[volunteers] SVLUG elections

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ron Guerin (ron at vnetworx.net):

> We're in a heated discussion over in #nylug on Freenode about the recent
> coup at NYLUG

Oh, do tell, when you have a chance.

(1)  I see you-all are all in an uproar over an incorporation effort.
Nobody asked me, but in my experience this is a mistake even if it
supposedly gets you meeting space at Google.  (Many such companies
actually also require 501(c)(3) recognition by IRS, which is a huge
headache, restricts what the group is permitted to subsequently do quite
a bit, and takes a long time.)

If you guys actually go ahead with incorporation, I can furnish you with 
examples from BayLISA (of which I'm a corporate director) of by-laws,
articles of incorporation, and the text of a wiki page listing all of
the recurring tasks BayLISA needs to do to stay in good status with the
state Secretary of State (corporations division) and state and Federal
tax authorities.

It's a _major_ pain in the ass, IMO and not in any way worth the effort
either to create or to maintain.  FYI, I also address the
incorporate-or-not topic in some detail in the LDP's Linux User Group
HOWTO, which I maintain, and would urge NYLUG people to please read that
section of the HOWTO.


(2)  SVLUG used to be riven by self-indulgent and endless flamewars on
the main mailing list, and campaigns alleging persecution by anyone told
to STFU.  This continued until I came up with the magic formula:

a) Topicality on the main mailing list is enforced with a very light
hand.  There are several Mailman anti-spam filters to ensure that
crosspostings deemed abusive are not successful.  The rule covering the
requirement of loose topicality is that the listadmins will intervene to
halt 'major eruptions of off-topic spew', and any amount of spam.

b) All mailing lists including the Volunteers list were made completely
public.  I notice NYLUG's is subscriber-only.  I think you'd find fewer
problems if it were publicly archived + completely unmoderated.  No
joke.  Among other things, the entire current multiway fight on
nylug-talk could then be consigned to your volunteers list and gotten
off the main list.  The fight would probably then also be far less
enticing to its combatants:  less look-at-me appeal.

c) Relevant to that:  One of the few stringently enforced rules (for
valued of 'enforced' equally my growling at people when they ignore it,
and is that theoretically enforced by stronger measures I haven't yet
needed, such as the moderated flag) is that SVLUG's internal affairs
MUST be discussed on SVLUG's Volunteers list only, and not on the main
mailing list.  The main mailing list is a very large audience, the
overwhelming majority of whom don't give a rat's ass about SVLUG
governance.  Volunteers is a very small list of active volunteers whose
mission is to run SVLUG's organisational concerns.  Consequently, if
you're being an attention-getting asshole, there's little percentage to
be gained from barraging the Volunteers list with attempts to pick a
fight, as the members there are few and also in general wary.

(d) I carry out absolutely no actions as listadmin without
contemporaneously making a record of it (CC'd) on Volunteers, which is 
a totally hands-off list (and totally public) where anyone may post
anything (except spam).  Thus, the bad tradition of back-room
control-freakery at SVLUG was ended, and nobody can credibly claim that
Rick Moen or any of the other listadmins backstabbed their mailing list
participation in secret, as they just get laughed at.  (Alvin Oga used
to claim he was persecuted by my predecessor Marc Merlin and his traffic
banned by hidden filters.  I investigated when I took over the mailing
lists, and proved it wasn't the case.)