Progress is definitely being made, and the different paths are converging. We are not there yet, and there are probably still some significant hurdles to be overcome. There are 3 sides involved, the Board, kolie/replic8tor and the existing staff. NCommander (as the only Board member active on this site) is continuing with his work to containerise everything on the Linode servers. However, for the time being the Rehash repo doesn't always match up with what is actually running the site today. He has an end date in sight and kolie believes that he will 'probably' leave the community at some point, as yet undetermined.
The remaining 2 parties are in frequent discussion. The differences in approach are being identified and compromises on both sides being made where necessary. Yesterday (Tues 13 Jun) a bug appeared on the user comment preferences page. Why it suddenly appeared is anybody's guess. But both kolie and the sysop team set to together to try to resolve it. What became apparent during that session, which will probably resume some time today, is that both sides could better understand the other's position. I will not go into details of where compromises have been made as I do not think that is constructive at this stage - but they are being made. There is a recognition that some of the staff have perfectly acceptable reasons for having shell access to complete their normal voluntary roles, despite NCommander's statement to the contrary.
There is a problem with communication still. I do not think that this is obstructive but represents a different appreciation of the problems we face and what information we each seek from the other. It is not yet overcome but things are slowly getting better. As I speak, there is no increased risk to the safety of your personal information, and that should not change in the future. We have to take statements at face value and accept what is being said to a certain degree, and we are still being wary of what each other means by specific statements. The usual openness of this site and its community is not something that everyone understands at first, and we each come with very different experiences and backgrounds.
A few specifics, which may be of interest. The Board meeting about 10 days ago did discuss using the site to create a 2nd money stream (NCommander's term) or commercialisation of the site (kolie's term). However a discussion with kolie on #soylent within the last 12 hours states:
<janrinok> NCommander has also stated the at the last Board meeting you discussed a '2nd money stream' for the site. Earlier you said you don't know anyone who has said that. Look at the Meta that NC wrote after that Board meeting
<kolie> No what we spoke about was commercialization.
<kolie> Which has a very specific meaning to me.
<janrinok> He used the term that I did.
<kolie> He did bring up very generally that he wanted to raise capital to fund various things on the site.
<janrinok> What were those things?
<kolie> It was a distant plan, no specifics were brought up, and we specifically discussed that nothing would be done without community approval and we walk a very fine line to not sell out.
<janrinok> and how would he/you raise the capital?
<kolie> Which leaves limited options without community buyin.
<kolie> There was no specific on what could be done - more of what wouldn't work. I also don't think that raising money is necessary at this time.
One can interpret that last line in different ways but I believe that kolie is being truthful in making that statement which applies now. We cannot forecast what will happen in the future so for now I think we should accept that statement and press forward.
kolie also had a discussion with AzumaHazuki where he made the following statement:
<kolie2> No one is monetizing it or wants to put advertising on it. That's not what NC wants and it's not what I would do if I was in a position to do something about it.
<kolie2> The only talks about money came from - SN needs to be self sufficient in and of itself.
<kolie2> I think it can do so today.
<AzumaHazuki> okay, then the next question is: where does the operational funding come from? i kind of doubt subscriptions are enough to keep this going
<kolie2> The subscription amount's I'm aware of today completely pay for hosting and incorporation fees etc.
<kolie2> Theres minimal cost in the current form.
<kolie2> How much comes in in subs?
<AzumaHazuki> i'm not privy to that information
<kolie2> I think its public or has been
<AzumaHazuki> some has been but i don't know that that's all the information
<kolie2> I've offered and would be comfortable to fund any cost for hosting or operation as I understand them today going forward out of my own pocket.
We have, as far as I am aware, always paid our bills on time and our funds have stayed in the black. Funding itself is not a major issue as there are several offers of funding already on the table should that be a necessary path. But it does place an onus on the community to subscribe when one is able to do so. We accept and fully understand that many of you are going through difficult times. There is no intention to impose a compulsory subscription - and I would fight very hard against it if someone were to suggest that as a possibility. If this comment spurs you into wanting to subscribe now I would suggest that you do not do so. Let us wait until the dust has settled rather than you subscribe now and something unforeseen ends up making your subscription a donation to charity.
There is also a desire for the community to be more closely involved in scrutinizing the Board, and even for several volunteers from the community to sit on the Board for a period of time, with the right to vote against any actions they or the community they represent object to. This need not be an onerous duty. I do not see Board meetings occurring frequently but, if they do occur, the community should be able to express their opinions. This action would prevent any individual from closing the site down without any serious discussion to justify such action. Board meetings can take place online.
