[web-team] script usage & failure modes

[Heather Stern]

> Frankly, my disillusionment has been mainly due to the fact that
> I thought we made a pretty good plan (almost a year ago) and, in
> terms of what *is* in use today, nothing has changed since then. 
> As I said, I was informed only that "plans have changed" and no
> more and, therefore, decided to back away.

Informed that plans had changed?  By who, considering that SVLUG can't
figure out how to make decisions lately unless either (a) it gets
handed to one person and just told make it happen [speaker coordinator
for example] or (b) there's a month worth of hullaballoo and even then
there's protests once one is made as well as people refusing to believe
in any authority to call that decision much less honor it [just about
anything that was ever contested whilst 'voted on' at an open meeting -
the noncontested votes on things were more like 'show of hands who wants
to do good stuff'].

The only plans we ever had were made by group chatter in the jello of
email and printed out for us at a volunteers table.  I took my best notes,
but I don't think we really changed them out of jello.  Let it all chill
in the fridge and jello's solid enough, might even be sweet enough.  

After that people basically let the horses out of the barn and wander all
over the place, and they all headed different directions.  For obviously
fuzzy values of 'direction'.   We trusted each other's view of what we'd
discussed.

Considering my involvement in upstream moin I didn't have to *go*
anywhere to keep working on it.  My version of being in the hideyhole
is all this crap about 'plans' being absotively perfect and how much
trouble people are if they scratch hairs on things.  The "plan" was:
   * old hardware is the old grey mare, find it a glue factory
   * therefore we need new stuff
   * get new stuff

Was I missing anything?  If you want more details I'll have to fetch my
notes back from Ed.  I gave them to him so he'd be caught up when he offered
to help.

I'm as frustrated by a batch of claims that there was some sort of
absolute perfection in a big 'plan' as you clearly were that whatever
they are was changed, how anyone decided even that anything changed
and to what considering how incredibly easy it is to 'make decisions'
around here these days, etc etc.

The fact is that when everyone's being agreeable nobody is really making a
decision or a plan, they just do stuff that works, or they try to figure out
what *might* work.  They may pick the stuff with the best chance and say,
ok, that's the plan...

All *I* ever wanted, was for things to work, and when people are busy
fighting or busy hiding in corners it makes no difference - both have
been great ways to get no work done, or only the most invisible of steps,
the teeny moves that won't trod people's toes.

In that sense I have an unfair advantage, my best work might have been
invisible to SVLUG but it was part of software that other people are using,
part of a project where people I get to talk to every day are pouring real
energy into, something I could actually *do* and be welcomed at.

I'm glad if whatever get-together there was last night had some useful work
get done.  It'll be good if there's more of them.  It'd be absolutely dandy
if there was warning, or plans, or invites to people who might also help at
some fair enough time ahead that people can actually make getting involved
part of their plans for the day.   

Or in gentler words - if any of you had asked *ahead* I might have liked
to go.  Was I welcome if I'd been able to come?  How many other people
were there?  What was the goal?  I have no idea; I was never asked,
except for a quick question about whether doing stuff would get in my
way somehow, and I was never told any details really.  Should I get all
rabbity and whine that it's a backroom plot somehow?  That's beyond
silly - I *assume* you were trying to get some real work done, and I
therefore hope you were successful in some tiny step forward.  And so
what even if it had been?  If any *good work* came of it, how the heck
should that be a bad thing?

"Plans" my aunt fanny.  Perfect or broken or changed in flight, all maps
cause is trouble if you cling to them when the terrain doesn't match.  Go 
for results.

  . | .    Heather Stern          |     (408) 374-7623 land
--->*<---  star at starshine.org   - * -   (408) 761-4912 cell
  ' | `    KG6ZYC                 |