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Grex > Coop13 > #365: The Staff and Board Alert Item | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 92 responses total. |
naftee
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response 28 of 92:
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Oct 9 20:13 UTC 2006 |
thanks, mike, and good luck.
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aruba
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response 29 of 92:
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Oct 9 22:32 UTC 2006 |
Mike - I hope things take a turn for the better. When you're up for it,
we'd like to have you back on the Grex staff.
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charcat
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response 30 of 92:
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Oct 10 01:51 UTC 2006 |
Always glad to hear what you have to say Mike, good luck and hope you
can return.
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keesan
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response 31 of 92:
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Oct 10 02:27 UTC 2006 |
How many staff members are left now?
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nharmon
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response 32 of 92:
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Oct 10 02:47 UTC 2006 |
It depends who you ask. Could be 3 to 33.
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cross
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response 33 of 92:
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Oct 10 03:57 UTC 2006 |
According to /etc/group:
bhoward,gelinas,glenda,i,janc,kip,mdw,remmers,srw,steve
Of those, bhoward is inactive these days; kip is inactive; mdw is inactive.
So that leaves gelinas, glenda, i, janc, remmers, srw, and steve.
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spooked
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response 34 of 92:
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Oct 10 09:05 UTC 2006 |
Out of the remainder:
'gelinas' is inactive (mostly reads confs maybe monthly)
'glenda' does not do many (any?) staff activities *that I know*
'i' does not do staff activities *that I know*, but is mainly cfadm
'janc', 'remmers' may do the odd job here and there
'srw', I think he still handles the vast bulk of staff email
'steve' is probably the most active, and even he is not that active
anymore (and is sometimes counter-active/defeatist)
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keesan
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response 35 of 92:
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Oct 10 14:29 UTC 2006 |
Who picks grex up when it crashes? Spooked, what were you doing as staff?
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cross
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response 36 of 92:
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Oct 10 16:19 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #35; That's a good question (who picks grex up when it crashes).
Unfortunately, for the most part, we don't know, since those who do it can't
bring themselves to update the motd or post in agora for the most part. Hmm.
Bummer.
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remmers
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response 37 of 92:
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Oct 10 16:32 UTC 2006 |
Yeah, I'm a real slacker.
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cross
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response 38 of 92:
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Oct 10 16:53 UTC 2006 |
A true bum. But it's not always you; a short time ago, I believe Glenda
rebooted grex.
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mary
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response 39 of 92:
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Oct 10 17:02 UTC 2006 |
I say stone 'em all.
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twenex
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response 40 of 92:
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Oct 10 17:07 UTC 2006 |
Nah, we only do that if you say "Jehovah."
Oh, shit....
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cross
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response 41 of 92:
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Oct 10 17:23 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #39; Is that supposed to be sarcastic?
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slynne
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response 42 of 92:
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Oct 10 18:04 UTC 2006 |
I say we double their pay!
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cross
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response 43 of 92:
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Oct 10 18:41 UTC 2006 |
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Really, it amazes me that some peope can't seem to get their heads around the
idea that grex has a problem, and it's going to get bigger.
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keesan
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response 44 of 92:
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Oct 10 19:06 UTC 2006 |
Grex also has a staff, which seems to be getting smaller.
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cyklone
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response 45 of 92:
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Oct 10 19:51 UTC 2006 |
Somewhere in coop I mentioned grex has a "succession" problem if a "main"
staffer goes down. McNally asked what I suggested. Here goes: Document the
hell out of the system and make mutiple copies. I'll leave it to the
techies on grex to determine what exactly should be documented and how.
Next, cross-train at least two new staffers to do the job of each "main"
staffer. This may also mean doing something akin to an ADA "essential job
functions" description. I've given this advice to friends with big
tech-reliant companies, and they thanked me, not that I expect the same
from grex. A little action in this direction by the Board would be
appreciated, though.
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spooked
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response 46 of 92:
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Oct 10 20:23 UTC 2006 |
What was I doing? Very little apparently. And, when I did do something,
I was screwed over - with no apology. I did, however, besides the odd job
here and there manage to highlight serious problems with the auto(bi)cratic
management of staff and it's non-visionary/sheep culture. Which to me is
invaluable given the current predicament that is staff. However, seems to
me to go in one ear and out the other of most of the flock.