So some of the grey areas are a little clearer. There are still issues outstanding, but I believe that significant progress is being made. We have asked several times for kolie to publish a Meta, and he still declines from doing so. I do not agree with his reasoning but I must accept that decision. He is about to, or already has, release(d) a new journal entry.
There is still a way to go, but we are getting there. Be optimistic. We (the staff) are continuing with an alternative plan as a backup in the event that our optimism is misplaced.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday June 14, @11:47AM
I like the technical details:
I also like the considered postings of people who give a pretty good impression of knowing what they are writing about.
I like the moderation system, that works far better than many other places I have experience of.
I like the background work of the volunteers to keep things on the road, and mostly civil.
So I'm happy to pay a subscription. Some communities are worth supporting, even if you don't see eye-to-eye with every member of the aforesaid community.
(Score: 5, Informative) by dalek on Wednesday June 14, @12:10PM (14 children)
As the article states, kolie doesn't want to publish a Meta. His reasons for that were discussed on IRC. He also said the following:
If kolie wants to be interviewed, I am offering to a Slashdot-style interview with kolie. This means that I'll solicit questions from users in my journal, then select the highest-rated and most important questions to pass along to kolie by email. Then kolie can send me answers by email. If I think anything needs to be clarified, I would follow up by email. Once everything is ready to go, I'd publish the responses in a journal. As always, SN would be welcome to do this as Meta stories instead of in my journal. Also, NCommander is welcome to participate as well, should be desire to do so.
Because I'm not on IRC, I don't have a direct line of communication with kolie. But I am willing to oblige kolie's request if he's interested in a Slashdot-style interview.
EXTERMINATE
(Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 14, @12:55PM (13 children)
Thanks for offering. Perhaps you could submit a poll on the topic Polls don't fall off the main page until the editors decide to change it, so we have a place to have such a discussion. Allowing the community to ask questions so we get many viewpoints instead of just one or a few.
Given that big changes are already here, and more are on the way, I reckon that sacrificing the poll section to have an ongoing discussion in a single place rather than various Meta posts and journal entries would totally be worth it.
Of course, this won't work unless kolie, (hopefully) ncommander and the editors are on board. So what say you guys?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Touché) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @01:16PM (12 children)
I'm happy with it, but it will be targetted by the few ACs who always disrupt things.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 14, @01:29PM (11 children)
A fair point.
That said, we're going to have that problem with *any* AC posting (can we block ACs or at least not logged in ACs in polls?) until certain folks get bored, start taking their meds again, and/or get hit by a bus or something.
Personally, I don't get it. It seems like such a waste of time and energy. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by dalek on Wednesday June 14, @01:37PM (2 children)
I could be misremembering, but I thought the original discussion about disabling AC comments was bumped to the top of the front page a couple of times after it was originally posted. Perhaps something like that would be feasible, to keep the story visible for a longer period of time while preventing it from being spammed. I also suspect that much of the discussion and moderation would probably take place within the first couple of days after posting, so there might not be a whole lot of need to keep it on the front page longer than 3-4 days. Would something like this work?
EXTERMINATE
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 14, @01:42PM
Apologies for not being clearer about this. My thought was that this could be a single place for questions from the community, updates from those posting updates, etc. for the foreseeable future, or at least until we transition to whatever it is we're transitioning to.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @02:11PM
This is not too difficult to achieve. It is just a matter of an editor changing the story to the next day's date and letting it 'appear' again.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @01:56PM (7 children)
It doesn't appear to be possible with the existing editor interface that we have, otherwise we would probably have used it before. A journal would be 'cleaner' but I don't have a problem if people want to use the Poll. I cannot see that it offers any particular advantages, but you might have thought of something that I haven't...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 14, @04:02PM (6 children)
Mostly just the "set and forget" aspect, as the poll doesn't need to be rescheduled to stay near the top. What's more, having it right there in the sidebar and not having to scroll through the day's stories to find it again and again and again seems like a good idea. The same would apply to journals, as they would need to be bumped up to the top periodically as well.
I get that it's an unusual (for SN, at least) to have a standing discussion that sticks around until we don't need it anymore, but these are unusual times.
Even more, it will (IMHO) encourage folks to put their ideas/questions/discussions about the site, its progress and its future in one place, rather than having yours, dalek's, ncommander's and kolie's (and anyone else who might otherwise post a journal about this specific set of topics) journals as well as 'Meta' posts.
