Please explain

c3

Posted by alex ua on August 6, 2008 at 2:07pm

There's no way it would be worthwhile to setup a (c)3 for this. Not only would it take a long time to setup, but it would be an incredible burden to maintain (esp. on the accounting side).

Personally, I was thinking something more informal, but of course we already have such a device, a forum where everyone can speak their mind (and be heard) and everyone gets a vote: ie right here. So, my thinking now is: no need to recreate the wheel or make things more complicated, just make sure that everything goes through g.d.o. and everything should remain relatively cool.

Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology

this worries me

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 1:12pm

I think that when you say things like "the answers to your questions will come in time" and "There's a smaller group which is already ahead of us" you are illustrating the problems that Sam is trying to raise.

Answers should be on the table before you start so they can be discussed. Any small group that wants to act in the name of the larger group should make itself known ahead of time so anyone interested or experienced enough can participate.

You bring up many good points

Posted by wildfeed on August 4, 2008 at 2:57pm

As the group gets larger and the need to specify the responsibilities gets more granular, there probably should be a BOD and possibly a spokesperson. Alex, would you hold a position on the board? If so, I would nominate you as a board member, as well as anyone else who has taken the time to care about the state of the group as evidenced by their recent posts (Sam Tresler, Ezra G and Adam's names come to mind)

As far as corporate sponsorships go, I don't think the Drupal NYC user group has any obligations to Mansueto in return for use of the room. Even if Exxon or Comcast offered use of their space with no strings attached, where is the harm?

My point over the last few days since this whole thread began is Oleg (litwol) has done the group a great service and that should be recognized. If the group needs to modify the management structure let us do so, but until a new plan is ratified please support the person who is using his time and access to provide the group with the necessary organization and venue.

The harm...

Posted by alex ua on August 6, 2008 at 2:14pm

The harm in associating with Exxon or Comcast is in the appearance that this is what Drupal stands for. Given that many of us Drupalers (myself included) came from/reside in the progressive organizing universe, while others came from/reside in the NGO/Non-profit world, this would be an unacceptable blemish on our reputations.

But- that's just my opinion, the real point is that regardless of what one person thinks, the group should decide. If the group decides it wants Satan or worse--WalMart--as a sponsor, then that's a decision that group members have to live with (or they can leave the group).

Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology

...or no harm at all?

Posted by wildfeed on August 6, 2008 at 2:42pm

I understand your point if there is a tangible, public association between the two entities. What if WalMart offered a significant grant to the Drupal Association and asked for nothing more than to put out a press release stating that fact. In your opinion, should that grant be refused?

a suggestion for how to look at it

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 3:06pm

At ABC No Rio, a non-profit organization/community center that I am involved with has an official policy that might be of interest in this discussion.

We understand that when large corporations that have no organic connection to the community give money, they always have an unstated purpose. usually it's to use the association with the group getting the money for marketing and PR or to deflect public attention from other anti-community corporate activity. A grant from Wall-Mart would certainly have strings attached that would make many of us uncomfortable.

Understand that most of these large corporations also have non-profit foundations. Those foundations give money because it is their mission.

At ABC No Rio, our policy is that we will take money from corporate run foundations, but not directly from corporations. The reason is based on the motivation of the donor.There is a difference between support and co-optation.

note that this is not meant to exclude any company from giving support, many companies in this community are simply the professional/legal face of members of the community. I'm only talking about large corporations that don't have such an organic connection to the community.

Always something

Posted by fabiantaylor on August 6, 2008 at 7:13pm

There is always some underlying purpose...money, gifts, donations ...anything that comes from an organization, profit or non-profit will always have something attached to it. Even if they asks for nothing in return the business practice will be that it is used for PR for that organization.

or harm...

Posted by alex ua on August 6, 2008 at 3:06pm

I would vote against a relationship like this, and would try to persuade enough people to vote against it. I could get into a whole argument about why this theoretical relationship would be bad for Drupal and bad for the NYC group, but that's not the point. The point is that this illustrates a basic fact about the group: everyone is entitled to an opinion, and is entitled to express their thoughts to the group, but nobody should make decisions like this for, or on behalf of, the group without the group debating and voting on the issue.

Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology

I agree, this is not about Oleg, it's about process

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 1:09pm

I hope that Oleg understands that no matter how much some of us are concerned that things are starting to be done in a way that we find troubling, that this in no way is an attack on Oleg.

It's about communication and community and what methods are most healthy for such a group.

In terms of a board. In my opinion it is far too much grief than it is worth (I'm on the board of one non-profit at the moment and have served on others, and helped start a few).

