Hi, Jon - I'm assuming you're referring to the Team Member designation for users affiliated with projects on Snowdrift.coop. If you're referring to something else, then this response may not be valid for your question, and my apologies in advance for the misunderstanding.
My first thought on your ask is that there seems to be an assumption that all projects that will be signing up for Snowdrift.coop will be coops themselves. Many of the Open Source software projects that are out there are a one-man or few-man show. There's not enough folks there to justify a full on command hierarchy like there would be at a corporation. Especially at the beginning, many of the folks will be purely volunteer. Until these projects get up and running, there's a chance that not even the one-man contributors may be getting paid to work on the project (or, potentially, paid enough, as some only get paid a small amount each month, potentially less than minimum wage in whatever state/province/county/country/etc. they hail from, which would then lead to the question of... at what threshold of payment would one be considered an employee vs. a volunteer?). If you're talking about some of the other project types that Snowdrift.coop is available for (music, art, writing, etc.), it's even less likely that they'll fit a coop or command-hierarchy mold. That being said, a team member to me is someone working on the project. It makes no discernment about whether they're paid or volunteer, nor does "team member" on its own really provide any hierarchy, nor do I believe such a distinction is really necessary. They are all working on the project, and from the public's perspective, that's really all they need to know about any individual person. Yes, we can have a spot somewhere on a project page that identifies how many paid employees a project has, as I can see the benefit of that from a "Where is the money I'm donating going to?" perspective, but calling out individuals as employees or volunteers in the list is really unnecessary. Yes, there are admins and moderators outside of the team member moniker, but that's related to who controls what on Snowdrift.coop, not necessarily the project itself, and there won't always be a direct correlation between the two (e.g. Assuming a company structure here, neither a CEO nor even a CIO may necessarily be the administrator for their Snowdrift.coop project pages... it could potentially be just someone on staff in the IT department or even an admin assistant). Again, my apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but if you're asking what I think you're asking, then my vote would be against changing the project user designations. On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 3:45 PM, Jonathan Roberts <robertsthebr...@gmail.com > wrote: > Hey all, > > I've been trying to solve the problem of what makes a "snowdrift project > team member?" Snowdrift project team members elect a special representative > on the board of directors, and it is assumed that they are tied in some way > to the work of the co-op, but it's unclear what qualifications this group > of people has, how their roles should be organized, what expectations > should be put on them and who has the authority to ad them to that class. > > I propose that instead of one class of "team members" that we have > "employees" and "contributors." The "employees" would be hired and overseen > by the general manager and would elect a special board representative. The > "contributors" could be a much more open list; it could give credit to > anyone who's helped out, list their contact info, and indicate whether they > are still actively working on anything and what it is. There is a question > in this framework of whether this class should also have a special board > representative. I would say no, except that I think it is important that > there be a designated advocate for anyone who thinks they should be getting > payed for the work they're doing. > > The biggest downside to this system I see is that we don't know, > especially starting out, if we're going to have any money to pay people, > even if they are indispensable to the ongoing functioning of snowdrift. One > solution to this would be to let the GM include "unpayed staff" in the > class at their discretion. We could also have it be a job qualification for > any potential employee that they be listed as "active" on the > "contributors" list, which could be governed by an algorithm that measures > a base level of activity on the site. > > Thoughts? > > -Jon > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop > https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss > >
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