That has all the discussion spread out over (so far, there have been about ten, I think -- how many more will we have in a couple months?) a bunch of disparate posts.
Which makes looking for context, related discussions, etc. much more difficult.
Did I mention it would be less work for you? :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14, @09:11PM (5 children)
> That has all the discussion spread out over (so far, there have been about ten, I think ...
There's the start of an "index" over on the Pipe, it's the only active story there, remains on top (so far).
https://pipedot.org/pipe/6BWA8 [pipedot.org]
No idea if Bryan will be adding more at the top of that list (there are additional links in the discussion).
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 14, @09:15PM (4 children)
I'm a little confused. Are you suggesting that we use Pipedot as the place to discuss the future of SoylentNews?
Or am I missing something important?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14, @11:50PM (3 children)
If someone wants to read previous posts about SN future, there is a list of links to many of the SN Meta, Stories & Journals at that Pipe link.
Pipe is the story queue for Pipedot. Because Pipedot is otherwise inactive, that list is likely to stay on top for some time. Just that, nothing more, nothing about discussing SN over there, just a convenient index.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Thursday June 15, @02:25AM (2 children)
I suggest that we keep all matters that concern SoylentNews *ON* SoylentNews.
Imagine it's five (or ten or...) years from now. Interest in PipeDot is still zero. As nice a guy as he may be, do we want to depend on Bryan's goodwill? So that we can continue to access information about SoylentNews? I think not.
The community needs to control its own destiny and NOT rely on anyone/anything else.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15, @03:43AM (1 child)
> So that we can continue to access information about SoylentNews?
Are you keeping backups of all these SN future discussions? If you really want to read them in the future it might be a good idea...given that the last major SN database problem lost a week (or more?) of posts.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday June 15, @05:30AM
There is a search function in the sidebar. It isn't exactly Google, but it will find stories, journals and comments based on subject matter.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 14, @12:17PM (2 children)
Those conversations were posted here with the participants' permission, right?
Slow progress is better than no progress, I'm still fond of this corner of the 'net.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @01:17PM (1 child)
They were on public channels on our own IRC. The Policy Statement says that we can use them.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday June 15, @12:33AM
Cheers, I just wanted to double-check private convos weren't inadvertently dragged into public view. That's always a sucky feeling.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 14, @12:31PM (9 children)
Great that you are keeping the wheels on. Thanks to all the staff.
It would help with subs if the "subscriptions" indicator was working. You may have higher priority technical issues to deal with, which of course makes sense, but in the longer term probably fixing that is a necessary task to keep the money incoming.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 14, @12:54PM (3 children)
Oh I just saw some other information. So scrap the second paragraph
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @01:18PM (2 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 14, @01:30PM (1 child)
Well you can't take donations until it becomes clear who or what is receiving the donations.
I did have some ideas for management of an organisation like SN - but it seems like there are structural problems in the existing structure that need to be resolved before one can investigate alternative management structures...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @01:59PM
You are quite right. |
I don't think it is going to happen, but there is nothing to prevent the Board changing its mind and just pulling the switch, other than the contract that they have with kolie. I don't know what the contract says. That currently seems like a very unlikely action.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @02:08PM (4 children)
It is what all three parties want to achieve. I appreciate your thanks, as I am sure that all of the staff do too, but you must remember that thanks are also due to kolie who has convinced the Board to let him turn things around.
The task is to achieve the end point that we all want without compromising any party to the extent that what is being offered is simply unacceptable to them. It isn't all resolved, but it looks as though it might be possible. If we can do that then the site should look no different in the future although the work behind the scenes might be quite different in many aspects.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday June 14, @06:55PM (3 children)
I assume this Meta post was listed after your Journal entry? And that you seem to have a bit more hope that everything will turn out alright?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday June 14, @07:29PM (2 children)
Yes it was after my journal, but there are still unanswered questions and other issues that need resolving. It is progress but it isn't over by quite a margin. We are all hopeful but it can change significantly either way in a very short period of time.
For example, all of our data will be held under the control of a single person. I would hope that sysops can have access at shell level and they will also be able to make backups which can be stored 'off-site' for additional security. Otherwise your personal data could be used as a bargaining chip if relationships deteriorate at sometime in the future. I do not expect this to happen, but equally I did not expect someone to suddenly say they were closing SoylentNews down.