In the context of a dynamic and ever-changing group like this, a board could be a disaster -- my fear is that we will spend so much time deciding how to vote; who can vote; what the board can or can't do, that the overall mission of our group will be sidetracked.

Also, having an official board will slow change and innovation. Things will become far too rigid.

I still have not seen anyone make a solid compelling argument that our current process is broken. Got an idea? post to this group, get feedback, then do your thing.

The Group as Board

Posted by alex ua on August 6, 2008 at 2:17pm

I have to agree with your analysis: a board is probably overkill and might be more than the group needs or can handle at this juncture. And really, there already is a board, and we're on it talking through the groups issues. This thread is proof that g.d.o. works as an informal board...

Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology

good point

Posted by johnvsc on August 6, 2008 at 2:45pm

Really, the most logical thing to do is use the structures (like this) that we already have in place to communicate ideas.

Being aggressive about using (and promoting) our space here on g.d.o. (and , if we really start using another site for the nyc group, linking to) is a solution already in place.

I like the irc channels, they are very helpful and cool, however, they exclude alot of people ... only because of lack of access.

Let's use the polling more effectively.

Posted by wildfeed on August 6, 2008 at 2:56pm

It is easy enough to create a poll to gauge group sentiment. By starting polls or voting their preference members of the group can determine an acceptable course of action. We don't need non-profit status to do that.

Alex UA raised a good

Posted by ezra-g on August 3, 2008 at 3:50pm

Alex UA raised a good question here: Does having Drupal meetups at Mansueto, whose facilities are excellent, mean that a Mansueto staff member (Oleg) must be designated "leader" of the NYC group?

I've started a thread to

Posted by ezra-g on August 3, 2008 at 3:57pm

I've started a thread to discuss people's satisfaction and thoughts about improving the group in general. http://groups.drupal.org/node/13676

Do we need a board?

Posted by capellic on August 4, 2008 at 11:47am

I am new to the group, but it seems to me that the group has grown to a point where it's too big to have a discussion about decisions that used to be discussed amongst the group.

The board would set the strategic direction for the group based on their understanding of community needs. The board would be involved in decisions such as ChipIn, but would probably tap the community at large to vote on things like new leadership, change in venue, etc. Having a board would allow decisions to be made quickly and accurately.

Having an ineffective decisions making process will make decisions worse. They will either never be made, or they will be made by one person who may not have considered all the angles - so goes the plight of the doer.

Leave a post for a weekend and look what happens...

Posted by Tresler on August 4, 2008 at 4:36pm

Hi,
I thought I had made it clear in the original post, but if not let me make it abundantly clear. Thank you Oleg, and Adam for doing so much for the group! None of this was meant to hinder further progress and the great work being done.

I think my frustration was born out of the fact that over the past two weeks I kept stumbling upon decisions I felt were group decisions being made by one or two people.

I have made it clear, repeatedly, in the past that I don't have the time to do as much for the group as perhaps I would like. I, also, believe in the power of a meritocracy, or do-acracy. You guys are willing to put in the work, so you should be able to make a larger share of the decisions, and I think that is fair. I feel this same discussion has been mirrored through the larger Drupal project many times. I can point to the "Drupal MUST have a wysiwyg editor in core" and "The developers must be stopped!" threads on the d.o. forums and see a similar underlying premise. Those not doing the work can't tell those doing the work how the work should be done.

That said, this is a social group about open source software, not open source software itself. When I am coding I have every right to work as I want, how I want, when I want, and if the code sucks, don't use it. When I am organizing for a group, I have a responsibility to those for whom I am organizing.

I think this issue is due to the growth of the group. It isn't a hard thing to see that as numbers grow, communication breaks down. Someone asked how the group has dealt with this in the past and the answer is: it hasn't. The nycDrupal group started about (3-4?) years ago, slowly trailed off to no attendance, was picked up by Jacob Redding, and held at MNN for about 2 years(?). There were several meetups that were Jacob, Scott T., and myself just sitting around staring at each other. Then things exploded and now we have 400+ members. This is how things happen, lets just find a way that works for us.

So, let me break this down as simple as I can. Do stuff. Keep doing stuff, you are doing a great job of it. But can we settle on a ground rule that organizers should post to the group before or even after making decisions that affect the group.

The idea that things aren't happening behind closed doors is simply inaccurate. Evidenced by the examples I posted above that were never communicated to the group. I don't think anyone is complaining that work is being done, just that it is being done in the groups name without informing the group, or offering the bigger things up for discussion before acting on them.

Communicating is key to any organization, and mentioning things in IRC, or some outside mailing list doesn't hack it, even if it is more convenient. The things I listed are really just examples. This precept applies to all group decisions. People doing the work should get more input into things, but not keeping people informed at our home base just alienates people.

