[Brug-admin] [Fwd: Re: Post-FOSDEM momentum]

[Peter Vandenabeele]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 12:58 AM, Peter Vanbroekhoven <peter at xaop.com> wrote:
> Tom Klaasen wrote:
>  > All,

Sorry I didn't react earlier. I had not seen that this mail is only to the
"brug-admin" group ... (which is a disadvantage of small mailing groups;
for small, semi-closed/semi-confidential mailing groups, I find it more
effective to just mail the few people in To: and Cc: with Reply-All.
Then at least you know who you are talking too and the others feel
more personally addressed; just a side remark).

>  > Will this be an event for brug-admin only? Maybe we could make it a
>  > brug-talk event... That seems to make more sense to me. Maybe
>  > everybody in the BRUG should then participate in the doodle?
>  Yes it makes more sense. But instead of going round the issue again,
>  I'll get straight to the point.
>
>  Thing is, I'm a bit unhappy with the admin part of the BRUG at the
>  moment. The admin part we had at the first meeting was generally
>  somewhat of a disaster. Many people found that part a real downer. In
>  the end, we didn't decide much concrete, except to have an admin group.

I agree it was probably not a very good idea to spend that much time
at the general meeting on admin issues ... which are important, but it
was not the right place and time. Sorry, I probably contributed a
significant fraction of that ...

>  Problem there was too many voices. My general feeling is that in the
>  admin group here we have too little voice (note that I'm not saying "too
>  few voices"). I get the feeling I'm often waiting for a response,
>  feedback, instead of actually doing something. I'm not getting a strong
>  decision making vibe from you. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining
>  here. What I want to say is that I am perfectly willing to take these
>  decisions on my own, get things going instead of waiting, and still run
>  things by you guys for advice or extra ideas, but then I *have* to know
>  that you are OK with that. I know I'm the one who started all this, but
>  that doesn't automatically imbue me with absolute power. I don't want to
>  unilaterally disband the admin group we've set up, but it does feel a
>  touch unwieldy at the moment.

One possible solution (IMHO) is that everyone that cares to respond to this
thread stays in the admin group and the persons that are too busy with
other matters are "excused" for now (which could be implemented by
using simple direct mailing to the group that is actively contributing to
admin work). With a few, _known_ people, we can more simply make a
decision (I actually don't known who will be reading this, besides Peter
and Tom).

>  So what I am really asking is: can I please please go ahead and get this
>  show on the road without the overhead of asking and waiting? You get the
>  right to veto and stuff, and I'll still run decisions and such by you;
>  we'd still have an admin group, you'd just have to do less :-)

I hope I gave some ideas now.

Do I understand correctly that your proposal is that:

  "you make a proposal, send it on the brug-admin list and if no one
   seriously complains or finds better alternatives, you can carry on?"

I could agree to that (but maybe I misunderstood).

>  If this is OK with you guys, I'll start by setting up a new poll for a
>  _general_ BRUG meeting. I'd move it up by one week though, to the end of
>  March.

+1

Some further proposals here:

* Organize a general meeting in 3-4 weeks
  * choosing a date (Doodle); using an evening in the week seems logical;
     location near Brussels (which is more or less in the middle of Belgium)
  * defining a program, some ideas:
     * presentation ?
     * open discussion on questions prepared by the general group
       (people post questions to the mailing list or to the admin group
        (they have both options) that will then be used as guidance for
        a discussion ? Could be: "marketing of RoR"; "how to find RoR
        business as a consultant?"; "who will attend conferences?"; ....)
     * asking if people are interested in organizing a small conference
       of our own for september 2008 ?

* have a small admin meeting before it (30 minutes before) ?
* try to handle most other admin stuff over e-mail

>  Next, Benny and I will put together a proposal for a new website
>  setup, run it by you and get it implemented.

+1

HTH,

Peter