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posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 31 2024, @03:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the moving-forward dept.

We are running very short of time for creating a new site. We have one member of staff who has already volunteered for a post on the Board; other staff are already busy with their existing roles. We are looking for an additional 2 community members who wish to serve on a temporary Board so that we can create a new company and purchase the data, domains and other assets from the current site. But perhaps I should explain a little further....

The Board should, as a minimum, consist of 3 people, A Chairman, a Secretary and the site's Accountant. These people will be named at the creation of the new company and will each assume one of those formal roles. There are implications to this. Firstly, the company data is not publicised widely but we can make no guarantee that it will always remain hidden from public view, either by a change in US law or by, for example, the action of an hacker. Therefore, any volunteers must be prepared to waive his/her anonymity although as things stand it should never actually be compromised. Secondly, this is a temporary post. The latest draft of Bylaws is a very good starting point but it has become apparent that they are not perfect. There will be changes required to the Bylaws and, when they have been changed and accepted by the Community, all posts on the Board must be filled by people who have been elected by the community. You could, of course, stand for election at that time if you so wish.

Currently, we are only looking at putting names to roles so that we can create a company. Your experience and skill level are not the most important aspects. We will employ an professional accountant to produce the annual formal account reporting and it will not simply be left to our own 'Accountant'. Rather, the role is one of providing checks and balances for any expenditure and the management of the site's accounting records.

How long the 'temporary' role will last is not something that we can currently forecast. But I would estimate it to be weeks or months rather than a long term responsibility.

I think any sensible person would agree that we cannot simply pass control of the site and finances to unknown people so we must limit applications from those who have held an account for at least 6 months and have contributed to the site. The staff will treat all applications as sensitive data and we will only refer to individuals by their user name in any discussions or at subsequent meetings. We will, of course, need to know your true identity and contact details for the creation of the new company.

This is a chance for us to move the site to a new start and to ensure that we can provide continuity of stories each day for everyone to enjoy. We will all be involved - Board, staff and community - in producing new policy documents that are a reasonable balance between discussions and freedom of speech. We are almost at our 10th birthday. Many people did not expect us to reach our 1st birthday. I would like to see the site looking forward to many more birthdays to come.

We can only achieve this with your help. The are approximately 250 unique accounts, excluding ACs, active on the site each week although not all commenting in stories. We are only looking for 2 volunteers.

If you wish to volunteer please send your email giving your username to admin@soylentnews.org with the word "volunteer" in the subject. All emails will be treated in the strictest confidence. Time is of the essence so please don't delay in contacting us should you wish to volunteer.

UPDATE: 31 Jan 2004: We have the volunteers that we need to create a new company, many thanks to them for stepping forward. However, if you feel that you have something to offer and you wish to volunteer also then please do so.

There is still some preparatory work to be done but I am doing that as quickly as I am able within my current time limitations.

Another point worth noting which may, or may not, be related is that the number of active accounts has gone over the 300 mark for the first time in many months. There are probably many more who are lurking or posting solely as AC.

janrinok

 
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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 31 2024, @04:31PM (3 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday January 31 2024, @04:31PM (#1342520)

    I'm glad we got the volunteers, and more responsible real life people are generally better than fewer, however...

    In my first job we needed to establish regulatory compatible procedures, and in our industry that amounts to what they call "six signature culture..." every document requires six signatures before it is officially accepted by the SOPs. At the time we barely had 6 employees, counting the contractor janitor. As a result, I frequently "wore many hats" and signed many R&D documents for three or four roles. Apparently that is common in our industry where there's a very dichotomous split between tiny startup companies and massive buyout farms. The SOPs are basically designed by and for the massive tens of thousands of employees buyout farms, but the little companies rarely have six technically oriented people available to fill the technical roles listed in the SOPs.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday January 31 2024, @06:56PM (2 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2024, @06:56PM (#1342540) Journal

    We are aiming for the absolute minimum of Board members to comply with legal requirements. They are names that have to be divulged during the business incorporation.

    My idea is that that they provide the 'administrative' face of the new company. They are there to meet the legal requirements for any incorporated company.

    We then create another group (let's call it a Management Group) comprising of at least 1 Board member (but it could be all 3 of them), key members of staff (Team Leads and specialists), and elected community members. The real names in this group do not have to be revealed, they can continue to use their usernames as they do today. It is this group that provides the operational direction which the Board then implement, probably by delegating it back to the workers again. There will be community input at all stages.

    So what is different? Well there has always been community input - whenever we had an issue that we as staff could not resolve then we have always asked the community. The change will be that the community will have an input far earlier than was previously the case and they will also know why decisions have been made. Secondly, there will not be weekly meetings, but meetings will be held only when required. Most communication can be carried out by emails and IRC channels just as we have always done. All formal meetings will be held publicly and fully minuted and recorded as is required by law. But all discussions will involve the elected community representatives who can represent community interests and can be witness to any decisions that are made.

    Nobody is trying to do anything about taking control away from the community - in fact it is the opposite. There will be no oligarchs. The community will have more control. The 3 Board members will be elected from the community by the community. The community will also elect their representatives in the Governance Group. All of the site's assets will belong to the community. The Board will not be able to hold them to ransom. The community will need to approve to any action desired by the Board, other than for those actions dictated by law. All major decisions will be made by the community.

    Now there may be problems with this approach, but for now it is enough to get us moving forward. The Bylaws that I am hurriedly trying to write to support this organisation will be changeable for a period of, say, a year or two, by a voted agreement of the Governance Group (which consists of all interested parties). After that time, the Bylaws will be fixed and be managed like they are in any other company i.e. by the Board.

    I do NOT want this to become a discussion on any proposed Bylaws. I am simply trying to get a company established that can purchase the existing data and domains, and then move to adopting a more complete set of Bylaws and policy documents that the community are happy to accept for the future site. And we can all get on with doing whatever it is that we joined this site to do, whether that be just reading the stories, commenting. submitting stories, joining one of the teams, or writing in our own journals. And we can also work to grow the community again.

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    I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
    • (Score: 2) by rpnx on Thursday February 01 2024, @10:51AM (1 child)

      by rpnx (13892) on Thursday February 01 2024, @10:51AM (#1342614) Journal

      What legal requirements are you speaking of? In the United States, you can likely just purchase the data as a sole proprietor.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday February 01 2024, @11:39AM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 01 2024, @11:39AM (#1342618) Journal

        Not if the seller will not sell it to a sole proprietor. The current board will only sell the data to another formally created company. What is theoretically possible does not come into it.

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        I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.