Thanks everyone for keeping this conversation constructive and moving forward.

It's the nature of voluntary groups

Posted by Grammarian on August 4, 2008 at 9:02pm

Anyone who has been involved in any kind of club, voluntary board, PTA, etc. is familiar with the nature of the beast - active people run with things or they never get done, and sometimes people work at cross-purposes, and sometimes things are not effectively communicated. When some of the more active people decide to do something and some of the other people are not aware of it, it doesn't mean there is anything going on "behind closed doors" - it just means despite good intentions, it is seldom possible to keep everyone informed about everything all the time.

Those of us who can't commit to a major role ourselves don't necessarily want to be a party to every discussion or decision -- if we did we'd be committing to a bigger role!

If there is a board and elections, then there has to be a definition of who is an official member, perhaps dues, bylaws, etc. Some kind of ad-hoc "advisory board" or committee is probably a fine idea, but more formality may bring other obligations with it.

Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com – Drupal hosting

Very interesting. perhaps

Posted by litwol on August 4, 2008 at 9:32pm

Very interesting. perhaps you could share your experience with us on how we best can implement a structure so that things still end up being done while other members feel less excluded ?

------------------
Sometimes interesting things appears on http://litwol.com

Official Group

Posted by fabiantaylor on August 4, 2008 at 9:49pm

I think the way the group stand now...is an official group and hence anyone that signs up on the groups site should be considered an official member but I think it is import to have a group of 5-8 people to govern the group and act as the lead which I think is happening.

The first thing is to put together a sound process, team and system of management before we go into having an "official board" and "bylaws". Granted as a group we have to have some sort of rules to follow and an overall system for communication. If anything happens regarding the group it should be communicated via this system - decisions that pertain to group events and function, projects etc. but as a core 5-8 people "core team" whatever communication they have should not always go out unless it is needed or affects the group as a whole...come on this is standard practice.

Thanks. i needed some one

Posted by litwol on August 4, 2008 at 9:54pm

Thanks. i needed some one other than myself to say it.

------------------
Sometimes interesting things appears on http://litwol.com

Totally, thanks.

Posted by Tresler on August 4, 2008 at 10:57pm

Yeah, I don't think every little thing needs to be debated or discussed. I'm just referring to things that affect the groups as a whole. I think the things I listed in the original post are decent examples, e.g. changing leadership, creating other resources for the group outside of d.o., collecting money in our name. I think all these things are good, an show good progress, but were seriously lacking on the communication side.

To a large degree common sense can be the guide in this. I really just wanted to know why it hadn't been happening and to establish a 'sound process' for moving into the future.

right

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 1:14pm

we're not asking that every little thing be forced to a vote by every member of this group, simply that people communicate clearly what they are doing and allow those that might want to have their voice added to the discussion the opportunity to participate.

Isn't this what is happening?

Posted by Grammarian on August 6, 2008 at 3:35pm

The way I see it, that is exactly what IS happening - some people proposed ideas, and some others are responding. In what sense is the communication broken?

I am a bit disturbed by the way that this thread (and the earlier Drupal Camp organizing debate) seem to turn into the "old guard" shooting down any new ideas - some of you may not realize how un-community-minded that actually is. There is no harm to the community in raising suggestions, quite the contrary!

I completely agree that it is best for group matters to be consolidated in one place as much as possible - but for example, going to Bar Camp and using a Wiki to sign up was quite non-obvious for me for the first Drupal Camp I attended, as I had no experience with those things.

The group will not function at all unless some people are willing to do things like administering the site and arranging meetings - to act like doing so is some sort of power grab is just ridiculous.

Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com – Drupal hosting

I think we agree

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 4:38pm

Sam's initial post points to a number of things that seem to have been decided without group input.

I think many of us that are being critical are concerned about the lack of communication more than the new ideas.

I totally agree with you that we can't have any small clique hold back (or push forward) new ideas.

I don't think there is any power grab or anything else sinister going on, I just think that communication on the points that sam raises could have/should have been more public.

Based on feedback from you and others, the next drupal camp, I hope, will be organized via this site exclusively (I'm going to start that discussion once I hear back from Polytech about dates in september). But, I won't simply announce how the next camp will be organized, I'll ask for input and work with all the other folks that have expressed interest in helping with the camp.

Who decided?

Posted by Grammarian on August 6, 2008 at 5:15pm

Well, among other things, the posts about organizing Drupal Camp were not "announcements" of how things "will be" organized, they were following on previous, ongoing discussions both here and at the meetups (I assume, I missed the last one) on that topic, and not departing from it. This IS the public communication on those points. There's no reason why every single communication has to be to the entire group, as long as it is brought back to the group once it has taken place on the side, which is what is being done.

