Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Bootstrapping OpenACS governance

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11: Re: Bootstrapping OpenACS governance (response to 1)
Posted by Peter Marklund on 04/28/03 09:24 PM
Don,
I think the forums are great for dicsussion and exchange of ideas. The problem is that too often there is no closure. When there is closure it is implicit - somebody goes off and does something, or then again, maybe not... Who exactly is doing what right now in the OpenACS project? Nobody can answer that question AFAIK.

I think weekly meetings is not unreasonable to kick-start things, especially this spring where it seems there are loads and loads of important changes (AOLServer 4, Oracle 9i, noquote, I18N, 4.6 merge etc. etc.) and open questions that need to be coordinated and settled and we have an absolutely crucial release this summer.

In addition, I would like to see an openacs.org swat team formed that shapes up our website. There are about a 100 things that I can probably think of that need to get done. Here I'm just thinking about improved content, not the upgrade. Where is the task list, where is the roadmap? Who will head that team?

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13: Re: Bootstrapping OpenACS governance (response to 11)
Posted by Joel Aufrecht on 04/28/03 09:39 PM
I think the decision-making system has these requirements:
  • Anybody can put stuff (name, description, links, etc) on the list
  • Anybody can see the status of anything on the list
  • The core team can act asynchronously on the list. This probably includes voting yes, voting no, marking stuff inappropriate (dupe, newbie question in the wrong place)
  • Things that get a no vote, or don't get any attention at all, get discussed and voted on within a week or two.
  • The list can be searched and browsed.
I think this mechanism, combined with the current core team members, would be a huge step forward with low cost. We have at our disposal mailing lists, forums, irc, bug systems, and a web community toolkit. So I envision something like a simplified bug system for tracking, plus weekly irc with a quorum (2/3 of core?) to keep things moving. If there's nothing on the list that needs group attention, there's no irc. I think core team members have an obligation to participate at least weekly, but does that participation mean dedicating an hour to IRC, or just being responsive to specific things via email/forums, or what?