[theforum] Can't get on steering, finance or sysadmin

Elfur Logadóttir elfur at elfur.is
Sat May 22 16:33:40 CDT 2004


.:| From: Paul Waring
.:| 
.:| Elfur Logadóttir wrote:
.:| > However, there is a difference of opinion in which 
.:| direction to take certain
.:| > aspects of evolt.org (namely weo) but the move of (what I 
.:| think is) the
.:| > majority would piss of an important person of our past 
.:| and the discussion
.:| > stops there everytime.
.:| 
.:| What difference of opinion are you referring to here? If 
.:| the will of the 
.:| majority annoys someone of evolt's past then that's tough 
.:| luck in my 
.:| opinion. I could see it perhaps being a problem if this 
.:| person was here 
.:| now (I'm assuming they're not given the reference to the 
.:| past), in that 
.:| it could lead to a "I'm taking my ball home now" scenario, 
.:| but if the 
.:| majority agree on something then it should be implemented.

Well, that's the problem, Jeff has clearly stated (understandably) that if
we change the backend there is no place for him in the evolt.org structure
(understandably because CF is his speciality, along with JavaScript). And if
you ask me, I don't want to see him go, but at the same time I understand
the need for change of backend, due to his unavailability (as Joel phrased
it, "life got in the way")

I know others feel the same way, hence the dilemna.

I also know that although Jeff is hosting weo now, he would never "take his
ball home now", he would never do anything to hurt the organization in any
such way, it would just piss him off and I have a hard time doing that.

.:| > There have been suggestions of redesign, and either it 
.:| will be done in a
.:| > different environment than what we have now (and thus 
.:| without Jeff) or it
.:| > will have to wait until Jeff has the time (and that's 
.:| what we've been doing
.:| > for quite some time now, not bashing you Jeff)
.:| 
.:| The redesign doesn't bother me that much - I think evolt 
.:| looks fine as 
.:| it is. Yes, it could probably do with a backend overhaul to 
.:| bring it 
.:| kicking and screaming into the 21st century with tableless 
.:| layouts and 
.:| the separation of style and content, but I don't see what's 
.:| wrong with 
.:| the actual front-end of the site at the moment (don't know 
.:| much about 
.:| the code, since I haven't seen it and it's not in a language I'm 
.:| familiar with anyway).

Well, that's the thing. Wether we change the visual layout or not, it's a
redesign and in order to do that under current circumstances, we have about
three or four Cold Fusion programmers to do the job, all of whom were pretty
busy last time I heard.
But leaving the current circumstances, again, means leaving Jeff behind.
Jeff been a big part of this organization since day one and has invested a
lot of time and knowledge during his stay. 


.:| 
.:| > We've all wanted to avoid yet another argument and that 
.:| has lead to status
.:| > quo for the longest time.
.:| 
.:| Arguments are useful sometimes - they let people express 
.:| their opinions 
.:| rather than just adhering to the way things are at the 
.:| moment. I'm not 
.:| saying we should have a huge flame war on theforum, but 
.:| people should 
.:| put forward their ideas without worrying that they're going 
.:| to cause a row.

Of course, arguments can be useful, it has however been proved in the past
that arguments of the scale I fear would happen here, are not anything that
has ever improved this community.

.:| > As for the number of lists, the suggestion you offered is 
.:| how we had it in
.:| > the beginning, thelist, thechat and admin. [snip]
.:| > And then the discussion srunk and we're combining some of 
.:| these lists again, [snip]
.:| 
.:| Sounds like a neverending cycle to me...

Yes indeed. Trying to respond to the requirements of the community at any
given time.

.:| > Leading to the discussion we've been avoiding for a
.:| > while and a decision that means finalizing the redesign 
.:| we've been intending
.:| > to do for a while.
.:| 
.:| What discussion has been avoided for a while?

The one i mentioned above ... The redesign discussion.


.:| > Let's finish that redesign before the year is over.
.:| 
.:| If it's going to be implemented, I'm sure it can be rolled 
.:| out before 
.:| the end of the summer...

:) again, I love your enthusiasm. It's not going to happen that way, because
it depends on the other one ... That is, in order to do the redesign,
someone needs to have the time to do it, and sadly it's my forecast that
that's not going to be Jeff ... And I'm pretty sure you know where that
leads.


.:| > Let's discuss the CMS choice and decide which one to use 
.:| for the next
.:| > redesign.
.:| 
.:| A custom system in PHP/MySQL would be my preference, then 
.:| we can move 
.:| weo to Linux rather than everything else to Windows. :)

You see, that's the thing, if we do that, we're saying goodbye to Jeff.

Peace out
Elfur




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