[HCoop-Discuss] Proportional Representation?

[Adam Chlipala]

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

To be fair, the issue here is unwillingness to read documentation.  Many 
hosting services use entirely standard tools that most customers will be 
familiar with, but, IMO, our tools are superior and worth learning.  
(Not to mention that all of the "standard" tools are either insecure 
[for our setting] or limited/cumbersome.)

We also have the creation of tools with lower learning curves (but less 
"power") relatively high on our queue of things to do once we have our 
new server set-up mostly done.

> My blunders when I joined and asked for help.
>   

Could you remind us of exactly what you think went wrong and what should 
have happened instead?

> The bounced e-mails I never received -- until I asked.
>   

Are you suggesting that the admins implement some far-reaching program 
to detect when e-mail to members is bouncing?  I really don't understand 
how this example is constructive.

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

Anyone editing a .forward file manually ought to realize that he can 
screw up his own mail (and luckily no one else's!) arbitrarily, and so 
he should take responsibility for that.

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

I find most of your messages hard to decipher.  Your social norms seem 
quite different from those of most members, and I expect most others 
feel like I do that it takes a lot of effort to understand the real 
intent of your messages.  You may have good ideas, but the question is 
if a person could do more good for the co-op by working on some concrete 
implementation instead.

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

At some point, I think there was an explanation of this on the page we 
asked every new member to read.  I'm not sure if that was preserved 
through recent wiki refactoring, but I think I've now added sufficient 
explanation to this section:
http://wiki.hcoop.net/MemberManual/GettingStarted/AccountCreated#head-54b491558181e10314c557fd1c683826baa4e36a

At the same time, the rate at which mwolson is able to check the 
moderation queue today is unacceptably low, IMO.  This isn't meant to be 
a criticism of mwolson, as he's already doing us all a great favor by 
agreeing to handle moderation.  Luckily, this is a task that is quite 
easy to farm out to a trustworthy member without any serious security 
consequences.  Would anyone like to volunteer to moderate the hcoop-* 
lists?  We should try to find a person who goes through the moderation 
queues almost every day.

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

I don't think you got any response like that.  The real problem seems to 
be that your question was unclear, and you interpreted lack of answers 
to your "real" question as assertions that what you meant to ask for was 
not allowed, which wasn't the case.