If people are afraid to post here for fear of being flamed, it is a major damper on communication. If people are going to drupal.org, and on the support lists, for several months before even discovering the existence of Drupal groups, as I was, that is not good communication!

Why respond to Adam's post that Oleg is taking over with "Who made this decision and why didn't they tell us?" Why not respond "It's wonderful that this community always has someone capable ready to step in, Oleg, tell us a little about yourself" ??? I assume Adam and Oleg made the decision amongst themselves. That's fine with me, because I'm not ready to step in and do it myself. And if the people who are willing are going to be criticized for every little thing, there will be fewer people stepping up in the future.

Some people want more structure, some people want less. That tension is probably never going to go away, but there can be a happy medium.

Jean

one thing for transparancy of debate

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 5:05pm

One thing I feel I must point out about this debate.

The most major issue I find in the list from Sam is the creation of a new website that was intended to be the new home of this group without any discussion in this group before hand. More troubling is that after Sam posted his criticism, litwol made a request in the IRC channel for someone to ask Sam to edit his post and remove any mention of this new site. So, not only was there no discussion beforehand but there was also an attempt to prevent discussion of it now.

The process is not hard. post ideas, get feedback, act.

for the health of the community these things should be done with a focus on transparency of process and debate. I do not expect to be able to tell people what to do, but I think it is important for people to keep the community informed and participating in the process.

there is no new website and never was

Posted by Grammarian on August 6, 2008 at 5:23pm

Come on, this was tossed out as a response to the discussion of whether the existing cumbersome url would fit on a sticker! No one ever said this is going to happen or this is going to be the new home of this group! It's the responses to that post that are jumping the gun in my opinion. If litwol felt that he made a mistake in posting or that Sam's response was misleading, he has every right to take it back. That's not quashing discussion.

"The process is not hard. post ideas, get feedback, act." Exactly.

"I do not expect to be able to tell people what to do" - or what NOT to do? Is there a difference?

"but I think it is important for people to keep the community informed and participating in the process"

Of course it is - is anyone denying that? You may not mean to, but you and some others are coming across to me at least as more like trying to prevent there even being a process, and again, I find that very discouraging to open participation.

Jean

Incorrect

Posted by Tresler on August 6, 2008 at 6:43pm

With all do respect, this is incorrect.

http://nycdrupal.org launched last week. That is what prompted this post. It had a message on the frontpage claiming to be the home of the NYC Drupal Group and it remained their until I spoke to Oleg and he turned it to a sandbox message. The sticker didn't prompt this post. The fact that a site launched without talking to anybody did.

Similarly, the issue isn't with Oleg stepping up. I'm pleased and happy that someone can, as I feel I've made clear, but with the fact that it happened without telling us.

A simple courtesy post saying, "Hey, Oleg is stepping into this role" would have prevented a lot of this. Instead it was announced at a meetup, and not here until I stepped up to let the community know. Several people upon readng this post have commented to me that they had no idea that Oleg had stepped up until I posted this.

That is the issue we are addresseing.

http://groups.drupal.org/node/13650#comment-44825

The first thing is to put

Posted by ezra-g on August 4, 2008 at 11:10pm

The first thing is to put together a sound process, team and system of management before we go into having an "official board" and "bylaws"...come on this is standard practice.

Actually, I'm not aware of any other Drupal user group that has an official board or bylaws. Can you name one?

Pulling quotes out of context

Posted by fabiantaylor on August 5, 2008 at 12:37am

Ezra before quoting someone please make sure and read carefully. My statement that you quoted "The first thing is to put together a sound process, team and system of management before we go into having an "official board" and "bylaws"...come on this is standard practice" is out of context and does not intend to relate to any other Drupal group.

Here is the post

This was a response to grammarian where she asked about:
"If there is a board and elections, then there has to be a definition of who is an official member, perhaps dues, bylaws, etc."

My response was actually to state the opposite that we don't need to have these things - "official board" and "bylaws" but...and this is where you quoted me
"The first thing is to put together a sound process, team and system of management before we go into having an "official board" and "bylaws"...come on this is standard practice."

"...come on this is standard practice." pertains to the second part of my response where groups and associations with "core member" or "core teams" in the way that they function. Please read the post again.

Less is more

Posted by cpelham on August 4, 2008 at 10:11pm

IMHO this is essentially just a meetup group. The person who signed up to create this group on groups.drupal.org is in charge. He/she schedules meetings when/where he/she likes and the rest should be organized informally. Since this group is not a company, has no products, no budget, I don't see the need or point of adding the huge administrative burden and responsibility of incorporating or becoming a 501(c)(3). I am the founder and director of a 501(c)(3) and it's a lot of work.

