[svlug] bylaws, list policies, web pages...

[Ian Kluft]

>From: <dpchrist at inreach.com>
>I searched the sbay.org and svlug.org web sites manually, and searched
>Google with "charter svlug site:sbat.org" and "charter svlug
>site:svlug.org", but was not able to find SVLUG's charter.  From Marc's
>statements, I don't think it exists.  Can someone please confirm?

David -

None of this has been kept a secret, though you may not have paid attention
before the mail list matter became important to you.  That's OK.  Please
observe that everyone has been answering your questions.

First, the by-laws do not require all SIGs to have a charter.  In the cases
where they don't, the by-laws fill in simple rules for them.

Second, we're not done with all the process of incorporating.  The fact is
that sbay.org's by-laws have been written and approved but SVLUG's SIG
charter hasn't yet.  These have gone admittedly at the pace of overworked
volunteers.  In the meantime, since SVLUG members elected Don Marti as
president, he was also appointed as the coordinator of the SIG for the
interim time until SVLUG's SIG charter is written to reflect the way
SVLUG has been doing things.

As a counterexample, Project Stratofox (www.stratofox.org) is the other
SIG of sbay.org.  It plans to just operate under the SIG rules in the
sbay.org By-laws without writing its own charter.

As for your other proposal to make changes to SVLUG's list policies,
you did the right thing to send that to officers at svlug.org.
Please be understanding that some of the things you request look like
they'd increase the workloads for existing volunteers.  We have a
principle in sbay.org of protecting sustainability of volunteer efforts -
any volunteer can turn down something that will make their tasks
unsustainable for the long term.  (The right solution is to find more
volunteers rather than pile unaccepted demands upon exsisting ones.)

But I think we have multiple issues going here.  There's a movement
who would like to have a jobs mail list.  I can see Marc's point of
view on that, which is that he wouldn't volunteer to do the admin work
for such a list.  Frankly, I wouldn't either.  I've seen volunteers try
to do that before who got beaten down by unscrupulous recruiters and
subscribers trying to abuse the lists and then making threats until
the volunteer quits.

Anyone who has seen it happen won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
You need to have a large enough group of active admins to resist the
abuses and sustain such an effort.

It's the same reason why we've always refused to create an sbay.jobs
newsgroup and rather refer people to ba.jobs.  The levels of abuse that
the admins would have to deal with is a big burden for any volunteer.
Without some direction, the abuses would soon make the forum unusable.
So that's not to say we couldn't find new volunteers to deal with that.
I think that's going to be the direction to take for a workable solution.

So, as an offer of an olive branch, we can start a jobs list for Silicon
Valley Linux geeks under the umbrella of SVLUG or sbay.org, or as a new
SIG of sbay.org.  But that's only if there are volunteers willing to do
the maintenance work and deal with the abuse for the long term.  If there
aren't enough volunteers to keep it from burdening existing volunteers,
then it'll be a non-starter.  So those who want an Silicon Valley Linux
job-seekers forum should focus on finding more people to help with admin
work on a high-maintenance list.

For any high-maintenance volunteer activity, I'd suggest taking the
mindset of always recruiting new volunteers in order to cover the
inevitable turnover that will occur.  The effort will need a dedicated
leader.

We can talk about this at the SBAY Pizza tonight at 7PM if you want.