Re: [seul-edu] Managing the coalition--responsibilities

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

Good posts overall. Some comments below.

On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 03:03:54PM -0500, Doug Loss wrote:
> coalition management mailing list and monitor it regularly.  When
> questions about managing the coalition arise, these people would be
> expected to take part in the discussion of the question.  At some
> point each question will be put to a vote, with the designated
> person from each group having one vote.  Majority of votes would

I think most issues should not come to a vote. Maybe I'm being naive here,
but I think in most cases we can all talk reasonably and conclude on a
direction to go. Perhaps this would be 'If any member of the coalition
requests it, a question can be put to a majority vote.' That way as
long as we don't have pedantic people around, most issues will get
solved smoothly.

> The person responsible for calling for votes on the various
> questions would be one of the group representatives, selected for a
> period of one to three months from the list of groups.  After one
> representative's period ends, the next group on the list's
> representative would assume the responsibility.

This might be a good way to do "coalition leadership". Eg this is how
Apache does things. Make somebody in charge of making sure everything
is running smoothly for that time period.

> Each member group would be expected to join a coalition mailing list
> devoted to its primary purpose and subscribed to by similar groups.
> Again, at least one but potentially as many as would like to may
> subscribe from each group.  These mailing lists would be the primary
> means of inter-group communication.  They may be augmented by IRC
> channels, weblogs, etc., but the mailing list would be a minimum
> requirement.

This part I disagree with. It violates my "no extra bureaucracy"
principle. We should let people organize and talk among themselves however
it suits them most. If they choose to start a mailing list once they've
got the momentum for it, that's great too. But we shouldn't require more
layers of indirection.

--Roger