemeal. It grows
>organically, and helps our audience in relatively small ways (lists,
>articles, server space, all by accepting small donations of time and
>money).
>
>2. It becomes something serious, with all the attending work,
>required organization and professionalism, and becomes something that
>can really foster growth for our audience in potentially
>*significant* ways (donating money and other resources *to* other
>groups, starting local chapters, fostering research, holding
>educational workshops and forums, etc.).
>
>If we continue like we are, only #1 will happen.
>
>If we want to have vision and can somehow discipline ourselves into
>creating and accepting process, organization and governance, then
>maybe #2 is possible.

I'm not even sure that #1 is possible without answering some of the
fundamental questions about how evolt makes and implements decisions.

Someone (Ron?) asked me a few months ago how we'd be able to come up with
creative ideas if we had more process in place. I've thought about that a lot
since then, and have realised:
1) There's a difference between necessary process and process for its own sake
- take the Zope Fishbowl process (http://dev.zope.org/Fishbowl/). It *enables*
progress rather than holds it back
2) The people involved in evolt are not now, nor will ever be, bad at coming up
with creative ideas. We're not short of ideas, and to say that the people here
would be cowed by a process *we* put in place is insulting and laughable. What
we *are* very, very, very bad at is putting ideas into operation, and even worse
at doing so on the basis of "what evolt decides" rather than "what *I* thought
up".

Also, I think that the #2 you've articulated is an absolute top-end outcome - I
think an alternative #2 is "anything better than basic subsistence"

Cheers
Martin



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