[Theforum] What do you want to do ? Faster, evolt, kill kill!

[Martin]

On Thursday, April 18, 2002, at 03:03  pm, Miriam Frost wrote:

>> admin was set up to handle *all* the tasks you cite (IA, redesign,
>> coders,
>> CF, list, etc., etc.)...
>
> See? I had no idea about that. I thought thesite was for IA, redesign,
> coding, etc.; the forum where things got thought up, and I thought that
> as
> of early this year admin was more about handling the editorial and
> day-to-day bidniz of the lists.

Miriam

If you look at the timeline, then it goes like this:
1) Evolt.org founded - founders operate as an admin group controlling
    everything
2) thesite split off to add non-admins into the development work for weo
    (and later deo, aeo etc). No decision made to assign decision-making
    power to that group, but it's doing a good job so no intervention ever
    made
3) theforum split off to add non-admins into the strategy of evolt, and
    decision-making power also handed over.

So you see that Admin still has a lot of that original authority, and
should
have signoff over who has access to admin which lists.

In fact, however, signoff is based on no more legitimacy than "I have the
password to give access" - there's little relationship between evolt.org
(whether it's Admin, or this group, or a BoD or any other legitimate
group) legitimately deciding which individuals should be trusted with
which roles and the set of roles which individuals actually end up with.

Ultimately, it makes no difference whether it's a group called
'weedleflop',
called 'admin', called 'theforum' or whatever which allocated roles and
responsibilities. The point is that access should be granted on a
legitimate
basis by evolt.org. As long as evolt.org's decisions are made by a
legitimate
body with legitimate authority, in a legitimate fashion, then that's
100% peachy.

Because then you don't have these arguments - everyone will know "This
is how (process, qualifications) I can get access to xyz", because the
decision-
making process is open and fair. If the process for admin access to
thelist
is something like:
1) Does evolt.org need someone in your timezone?
2) Do you have the capability (time, technical) to do the work?
3) Does evolt.org trust you not to put insulting footers/unsub people at
    random/generally act against agreed policy?
then anyone fulfilling those criteria can get access, without having to
kick and scream about it, or be part of an annointed group, or whatever.

And it prevents arguments - no-one can accurately make accusations
of being excluded, because the process is open and subject to peer
review.

> If admin does the articles etc., it should
> be renamed/reassigned as theeditors or whatever. If it's truly in
> charge of
> everything... well, then, call it the BOD or the god list or the
> treehouse
> gang or whatever.

There *was* an attempt last year to have a BoD which oversaw everything,
and had final decision-making authority (although I think it would have
largely worked as a ratifying body on the recommendations of sub-groups,
and would have only really intervened when sub-groups had conflicting
recommendations). However, for various reasons, it never got going.

> There *really* needs to be some clarification of teams /
> goals / assignments / process around here.

Yes, I think so.

Cheers
Martin

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