Another issue is community participation in the Board. I would like to ensure that the majority of Board members are regular community members with no staff function whatsoever (that only needs to be 3 or 4 people at a time). However, this relies on their being an interest and willingness of community members to serve for, say, a 3 month period on the Board. This might involve doing nothing at all - I wouldn't expect that the Board would necessarily need to meet (online) during such a period. They would be there to ensure that their views are both known and respected in anything that the Board decides to do in the future.
A related issue is the distribution of shares in the site which also come with voting rights. At the moment there are only 2 shareholders and they are both on the Board - which is specifically there to look after shareholders' interests. That immediately introduces a conflict which should be prevented from occurring again in the future. The majority of shares have not been issued. As shareholders the Board is obliged to inform you by law and in advance of any actions that will require a vote, and shareholders should use their voting powers wisely. I do not see the issue of shares as being an easy get-rich-quick scheme, or even a get-rich-at-all scheme
Both of these ideas return control to where I think it should be - in the community. They are not just my ideas, and there is a lot of support for them, but organising it will require time that none of us have spare today.
(Score: 3, Informative) by rpnx on Thursday June 15, @12:03AM (1 child)
I can volunteer for the board if you need people. May need to check with my employer around conflict of interests but I don't work on news so I should be fine (I think?).
(Score: 1) by replic8tor on Thursday June 15, @07:25AM
If your serious let's make it happen. Get on IRC and send me a PM. The more people interested in participating in governance - the better we all are for it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by separatrix on Wednesday June 14, @08:12PM (14 children)
.
Meanwhile, I just posted a comment on another meta thread about what a board should look like [soylentnews.org]. But I want to question the definitions of the terms janrinok uses here, introduce a couple of new terms, and push back on some of his assumptions.
Jan's statement seems to imply that in any future, the Board is still not of the volunteers, of the participants. I don't understand this. SN is adamantly a volunteer organization. Who else should be sitting on a board but volunteers? Is the Board inherently separate from these volunteers? It should not be.
If I have it correctly, the current "Board" is down to NCommander, and the "staff" are editors like janrinok, coders, etc. I respectfully submit that there is no longer a Board. There is a conversation between two owners happening. The staff has clout in that they can abandon the site, but there is not yet an agreement for the site to be administered by an organization. If the new owner, kolie, agrees to convey the site to the organization, great, but all this talk of governance is moot unless that happens.
To that end, then, who exactly is "the community" that Jan speaks of -- is it all users with log-ins, or does it include anonymous cowards? If the latter, I would suggest that a new term be introduced: the "member", whose minimum definition should be that a person have created an account and made some minimal number of posts. (I do not recommend that membership also require a person to subscribe to SN.) Perhaps "membership" should be limited to the "staff" who actively manage the site; I'm agnostic. But it is the "membership" which would make up the "organization" that would govern SN. Individual members would have a vote on the management of the organization. This term needs to be distinguished from the greater "community" that has an interest in SN, otherwise there, simply put, is no governance.
I think Jan misunderstands democracy when he asserts that volunteer board members be given "the right to vote against" any actions. This implies that they're only there to thwart, not to build. They should be voting "for" actions, too, not just "against". They should have the right to vote on proposals put before them.
In an ideal situation, the board would have all authority to administer the site, but would delegate most of their authority to a staff, or to a general manager who would oversee the daily activities of a staff.
Jan is right that such a duty need not be onerous. But he again misunderstands the purpose of the board when he says he cannot "see Board meetings occurring frequently but, if they do occur..." A proper board should be meeting regularly, period. it doesn't have to be daily, but an organization with problems like this shouldn't be meeting annually, either. IMHO, the organization that inherits SN should be meeting monthly or at least quarterly.
The bottom line is that it's long past time for these terms to be defined. That includes "the staff" -- from what I can tell, there seems to be some vague kind of union or guild of people doing work for the site, and the only person speaking for them is janrinok. Whether he was appointed by them to speak or was self-appointed is unclear. But a future organization needs to better define all these terms and roles -- in writing.
(Score: 4, Informative) by dalek on Wednesday June 14, @09:07PM
I don't login to IRC, but I can tell you how to access the logs. Go to http://logs.sylnt.us/ [sylnt.us] and go to #soylent. From there, you can access logs of the discussion for each day. I've quoted some of it in my journals and comments, and that's where I'm getting it from. Rehash tends to mess up the URLs of direct links to specific logs, but the discussions that janrinok is quoting from were on June 13 and 14.
EXTERMINATE
(Score: 5, Informative) by replic8tor on Wednesday June 14, @11:30PM
Download any irc client.
