I have read your charter and think it's a great start! Roger's just a hippie, that's all.
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 1:01 PM, David Kaiser <[email protected]> wrote: > Happy New Year Everyone! > > January 1, 2010 > > > For the first message of the new year, I wanted to take a moment to > reflect on the great 5.5 years we have been here and say thanks for > everyone for making SocalLinux.org such a great community. I feel that > we have a great and diverse group and I really appreciate everyone that > participates and the contributions of each and every person in our group. > > I also wanted to take this opportunity to share some thoughts I have had > about the design of the group. > > Since we started this group (originally called 909linux.org), we have > tried to focus as much as possible on creating and maintaining an > environment that is open, allows anyone to contribute and speak their > opinion, but along with that comes the need to do things such as control > the tone of the discussion at times so that members of the group are not > offended by any particular individual. It is a fine balancing act to > encourage everyone to speak their mind – but still ask everyone to be > respectful of others. I want to keep that approach in the future. > (Given the low number of conflicts we have, I think we have been > successful in this.) > > When we started, we decided not to have a formalized structure, (where > members at the time did not want to have cycles of elections and people > being nominated as a president, etc.) so we have had a completely > informal and unstructured group this entire time. Since I am the > [genius/sucker: pick one] who registered the domain and maintains the > computing infrastructure for the mailing list (and our 1 web page!) I > want to bring this up and explain some of my thoughts, and also I think > it would be useful for me to get feedback about this organization. > > While I don't mind being in the position of being the domain owner, I > want to make sure that the workings of the group are actually the > responsibility of the group. > > I am going to be looking for a way that there is a “moderator group” (or > some title) that we have a number of people that are aware of and > publicly making decisions that are for the benefit of the group. While > I have never actually unsubscribed or banned any person from > participating (mailing list, irc channel, or in person), I have had to > enable some brief periods of moderation to the mailing list while > personal issues were resolved. I feel that this and other duties should > be the responsibility of a group of people, and that this group should > somehow be enabled or voted on by the members. > > To start with, just having multiple people be the moderators of the > mailing list, and also having a way for the group members to maintain > the web site (a task which I completely FAIL at doing in case you have > noticed). This will go a long ways to achieving the goal of not having > myself be singularly responsible for this and ensure that things are > done for the benefit of everyone. These things are on my agenda for the > coming months and I will be making more announcements about this soon. > > I am going to be enlisting everyone's feedback and working to establish > the following: > - an official charter which details the group structure > - a group of moderators > - an additional administrator to help me maintain the site (likely to > be easier to do once we install a proper web management system of some > sort) > > For now, I am asking everyone to take a moment and read what I have > proposed for a Charter. > > The proposed charter is located at http://socallinux.org/charter > > This will be something which is only a 'read and understand' option for > now. If conditions demand, then in the future we can make this be > something which has to be agreed upon before approval of signing-up to > the mailing list or other activities. > > While I have started this Charter, I did so by following the example set > by many other successful Linux User Groups. Ultimately, I expect the > members of this group to add to this list with their own ideas because > this isn't just something I manage alone. We all need to share the > responsibility of keeping things running smoothly, so I am asking this > conversation in an open forum like this. > > Please reply to this thread with comments and suggested additions. I > know the charter as it is currently written needs some help, but I need > your help in keeping the group self-moderated and running smoothly so I > strongly believe this is something we need to do. Specifically seeking > comments on Articles 6, 7, & 8, as I have not yet developed a policy on > how moderators and administrators are selected and how the voting > process might work. > > Thanks again for making SocalLinux.org a great community, and thanks in > advance for taking the time to read this and the charter document idea > I've posted. > > Looking forward to 2010! > > Regards, > David > _______________________________________________ > LinuxUsers mailing list > [email protected] > http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers >
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