governance of the website

Geocaching Australia governance issues
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CraigRat
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Post by CraigRat » 04 April 07 11:44 pm

Here are the governance issues as I see it:

1) Who makes the decisions that have to be made about website/forum content? (good case in point is the 4wd forum).... Any of the dev team or forum admins can technically do it, but who should make the call to actually do it?

2) Who makes the decisions about any issues that crop up relating to anything to do with external queries to the site (Who is the nominated mouthpiece for the site for Media contact/Liaison with NPWS or whomever should the time/need arise?)

3) Who/how/what plans should be put into some sort of charter/memorandum of understanding as to the data that exists on this site. We all know that the data is available for use on another host if needs be, but maybe the 'senate' need to liase with our benefactors in a formal way just to cover everyones asses....

4) If 3 becomes a real issue and we have to shift hosts who/how/when does the senate/honchos raise the funds/sponsorship and how are those funds managed, and who is going to deliver the beer and free GCA merchandise to the developers....

I'm beginning to think more and more about these particular issues....

It's obvious that I've left out the steering of the developers because as one, I can tell you that being pecked by a committee as to what to code for the site will cause me (at least) to REALLY lose interest in doing dev work here... I code for the love of coding and the love of the ideals of this site.... I can only speak for myself, but I code under duress at work, I don't need it in my spare time :lol:

So, if I'm not too far off track from i!'s first post, how do we achieve this?

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Bronze
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Post by Bronze » 05 April 07 12:16 am

EDIT: This is good discussion. Please keep it going.

:D
Last edited by Bronze on 03 November 07 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Bronze » 05 April 07 12:34 am

Image

Thats better.

I'm tired and after some VW maintenance probably shouldn't post much on this until my sub-conscience has had a think about this but how about this...

* A small committee of 5 honchos who know bugger all about coding and don't really care much about it anyway. They decide the governance issues from day to day.

* Why 5 - Odd numbers make better decisions and 3 for and 3 against sucks. Every year people can self nominate or are nominated by the community. Each person get to write a little speech about how they will support the community and what, if any changes they may make. Top five are voted in. Most votes hold the chair and the four successive form the committee of honcho's.

* They can't dictate code but can make functional requests and managerial decisions for the good and on behalf of the community.

Positions - They could each hold a responsibility such as Chair, media liaison, treasurer, administrator, liaison to the coders.

Positions could be held for two years with a vote of two new committee member during even years (2008, 2010) and three new members on the odd years (2007, 2009). This way some knowledge and expertise remains in the committee but the length of the commitment is not to onerous. All past committee members can act as advisor's in a committee category that is also shared by coders and admins.

Like I said. I'm tired but there need to be someone at the helm. I suggest the day that SA was turned off would make a good AGM day and voting can lead up to that day with the committee 'sworn in' as such and their duties commence. Each Wednesday (or whenever) they can get together and discuss issues of importance like Tea importation methods, reduced bleaching of bags, preferential blends and steeping times.

:wink:

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Bump

Post by Bronze » 03 November 07 4:30 pm

Image
Newbys - Please read this thread.

B. for Bump.

Geof
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Post by Geof » 21 January 08 10:46 pm

So has the status of things changed in any way over the last however long?

Good to see the i! avatar show up again :) . Is George's back (I think it was George) any better :?:

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ideology
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Post by ideology » 29 January 08 8:12 pm

hi geof

thanks for your questions

- governance of the website: apathy reigned supreme. we've basically left it to the developers, namely (in alphabetical order!) caughtatwork, CraigRat and riblit. they have put in thousands of hours of work into the site and are aligned with the "free and open' vision. the next key issue will be funding a server as gca has pretty-much outgrown its current server which we are providing at our cost. this may or may not get tied in with the next point...

- governance of the community: there are a couple of threads in this senate section about an association, etc. rediguana nailed it in his/her latest post:
rediguana wrote:The first step you really need to take is to scope out exactly what you want to do. That will then guide you as to the most suitable vehicle to achieve it.
swampgecko had some discussion in the nsw section.

- george's health: george's back is worse after he was rear-ended at a set of traffic lights a few months ago.

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Team Piggy
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Post by Team Piggy » 29 January 08 11:59 pm

And a huge thanks to i! for the free ride we have all enjoyed for the past bunch of years.

Maybe its time to discuss a donations page or button (Paypal etc) (or maybe a premium membership?) to help offset some of the funds required for costs and a server..?

Thoughts?

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