Add a server chat.soylentnews.org port 6667
Most it's as easy as getting a client and typing "/connect chat.soylentnews.org"
The channel we are all in is #soylent "/join #soylent" in most clients.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday June 15, @05:57AM (5 children)
My use of terminology may not match that which you expect as someone with significantly more subject knowledge than I have. I am trying to get an idea across but not write a document that would withstand rigorous legal scrutiny. I welcome your input in this - and I was hoping that you would join the discussion.
I would hope that sufficient community members will volunteer for involvement in the Board's activities - I am not planning on nominating people and telling them they have been co-opted against their will. It is no different from, say, subscriptions. They exist and are necessary, but nobody is forced to pay them. Some may be prepared to serve for a longer period of time than others, some may simply not wish to participate because of other obligations or concerns. There can be some rewards (free subscription grants for a period of time, say twice the duration of the time actually spent in this role).
I do not enjoy having to deal with these issues. My contribution, such as it is, is directed at the editorial role and routine site management. But these things must be considered if we are to prevent a repetition of similar events in the future. Currently the Board has no obligation to consider the community's wishes at all - so it didn't. I would hope that we can identify an over-arching management strategy that will be more relevant to the community without imposing new and unwanted responsibilities on anybody. You know far more about what is possible in this regard than I do. Furthermore, it does not need to be established before the end of this month. But there must be an agreement to pursue changes in the future to ensure that we look after everybody's interests.
(Score: 1) by separatrix on Friday June 16, @05:36AM (4 children)
These things "must" not simply "be considered if we are to prevent a repetition" of this interregnum. They must be considered and documented. They must be written down, and then voted on by those eligible. Then all decisions, every decision, must be made in the name of that documented, written, democratically-determined agreement. This is why new citizens, or new officeholders, in the U.S. swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and its laws. No amount of other speech or writing matters except that which is documented, written down, and agreed to by all who would serve under it. That literally fills the bill of "over-arching management strategy that will be more relevant to the community without imposing new and unwanted responsibilities on anybody" that you seek; it is no more complicated than that, and does not have to be.
There is also no reason to wait for others to begin compiling that document. We can begin writing it right now, together. Anyone can write legislation. Anyone can write a constitution. It doesn't fall from the heavens. It starts with "We the People" or "Hello, world".
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday June 16, @06:32AM (3 children)
I did define it. Approximately 1 full day before you wrote your reply. The majority of the community here do understand it.
The loss of the wiki was a result of actions taken in Nov/Dec 2022. The site is still being rebuilt after the disastrous results of that event. The wiki is only one small part of that process. It will be restored. But the people who will do that are currently not permitted to access the severs any more. Until the staff have access to the working system we are stuck here on the outside just as much as you are. We cannot restore any services no matter how important or otherwise they are.
I will not stop using the terms that the wiki uses. My own role and that of every other editor is clarified by Terms of Reference that exist in the wiki. The fact that the wiki cannot be seen does not mean that those Terms of Reference no longer apply.
The site policy was also in the wiki - it too is still applicable to how this site is operated.
In the reply that I have already linked to I stated: "ACs cannot remain anonymous yet serve on the Board, can they? I have no problem with site nicknames being recorded rather than full personal details. How would the Board be accountable if the minutes reflect that decisions were approved by AC1, AC2, AC3 etc?" I have not tried to write anything that defines the extent or format of the community's participation in the site governance. I am simply saying that they must be allowed to participate.
Discovering what is permissible, and drafting a set of rules to meet their future involvement is somebody else's job at the moment. I would welcome your participation in that process. For the moment I am quite busy in trying to ensure that there is a future for this site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17, @02:07AM (2 children)
At least the first page is here:
https://archive.is/jgFXR#Archive [archive.is]
I tried a few of the links and they mostly worked too.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 17, @03:03AM (1 child)
Thank you. Unfortunately, it is incomplete.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 17, @03:08AM
Correction, it is probably complete as far as the community is concerned. There is additional information that is not in that archive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday June 15, @06:48AM (5 children)
I am NOT writing a legally binding document here in this discussion. I am informing the community of the range of issues that are being addressed and how progress is being made. Please start that discussion or even get more directly involved - I would welcome somebody taking on this task rather than leaving it up to the staff. Some of the staff already run their own businesses and know how to manage them effectively. I have absolutely no knowledge of US legal requirements, the accepted terminology, or many other aspects of creating an effective structure to govern a PBC, or whatever else replaces it.
