No subject

skills as long as the person is able to read a few wiki pages.

> If like me, members find the "package", the
> combination of hosting site and price a good deal. But
> hesitate to participate because the reward for making
> a mistake or asking before reading the docs is not
> shared laughter or "look it up in XXX and if you don't
> find the answer, let us know"  It is criticism or
> technical problems because (I surmise) after X number
> of errors, it stops working.

There are folks who used to react somewhat negatively to basic
inquiries by members. One of those was a previous (and hopefully
future) admin Adam Megacz. But then when explicitly asked about this,
he stated his preference for not being bothered with this kind of
questions, and that was alright.

Other than that, I really can't remember any persisting examples of
this problem. With the addition of hcoop-help list, which I explicitly
requested to be offered in style of "no question here gets bad 
treatment", I think this problem is completely resolved.

> Examples:
> 
> J. Settino's discovery that his experience was not
> enough and it was his problem.

It looks like you think a response from a sysadmin or a Board
member is some kind of a "verdict". Like, "person X complained,
we discussed it, Board member Y decided it was X's problem and
there was nothing X could do about it".

While on the contrary, it only means that the sysadmin or Board
member is honestly not able to make another member's experience
better at that point in time.

Which does not stop the member in question to find other ways of 
achieving his or her goal. And sysadmin or Board help can always be
counted on, in as great capacity as they are realistically able to
provide.

> My blunders when I joined and asked for help.
> 
> The bounced e-mails I never received -- until I asked.

> The problem I created yesterday with a bad .forward
> file. I fixed it, it tests okay but I'm missing mail.

How could we help that? I mean, how is this solved worse at HCoop
than at virtually any other setup?

You could work on a solution, say "Here, I've done this, 
integrate it into our setup", and thus make HCoop unique in one
more way.

You could also load that work onto sysadmins, but in that case you
get no influence on the timeframe for resolving it, as it is neither
a real "bug" nor a task that is likely to preempt other work at
sysadmins' plate.

> The lack of response (1) to my h-discuss e-mail full
> of suggestions; some would make a better co-op.

I remember that email. Speaking for myself, it was good but targetted
problems I did not perceive as serious enough to require attention
there and then. (Again, increasing board members to 5 should help
this problem).

In any case, we often revisit old posts, so the lack of immediate 
replies doesn't mean anything. Even if you do not bring this post
up again yourself, other members who appreciated it will.

> The failure of the moderator system. Mail to
> hcoop-misc, get warning cause address is unknown; get
> nothing more and no sign of correction.

This is a technical issue, it might have been a simple On/Off
switch in mailman that says whether unregistered senders get a 
moderation notice or not. Again I don't see how a setting of either
Yes or No makes a difference compared to all other setups out there.
It just works this or that way at HCoop, and attaching 'good' or 'bad'
conotations to it makes no sense.

If we turned moderation notices off due to spam, then probably that
decision makes more overall good than an occassional misunderstanding
does bad as in your case. Especially since you can just ask what's up.

> The wiki. To me, it's a brainstorming, organzing, etc.
> tool. Response I got said it's for technical data.

Not every member, but every person out there, being a member or not,
can edit our Wiki.

We use it for technical data; if you want to use it for brainstorming
and organizing, who's stopping you? And if you want to post about it
to our lists, to let other members know about it, you're welcome.

> The etiquette thing. Unstated rules about adding your
> reply to the end of someone's post need to be stated.

Possibly. I never thought this was a big deal, nor I could recall
a case when someone was answered in style of "didn't you
read the etiquette?!".

In any case, fell free to make improvements where needed (on the 
Wiki, in the mailing list welcome message etc.), and submit a bug
through https://bugzilla.hcoop.net/ with notes of what sysadmins
need to do to make your changes visible in plces where you don't
have write permission.

Filing Bugzilla reports is great; they don't disappear, so any 
report that makes sense will receive attention sooner or later,
and it'll be easier for everyone to point to the patch and 
accumulated discussion about it by pointing to bugzilla bug ID,
rather than browsing mailing list archives.

More work you do yourself, more towards the "sooner" side we'll move.

> -----------------
> I know the people who made HCoop work hard. I say
> share the work. Find people skilled enough, reliable
> to help:  moderators; wiki-gnomes (people who watch
> for wiki spam and delete it); I'm sure there's more
> that doesn't require an experienced sysadmin to do it.

Yes. So what's stopping you or anyone else to take on the task of
"wiki-gnome" or other function?

Anyone can do any part of the work they like, and thus "promote"
themselves to certain position.

However, for tasks that require administrator privileges, we can't
give access to many people, of which everyone would work on just 
a small subset.

First of all, doing so increases the chances of our setup "breakage"
many times, and second of all, person with sysadmin privileges focusing
on just one or two specific things doesn't see how their work could
affect other components. Finally, judging by the experience we had with
this in the past, granting people only some privileged actions (enough
to do their work), costs more of maintenance than if the admins just
did the work themselves.

> And I think the non-American's ntk (Nathan) refers to
> find it even harder to join in negative talk.
> 
> Let's make a co-op so we can do whatever with our
> piece of it.

Isn't this what we've been doing all along? The problem only happens 
when certain things are just not possible, and members go to blame it
on "management" rather than taking realistic view at the situation and
understanding why something is either impossible, or needs more work
invested in it so that admins/board members can do something with it.

> And get the IRC identities known

This is listed under Contact information on the portal; I don't remember
if IRC nicknames were supported. IIRC Adam opened a bugzilla bug about
it, if it's not resolved yet, it should be in a short while.

> - a voluntary departure (and arrival) survey of
> going/coming members. What hooked/unhooked them.

Great. I am not capable to offer any more organizational support other
than what I've been doing already, which is asking members on their 
leave to tell us their specific reasons. The last 3 or 4 members who
left did not care to reply. Other 2 or 3 before them shortly said HCoop
was not what they expected.

If you are willing to work on this, you can place yourself on the CC:
list for Bugzilla bugs in the "Financial" category. There, as members
submit account cancellation requests, you can send them an inquiry 
about it before their account is closed.

I would not be surprised if, introducing yourself as a regular member,
you had more success with it than I did.

Thanks,
-doc