If this group does not satisfy everyone, anyone is welcome to start additional groups. Uptown NYC Drupal, Brooklyn Drupal, Drupal for newcomers, etc.

Let's keep it really simple.

I have built and manage several Drupal sites for my own businesses. I understand it pretty well. I have not written any php code from scratch. I can follow instructions to hack code, can make a very simple skeletal module....

I think presentations are good to have at the meetings but more and more presentations are posted online and those are often better because we can pause, rewind, etc.

I would like to see more meeting time used for asking questions (how do I do this? how do I fix this problem?) and coming up with answers. If the answers are in the room, it is often much faster than posting on drupal.org and waiting for someone to answer. Before each meeting we could submit questions/problems, and then post them at the meeting and divide up into small groups in different parts of the room to answer them.

Christopher Pelham
Director
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)
http://www.crsny.org

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is an arts & healing center located just south of Union Square in Manhattan.

I haven't said much lately,

Posted by platypus media on August 5, 2008 at 1:01am

I haven't said much lately, as I've been keeping kind of a low profile, but I'd like to make a few things clear. There have been a bunch of posts that have been fighting back and forth about whether or not we should be organized or not. Personally, I think this is a healthy debate. However, I think that there are some people out there who are playing a little dirty by putting words in people's mouths. Just because someone wants to have a bit better organization for the group, doesn't make them a bad person, or someone who's trying to bring an evil corporate structure to Drupal. For the record, I detest the phrase "marketing scheme" as it has a very negative connotation. Yes, the group has grown organically for the past 2 1/2 years, and has done very well up until this point, having grown out of quite a few of our past meeting places. For a small group, we've outgrown ourselves, and I feel that we are at the point where organic growth is starting to falter. We're at the point where we are going to need to make a decision. Do we want to stay a small fish, or do we want to be a big fish. Either way is fine with me, but we need to act accordingly to what we decide here. If we're going to try to continue to grow, we need to have some sort of organization. If we're going to stay small, then we are going to need to cut back on some things and focus on quality instead of quantity. But that also means that we're going to have to neglect the ability to grow to much larger than we currently are. There are just too many of us to continue to grow and not have some sort of organization. It's just chaos otherwise and if everyone has that democratic (in the pure sense of the word) vote, then everyone needs to be involved in every decision, which people may or may not want to do, and if we grow too much more, it will turn everything into a logistical nightmare. If we adopt a more republic structure where we have elected officials to make the decisions for everyone else, then we need to embrace that and do it. All in all, we need to stop half-assing it, pick a direction, and go that way.

Mike

it's about how to organize not if

Posted by ericg on August 6, 2008 at 1:51pm

There have been a bunch of posts that have been fighting back and forth about whether or not we should be organized or not.

I think that's a bit off base. The debate is about how we should organize not if we should be organized.

Just because someone wants to have a bit better organization for the group, doesn't make them a bad person, or someone who's trying to bring an evil corporate structure to Drupal.

This sounds a bit like FUD. First off, let's get to the point where we can debate these issues and know that everyone understands that we are talking about strategy and how to organize a Free Software community. there is no value judgement being placed on people. no one here is good or evil, we simply have very different ideas about how to organize.

Yes, the group has grown organically for the past 2 1/2 years, and has done very well up until this point, having grown out of quite a few of our past meeting places. For a small group, we've outgrown ourselves, and I feel that we are at the point where organic growth is starting to falter. We're at the point where we are going to need to make a decision. Do we want to stay a small fish, or do we want to be a big fish.

I'd like someone to detail the compelling reasons to change. Otherwise we're all going to talk in circles. The size of the fish is meaningless, the issue is how to remain a community-centric group and use a community-centric model in a group of this size. It is a difficult question, but our goal should be how much knowledge we can share not if we are a big fish or not.

It's just chaos otherwise and if everyone has that democratic (in the pure sense of the word) vote, then everyone needs to be involved in every decision, which people may or may not want to do, and if we grow too much more, it will turn everything into a logistical nightmare.

There is a happy place between chaos and having a few people empowered to act in the name of the group. Post things here! it's really simple. Have an idea? post it! get some feedback and then move forward! If we make things too formal the ability for new folks to feel empowered to make things happen will be restricted. No one is advocating chaos, but some of us are advocating simple and direct communication, allowing anyone that feels they have something to contribute the chance to participate in decision making.

This or That

Posted by johnvsc on August 5, 2008 at 5:02am

Although I am new to the group, I have just moved back from DC where bureaucracy reigns and common sense is, sadly, uncommon.

The thoughts being discussed here are important to any organization when it achieves a critical mass: how do we keep the good things about what we do and expand our activities?

