Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>]

On Feb 13, Eric Sandall [eric AT sandall.us] wrote:
> On Friday 19 January 2007 23:56:48 Jeremy Blosser wrote:
> > Disclaimer: These are some first thoughts and will probably be somewhat
> > stream-of-consciousness, but you may as well know where I am now.  I
> > reserve the right to change my mind between now and Feb 1.  Oh, also, this
> > is really long, but you didn't expect me to be brief, did you?
> <snip>
> 
> Short posts are easier to read during free time, and then reply. ;)

If it was hard to write it should be hard to read.  :-P

> > ============================================================
> >
> > Less brief:
> >
> > 1) Get Things Done:
> >    a) As I mentioned before, I will be setting up regular meetings pretty
> >       far in advance, and we will meet on those dates.  I don't really 
> > care
> >       what percentage attend or if we decide a lot at the meetings, my 
> > goal
> >       is just to have set times we regroup and make sure we're heading in 
> > a
> >       vaguely similar direction.  I want to avoid the situation where
> >       someone says "we haven't had a group discussion in 6 months and I
> >       have no idea what anyone else is doing".
> >
> >       I am tentatively planning to do these every 3 months for now, on the
> >       3rd or 4th weekend of the month.  Probably Feb/May/Aug/Nov.  If they
> >       start out well and we want more we can look at that, but this would
> >       be the minimum.  Look for more info later.
> 
> Every three months should work out, but I found the main problem was 
> getting 
> everyone there and at a not too inconvenient time (it was 9AM for me on 
> Sunday, but 3AM for others on Monday :/). We also had better results doing 
> a 
> discussion thread on the ML than trying to figure something out on IRC, 
> though when we did, it went a lot faster. :)

I am not going to worry too much about everyone being there or having it be
too formal.  The goal is just to make sure every few months we are expected
to get together and see what's up.  Make sure we at least aren't all off on
safari or something all the time.

> >    c) For those things that just aren't working I will probably get pretty
> >       blunt about dropping them.  The Drupal experiment still sounds good
> >       in theory but if it doesn't step up soon I'm going to have a really
> >       hard time leaving it on life support.
> 
> What part of the Drupal experiment are we lagging on? If it's just the part 
> about moving the 'finished' documentation pages into DrupalBook, then we 
> can 
> always decide to use a Wiki for all documentation and continue to use 
> Drupal 
> for forums, news, etc.

About the only part of the site that gets activity is the forums.  We don't
run particularly useful news, we don't write docs (this isn't just "we
don't migrate them from the wiki"), and we don't really have an "etc".
Further we don't have anyone stepping up to deal with things like site
maintenance and upgrades.  This last is non-optional for a heavy web app
exposed to the internet.

I hear very few voices of support for keeping this site going, and the few
I hear aren't doing a lot to prove the usefulness.  Most seem to just want
a wiki, and after a few years letting the site prove itself, it just hasn't
IMO.

> >       To this end I'll be requiring the Component Leads to give me details
> >       on who they want making decisions for them when they are away,
> >       whether assistants or the full Lead group or just me.  We *will* 
> > stop
> >       being frozen by one person moving or losing connectivity or getting 
> > a
> >       new job or being abducted by aliens or otherwise getting busy with
> >       life.
> 
> Perhaps reimplement the Lead assistant position(s), and have Leads add 
> people 
> they trust to maintain their components as a component assistant?

I covered this in another mail; assistants are one option Leads certainly
have, they have others as well.

> >       For my part I will probably be appointing multiple APLs with
> >       different focuses; like I said, I prefer to delegate things, and we
> >       don't have enough people to afford a real hierarchy.
> 
> Will all APLs have the same authority with the focus being more a direction 
> for their attention?

No, they'll probably each have delegated authority in their own area, and
I'll ask them to get consensus if they need to act beyond that.

> <snip>
> >      I for one will be pushing to make clear that the PL only gets to do
> >      that if a CL is actually gone; I want to keep an active CL the
> >      authority over their own area apart from an actual vote overriding
> >      them.
> 
> I'd prefer for the PL to have final veto status and able to make
> decisions for any component whose Lead is in any way incapable of making
> a decision.

I'm not interested in being able to veto CLs myself.  If they're not
available to do their job it's one thing but I see no reason to assume a PL
is a better authority on eg sorcery than the sorcery Lead.  The PL is
elected for skills other than the ability to maintain sorcery (or grimoire,
or cauldron).  This is a clear fact; Andrew has forgotten more about
sorcery internals than I know.

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