My own area (Editorial) has Terms of Reference and complete descriptions of the role and obligations of an editor. The information is available publicly in the Wiki which has been available from 2014 until last November. The composition of the staff, compromising of various teams, is (was!) also detailed there.
The community is everybody who uses this site. ACs are an important part of that but unfortunately, after the actions of a small number who were determined to disrupt the site and were driving away many people, they were prevented from commenting on the front page. I tried to introduce several alternative solutions. They were not accepted. I have asked the AC to make their own proposals; they have not done so. Those who disrupted the site then are still active as ACs now, they are still trying to disrupt the site, and they are still trying to create sock-puppet accounts.
User numbers were starting to pick-up again until November/December of last year. We are still getting new members though.
ACs cannot remain anonymous yet serve on the Board, can they? I have no problem with site nicknames being recorded rather than full personal details. How would the Board be accountable if the minutes reflect that decisions were approved by AC1, AC2, AC3 etc?
You are absolutely correct they should be voting as they see fit. But the current problem is that someone wanted to close the site down. I would hope that they would vote against that as it is against their interests.
Which is precisely what we are trying to achieve in the current negotiations. Discussions regarding Board composition and eligibility have already taken place, but they are far from complete. Nobody is saying it cannot be done - but there are lots of other issues to be resolved and they need to be prioritised. There is little to be gained by replacing the person at the top unless other changes also happen.
IRC is used because it was found to be the quickest and simplest way to have multiple people involved in a discussion, with logs (or minutes) being kept automatically, and where the entire community can observe the whole process, or alternatively it can be kept private when personal information or other sensitive matters are being discussed. Many other more modern communication systems do not provide this functionality or are hosted on somebody else's servers.
(Score: 1) by separatrix on Friday June 16, @05:58AM (4 children)
The information that once was available publicly on the wiki is, since it stopped being available as of last November, simply no longer available. You have to stop saying that something "is" available when it only "was" available. I cannot see the wiki. I cannot help edit something which I do not have access to.
I will say this: in any future scenario, I would not vote to involve ACs in governance, period. They will have their say as the site allows it, but there is precious little accountability on a pseudonymic site as it is, without real names or photos or other ways to better establish identity. You register or you don't get a vote in how the site is run. ACs definitely cannot serve on any board. By this logic, then, the community that uses the site would not participate in actual governance unless they become part of the registered -- what I call the "membership". The community is not organized; an organization must be created with intent of those to be organized.
The discussions described above are an extended period of gathering input for an eventual agenda for a formal meeting (or series of meetings) at which an agreement would be assembled and voted upon. Those discussions, despite being conducted entirely in writing, are informal. They cannot be open-ended; you must set a goal date by which discussions will end and the agenda for a formal meeting will be presented to all those whom you would invite to join the organizaton. You don't replace the person at the top with another person; you replace that person with an organization.
BTW, I finally figured out IRC and joined the channel. Thanks to dalek and replic8tor for the tips. But let me caution you: those logs are not minutes! They do not reflect the official decisions of an organization; they represent only the individual opinions of participants of a random discussion. What's lacking is the formality of purpose in meeting. Such a form of forum only rewards those with stomach, not brains. That log-as-minutes idea only is beneficial in an IRC meeting at which every participant is qualified to be there and to vote on issues, there is an agenda that everyone qualified to be there knows in advance, there is a moderator to chair the meeting to ensure that rules of decorum are followed, and the moderator has the tool(s) to enforce the rules of decorum. Otherwise you might as well give the logs over to the Zoombombers, the nihilists, and the vuvuzelas. (After all, isn't that why you have limits on how a comment is rated on SN? You must also apply some kind of rules to how a comment is "rated" in the governance of an organization. What I've recommended above works for in-person meetings; you may have to come up with something different.)
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday June 16, @06:37AM
The 'meetings' when they occurred in the past were on the #staff channel. Actions were recorded.
Which, if my memory serves me correctly, is exactly what we did do.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday June 16, @10:27AM (2 children)
In case you're interested, here's an archived copy of the wiki from 7 August 2022 [archive.org].
I'd expect there would be minimal or no changes to the wiki between then and when the data was disrupted. Perhaps it can answer some of the questions you may have?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by separatrix on Saturday June 17, @12:00AM
Yes, it will help, I'm sure.
I hope, though, that my point about the lack of self-explanatoriness is an issue for the site is one that is taken in a reorganization. If y'all want a community to grow, it has to be marginally more inviting than this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17, @02:11AM
Also an archive from a couple of years ago at
https://archive.is/jgFXR#Archive [archive.is]