In my experience, most organizations who succeed at expansion have several key people responsible for operations. These individuals communicate well with each other and are excellent listeners. They also have the bandwidth to handle their responsibilities and enjoy what they do.

Structure is a good thing: bureaucracy and paperwork ain't. How do we support great quantity of great quality in a system based upon volunteers? Isn't this the argument that is always presented to anything open-source?

This group is based upon volunteers, that should give us some scope on where we (the group) should expect any "core or key group leaders" commitment to lay. If Mansueto is generous to allow us to use their office space; great. When it becomes a burden, we need to find another solution.

Some guidelines to start off with are:

Write out the requirements of the system that we are creating;
Don't expect it to be perfect: just expect it to be over-ridden;
The most economical solution that has the most mileage wins;
Chunk solutions to those requirements into small, independent blocks of functionality;
Develop and deploy the process;
When you find a part that is ineffective, revise it;
Debug;
Debug;
Debug;
If you find the system repeating something more than once, consolidate;
Take the time to comment and comment often and well;

My two sense. Thanks to everyone in this discussion :)

Process

Posted by fabiantaylor on August 6, 2008 at 7:45pm

Can we implement this process to make things easier.

Designate one or two people to guide the meetings as I think this already happens.
Designate a main channel of communication...I think these posts work well.
These people will be responsible for collecting all comments and ideas from all channels.
At meetings, in the beginning have a old ideas new ideas section where all these items will be discussed and decided on.
If a decision is needed before or after meetings and can't wait until next meeting then a post or poll will be placed on the main communication channel for members to comment and vote.
Tally all the comments and votes...make the decision.

I don't think that every little decision needs to be made by the community at large and I also still think that there should be a smaller core group that run things...lets be real, not everyone is reliable and if we wait on everyones decision and opinion we will be waiting for ever. We all have different minds and will never come to a unanamous outlook.

On the front about the website...it was a bad move to launch a new site without being discussed and it is also bad to have a separate site as it "show" a disconnect...people may think it is some smaller group not officially connected with drupal.
I do think the url is a bit long and also for helping market the group and official groups site it may help by using something less lengthy and forwarding it to the official group site.

If we all keep going in circles talking about who is doing what and without talking to anyone and not focusing on the fact that someone (or group of ) needs to be lead and some need to follow...we will talk about this till we are blue. I don't mind following be there must be a good lead. Oleg and other have done a good job so far and with progress we need to rethink practices and structure. We can't leave it up to everyone to decide and sit and wait...we need people to lead, thats how all organizations build and move forward.

Mixed Feelings

Posted by davidburns on August 6, 2008 at 8:35pm

So I'm seeing 2 scenarios and I'm favoring 1 over the other. I'll present a couple of the discussions in both scenarios and hopefully that explains why I think 1 of the options is better.

Stickers (not a major issue)
Scenario 1 :
- Member/Leader wants to get stickers made for our group. (DAY 1)
- Post the idea and put up a collection to get it accomplished. (DAY 1)
- Users submit designs, discussed, and agreed upon. (DAY 2-3)
- Those that want to donate can donate. (DAY 1-3)
- Sticker arrive shortly there after.
END RESULT - We Get Stickers
TOTAL TIME - 3 days + shipping days

Scenario 2 :
- Member/Leader wants to get stickers made for group. (DAY 1)
- Make post about wanting to get stickers made for group. (DAY 1)
- Everyone vote IF stickers should be made for group. (allow time for everyone to give feedback DAY 1-3)
- Discussion of what service to use to collect donations. (allow time for everyone to give feedback DAY 3-5)
- Everyone vote which service should be used to collect donations. (DAY 5)
- Users submit designs, discussed, and agreed upon. (allow time for everyone to give feedback DAY 5-7)
- Those that want to donate can donate (DAY 5-7)
END RESULT - We Get Stickers
TOTAL TIME - 7 days + shipping days

SAME RESULT, Scenario 2 takes longer and more opportunity to step on somebodies toes because 1 minor issue wasn't agreed upon. If you don't like the stickers, then you don't like the stickers. No one is forcing anyone else to take any.

External Domain for Group (major issue)
Scenario 1:
- Someone or few members take their own time and money to create site.
- Site is Good, people use it. It becomes a new Group Home.
- People give feedback and ideas to make it better.
OR
- Site sucks, people don't use it. No harm done, Nice effort, but people still like G.D.O.

Scenario 2:
- Suggest External Domain
- Everyone Votes and Gives Feedback why or why not
- Collect Funds if agreed, Purchase Domain
- Discussion of what features should be provided. (lots of thinkers, not alot of doers)
- Execute site development.
- Sites succeeds, people are happy. DrupalNYC has a new home.
- People offer ways to make site better.
OR
- Site fails, large group gets segregated into People that like the site or People that don't.
- Drupal NYC now has 2 sub groups carrying out business in 2 domains.

