[HCoop-Discuss] On organizing people to get work done

[Adam Chlipala]

John T. Settino wrote:
> I personally can't say that I would feel it fair to have my dues 
> doubled and not receive any noticeable upfront benefit.

You must be thinking about this irrationally, ignoring the possibilities 
of relatively unlikely but high-cost disasters.  Your dues have never 
covered reasonable protection against disasters, and I think most 
members consider disaster protection a high priority.

Also, it seems odd that you feel you are entitled to others' volunteer 
labor that reduces your costs.  We could never have set up our current 
infrastructure without substantially more volunteer dedication than we 
have now.  We've had a sea change in our ability to get anything done, 
and there just isn't a free lunch to be had anymore.  Sorry.  You could 
look at the bright side and be glad that a few of us gave you a 
discounted ride in these past years.

> For example, my only gripe with hcoop is that email is often slow and 
> boggy. Will doubling my monthly payment magically make email get 
> better? I doubt it.

I expect that, if we had paid staff, we'd never have any period of 
e-mail slowness lasting more than a week or two.  It's inevitable that, 
no matter how we solve our performance problems now, we'll reach more 
milestones in server load and run into the same slowness of ability to 
implement fixes, if we don't change our staffing situation.  So, in 
other words, yes, you would be seeing a serious improvement now if we 
had hired paid staff, say, two months ago or earlier.