[theforum] Lists! (was Re: evolt.org redesign)

David Kaufman david at gigawatt.com
Wed Apr 7 08:32:11 CDT 2004


Lachlan Cannon wrote:
>
> * content (content + marketing): The people trusted with dealing with
> the actual text on the evolt site, whether that be editing articles,
> fixing typos, or coming up with copy for other evolt purposes.
>
> * code (sysadmin + desdev) responsible for the operating of the site,
> and maintaining / writing the server and client side code of the site.
>
> * admin (theforum + steering + finance) responsible for making
> decisions upon the direction of evolt, how to manage its finances, et
> cetera. Steering would fold in as the people who make the final
> decisions on what to vote on, when it starts, when it ends, but would
> probably be pared down, since there's no need for quite so *many*
> people for these more limited duties.

this makes the most sense to me as well.  content, code and admin.
three lists are a lot easier to follow, and separate mentally than
seven.  i don't like the name "admin" for the admin group, though,
probably just because in the tech industry at least, the work tends to
imply god-like power :-)

i think the "word" steering is the best choic for the combining the
existing steering, finance and theforum.  in practice however i would
hope it would be run much more like theForum, where anyone can subscribe
and contribute.  what was the point of having a private forum for the
voting members, secret meetings?  closed-door decision-making.  i can
see where it would have seemed necessary when list traffic was higher
maybe, maybe to escape problems of list-noise and ending the inevitable
flame-discussion-debates.

if the recent traffic to all of these seven lists is any indication, we
could do with just one.  call it steering, or theForum or whatever you
like.  i do think that transparency is important.  the only reason i
decided to get involved was because i *could* see what the organization
was doing, but when i realized the steering list was closed, i have to
admit it put me off a bit.  now that i'm on the steering list (and can
see that the message volume there is as deafenaningly quiet as
elsewhere) i see no reason that debate, decision, and voting could not
take place all on one open, transparent list.

> Martin Burns wrote:
>> So basically we have 2 parts:
>> 1) Combine finance+marketing and sysadmin+desdev
>> 2) bring steering back into the forum in one of the following ways:
>>      i) keep the steering voting role, but not in a separate list
>>     ii) losing the role, but being happy to have very short
>> discussion+vote turnaround time at times

+1 vote for ii)

-dave




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