As long that Scenario 1 is done with good intention and no power struggle. Leaders can step up as needed. The "free market" will eventually balance itself out.

I'm still not a fan of moving DrupalNYC off G.D.O. but if a better, more attractive platform presents itself I'm willing to give it a shot. I would not want to slow down any development that would occur by some people who were not going to physically participate in the development.

http://thethisorthat.com
http://abitburnt.com

Bringing it full circle

Posted by Tresler on August 7, 2008 at 12:33am

I really wasn't intending to get bogged down in a macro discussion when I posted the original post. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but oh well. However, I find it relevant that the original post asked five questions. They still haven't all been answered. I find it much better to use specifics to reach general consensus than to endlessly debate hypothetical methodologies. Thats just my way, not the only way. If we do come up with some general guidelines, I'll volunteer my time to creating a section on this site to house them. (Note: see how I mentioned that before going off and doing it?). Obviously, these aren't rules, just some structure to the madness.

"A) Can we decide on a common platform for discussion? "

This was not meant to indicate every little thing warranted debate. It was meant to establish an 'official' channel. That is to say, if the same conversation is going on in IRC, private email, meetups, and IM, it would be considered a 'best practice' to defer to the group posts, or post to the group to keep a coherent conversation. I don't think anyone strongly disagreed with this. So, unless someone steps up and says this idea sucks I feel comfortable calling g.d.o. official.

"B) I see group leadership has passed to litwol. When did this happen? Not saying its a bad thing, but an introductory post would have been common courtesy."

OK, so we've talked about having a group of core managers, we've all pretty much agreed that Oleg's energy and enthusiasm and proactiveness are pretty awesome. The point of this was that it wasn't announced in any way, thus many people that weren't at the meetup were fairly surprised to hear about it. Can we call it a general guideline that whenever the actual role of manager changes hands, it warrants a post to this site? Is that an ok guideline?

"C) DrupalCamp organization is split between a mailing list (open to all) and meetups, but not as much on the g.d.o. site. Things are still in flux, but we should make a better effort to put things on this site."

I think this is working fine, I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of how it was working. I already see effort towards this, thanks.

"D) http://nycdrupal.org This site is public and claiming to be the group home before discussing it with the group. Again, not saying this good or bad, but doing this without talking to the group at large is what I find unacceptable. Someone please tell me if I'm out of line here."

This probably more than anything else was one of my biggest issues. There seems to be some confusion. The site does exist, and is public facing. After a conversation with Oleg this morning he turned the frontpage test to read sandbox, and not home. I see now it is an IRC plugin that breaks the layout in FF3 linux. Furthermore, there still has been very little communication regarding the purpose, and intent of this site. By very little, I mean nearly none.

Of course, anyone on the site can do whatever they want, but I tend to feel that right gets a little hazy when it is done in the name of the group. Specifically, the site's title is "New York City Drupal group" (capitalization in context). Newcomers coming across this site have no initial indication that it isn't our home. Only below the fold does it say: "Welcome to the New York City Drupal user group sandbox". There is no link, and no indication of the relationship of the two. I would hate to have that be the first and only impression someone gets of the nyc drupal users group. Last I checked, google still indexed things.

I think the bigger discussion on this is about when and how it is ok to do things in the name of the group and I think we're finding that as we go along. The smaller discussion is about how or if we want to interface with a third party site. BOTH of those discussions can be tabled for this thread and opened in others. For this thread, Oleg, I asked what this site was about. You own the domain. Please let us know your intentions on this. Please just communicate about it. That is all I was asking from the original post and it still hasn't been addressed by you, the domain holder.

As other people have mentioned this has been addressed before. No one is saying it can't be addressed again. But when the group has discussed something and said very specifically, 'no, this is not good', doing it anyway, is just poor form. Bring it up again, sure, lets talk. But seriously, just ignoring us isn't really cool at all.

Money can be touchy. I'm all for this. But as we do it, we REALLY need a facility for tracking said money. I would go so far as to say adding another tab at the top of the page, but that may be overkill. For drupalcamps there is normally one person in charge of it and they submit an expense report at the end of the camp. If this will be ongoing collection there really needs to be an ongoing expense and receipt list. Is that a fair general guideline?

I hope this spurs concrete discussion. I hope it helps establish (to steal a computer term) Best Practices moving forward. I hope it doesn't spur another ideological discussion. I don't know how many more of those I can take.

Thanks all for your thoughtful discussion above.

why are people demanding democracy?

