[HCoop-Discuss] Idea to get regular users more involved with the nuts-and-bolts of HCOOP

[Adam Chlipala]

Shaun Empie wrote:
> I really like this idea as well.  This is along the lines of what I was
> thinking in a previous email I sent.  I think every member needs to be
> involved in the running of the coop.

I'm perfectly willing to let people pay more to avoid volunteering, and 
I think I'm probably willing to let people pay the same and avoid 
volunteering, too, as long as they show everyone else courtesy in not 
overusing resources just "because they paid for them."  I think you need 
to face the fact that we will have many fewer members and a much smaller 
financial resource base if we force every member to take on some task.  
Heck, I hope that I won't have any HCoop tasks 10 years from now, and 
I'd still like to remain a member.

> We could make committees like
> marketing, documentation, web server, email server, architecture, etc. 
> Everyone would have to be on one.  The group would work together and
> decide on changes and the person leading the committee could either make
> the changes or pass them along to an admin.
>   

For the first two of your suggestions, I agree that it would be great to 
have member committees taking on those tasks.  I think the last three 
(and especially the last one!) are best accomplished by general mailing 
list discussion, followed by implementation by a handful of admins who 
have made strong time commitments.  (This might or might not be because 
we're paying them.)

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that different sysadmin task 
areas can be assigned to different people without any bad consequences, 
but there is real value added from taking a holistic approach, where a 
few people (in theory) understand everything.  You never know when 
pieces that you marked as separate end up needing to work together.  I 
know most of the people we've had as volunteer sysadmins are capable of 
taking on the whole system design and implementation with just a few 
hours of work per week, and I think the co-op should hope we can find a 
few people to do just that, if we can agree on pay rates or other 
conditions that make it worth their while.

But I want to emphasize that I think forming committees of people 
without root access is a great idea for a number of activities, 
including "first level tech support."