[foundation-board] an interesting potential coordinator

Thu Sep 2 21:59:04 UTC 2010

On 31/08/2010 12:54, Becky Hogge wrote:
[re. the coordinator role]
> Yes, that is an issue, as it's a minuted Board decision.

The minutes say, we should hire a projects coordinator. They don't say, 
this needs to be a full time position and include ad-hoc project 
management work, though.

I agree it is presently critical to have someone dealing with 
documentation and transparency issues though...

> Effectively, Rufus has been taking an
> executive role, but without proper accountability,
> particularly around budget and financials.

Yes. Every week, more often, I post to coord, saying, "there's no public 
information about project X. I have made you stub pages on the wiki, 
please go and fill in the basic details".

Nothing happens. I don't know what to do. If someone has to be paid to 
push on this, then i would be happy to see that going on.
This stuff is not rocket science. We should be doing it for project 
collaboration internally, as much as for third-party awareness.

Examples:
http://wiki.okfn.org/p/LOD2
http://wiki.okfn.org/p/IATI-Registry

If Rufus and Jonny cannot find the time, then we should IMO
a) immediately advertise and hire a project manager for CKAN
b) hire in some shorter term sysadmin support

To take the pressure off and allow both of them to focus on *something*.

> above, the project coordinator could address whatever concerns
> Jonathan had about the operational aspect of his problem, and the
> coordination committee could address the strategic aspects.

Yeah, but the coord committee is a black hole. I post asking for 
answers, and am ignored. Conversations that should belong on coord (such 
as starting local chapters) remain private to Rufus and Jonny, taking up 
their time. The theory is nice, but in practise, the people running the 
foundation actually have to slow the fuck down, and bother to tell the 
rest of the OKF community what the fuck is going on.

> Perhaps, but spreading responsibility, at least over reporting to the
> Board on core financial and legal matters, is something I actively
> want to avoid, for reasons stated above.

a) This is not about "reporting to the Board", it is about documenting 
in public for the whole community and potential community.
We preach at government organisations, but don't practise what we tell 
them to do. If we're not careful we will begin to lose credibility.

b) I don't think this is a full-time job.