Posted by cpelham on August 7, 2008 at 1:40am

I find these discussions about who should lead the group and how the leadership should be determined to be interesting but ultimately off base. Someone, some individual, started this group. It's his. Of course, the leader can delegate, ask for advice, etc. but I really don't see that this group or any such group must be "owned" by the community. If one doesn't like what's being done or find that needs aren't being met, one can always start another group.

Christopher Pelham
Director
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)
http://www.crsny.org

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is an arts & healing center located just south of Union Square in Manhattan.

Is this a joke?

Posted by alex ua on August 7, 2008 at 2:23am

If you're trying for irony, it's not working. I'll just assume you are trying to be funny though, the alternative is just too mind numbing to respond to...

Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology

Good summary

Posted by Grammarian on August 7, 2008 at 3:25am

A) - I concur. It seems to me that most of the discussion is happening here, but what is the difference between the mailing list and the site? I'm getting all the site posts mailed to me, I suppose that is an account setting I have? But anyone can have the same. (I need this to be a digest - too many posts today!)

B) There isn't an awful lot of group-running discussion and decision-making at the meetups, unless it was a the ~2 I've missed or is happening one-on-one around the fringes, so those who haven't attended regularly don't need to worry that lots is going on that they don't know about. I'm not sure what is the difference between being surprised to hear something at a meetup and being surprised to see it on the site - and one incident doesn't make a trend. In the future, a site post is a very good idea - but is it terribly important whether it happens before or after a meetup if they are close in time?

D) I think a prominent block on the other site indicating that people should come here first to join the group as this is the official group site would suffice to avoid confusion and would take all of ten minutes to implement. I imagine the purpose of the site hasn't been explained in detail because it is still undecided - no problem with that.

E) Money is always fraught. As long as it's not large amounts, I'm fine with a fair degree of informality. I think it would be best for all concerned if some sort of simple income/expense report was posted here at somewhat regular intervals.

And I heartily agree that staying away from hypotheticals is much to be desired.

Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com – Drupal hosting

Thank you

Posted by Tresler on August 7, 2008 at 6:54am

You've been pretty active in this thread and I've particularly appreciated your opinions. They have helped me hone precisely what I am trying to say and cut out the cruft. I'm not always the best diplomat and it helps to see things from other perspectives.

A) The other mailing list I am referring to is the one we set up last drupalcamp to help the organizers. It helps them/us cut out the signal to noise ratio. As I said, I think it is just fine as long as people who are interested know it exists. I think it might be worth listing as a 'resource' to people loking to know/help as it is potentially, currently not all that well known.

B) The difference is, as I understand it, that many people who can't make it to the meetups would still have not known about the switch had I not mentioned it. I tend to think this is the responsibility of the people involved in the transition to initiate this communication. I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill on this point. The thought is just that without a clear announcement the /other/ 390 people in the group don't really know what is going on. (390 = 432 - 42 at meetup rough numbers)

D) Still undecided is fine. Announcing it as the home of the group is not. Happily that position was backed down from, but with that url, not redirecting to this site, we need to anticipate people will assume it is all there is. This directly affects and can splinter communication channels especially amongst new members. I'd rather have talked about it before it was made search engine indexable.

E) Yup. I agree. What is somewhat regular though? It is easy to lose receipts and such, it is better to make things easy for the maintainer of funds.

And just cause I had to:
http://xkcd.com/386/

Drupal developers need a place to play together

Posted by marketanomaly on August 7, 2008 at 3:50pm

In regards your biggest concern, the creation of http://nycdrupal.org, I agree that clarification needs to be made about what the site is and how it is administered. However, I think that it is generally a boon to the group to have a sandbox or webspace where developers can experiment with all the cool tools that drupal offers. Let's face it, there's a limited amount of stuff you can do with the gdo site, but an infinite number of possibilities for http://nycdrupal.org.

Thanks

Posted by Grammarian on August 7, 2008 at 1:34pm

So:

A) - Could we have a block somewhere not too hard to find on the group page listing the related mailing lists? Or are these just specific topic threads? (I'm used to lists where the topic stays the same while the thread drifts - here it seems the subject line constantly changes on the same topic, which is confusing.)

E) Regular is - monthly? quarterly? annually? Often enough not to leave everyone in the dark, but not so often as to be a burden on those doing it. But with a chip-in type of thing, which is voluntary, anyone who has doubts can just not contribute - not that much potential for abuse, or even serious sloppiness.

I think we all want the same thing - for useful stuff to happen, without anyone burning out on making it happen, and with plenty of discussion/participation by those who are interested. One of the big attractions of Drupal is the terrific community, which is very diverse and opinionated, and we all need to be sensitive to different opinions and styles of expression.

Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com – Drupal hosting