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cross
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response 47 of 92:
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Oct 10 22:56 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #45; That's a good idea, but how do you get people to follow it?
Jan made a good first effort stab at this: he put all the configuration for
grex into a single CVS tree, wrote scripts to apply updates to the base
system, documented things, etc, etc, etc. Unfortunately, the CVS tree was
hosted on a server that was NOT grex itself. So, for a staff member to modify
it, a staff member must also have access to another host. I never had such
access (though remmers was in the process of creating me an account on the
CVS machine when I quit staff). Further, there's one copy of grexdoc (the
configuration hierarchy) checked out under /grex/grexdoc. Unfortunately, it
was checked out by jan, and consequently hard for anyone else to update. I
lobbied to get the CVS repository moved to grex itself, but got shot down
under the (reasonable) counter-argument that hosting the repository elsewhere
made more sense from a backup perspective. Only, that just shifts the point
of failure away from grex to another machine: you still have a single point
of failure. I then argued that another solution would be to host the
repository on grex, and rsync it to another machine, but that was just
ignored. Of course, an even better solution would be to set up the CVS
repository on grex, and then set up a CVSupd on grex so that anyone could
mirror the CVS repository elsewhere. If, say, HVCN ran cvsup out of cron once
an hour or so, sucking down grex's CVS repository, you'd get pretty good
backup coverage without the hassle of an off-site repository. HVCN already
provides a few services for grex (and vice versa), so it wouldn't be an
administrative or political stretch. In particular, grex nominally provides
shell and dialup services for HVCN, so it isn't much to ask them to return
the favor not just by mirroring grex's staff and board mailing lists, but also
by mirroring the small amount of data in grex's essential configuration files.
But I digress. Another problem with grexdoc was that not everyone even used
it. Some of the long-time staffers just sort of ignored it and did their own
thing. Often, this was just because they weren't familiar with it.
Sometimes, it was because it was easier. I suspect in one or two cases it
was just because they did't want to be hassled with it and it wasn't the way
things had always been done up to that point.
So, in summary, there's a rudimentary but functional change control and
documentation process in place. It's just not always followed.
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slynne
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response 48 of 92:
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Oct 10 23:08 UTC 2006 |
All I can say is that while I think it is an excellent idea to have
people document things and train others, I can tell you that even in my
place of employment where people are *paid* to do those things, it
never gets done to a standard that makes the training/documentation
useful.
Of course where I work a lot of that has to do with people's fears
about losing their jobs. No one wants to make a really good set of
documents because as soon as one exists, it makes it a lot easier for
management to fire everyone. Since they have demonstrated with their
actions in the past that such a worry is well founded doesnt help get
things documented.
Naturally, no one will fire any grex staff simply because things are
documented. But then there is the fact that writing documentation is
kind of a pain in the neck. It is great when people do it but actually
getting people to do it is another thing altogether.
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cross
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response 49 of 92:
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Oct 10 23:14 UTC 2006 |
But they will fire them if they don't `get along' with certain other staffers,
as has happened in the past. But that won't keep them from pimping certain
work out to those former staff members (while talking shit about them behind
their backs).
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cyklone
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response 50 of 92:
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Oct 10 23:58 UTC 2006 |
No offense, lyunne, but if you are going to import your negative experiences
with one employer to grex, then perhaps you are not well-suited to being a
board member. While I certainly hope that board members draw on all their
experiences when making decisions about grex, I don't think grex needs board
members with an "it didn't work there, so it can't work here" attitude.
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tod
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response 51 of 92:
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Oct 11 00:23 UTC 2006 |
re #48
Naturally, no one will fire any grex staff simply because things are
documented. But then there is the fact that writing documentation is
kind of a pain in the neck. It is great when people do it but actually
getting people to do it is another thing altogether.
I sympathize with your descriptions but I hesitate to say that we shouldn't
ask staff to put a blip in the system problems item in Agora for say things
like reboots or other obvious interruptions. I've asked several times for
a who/what after the system comes back online and don't think it should be
necessary to ask. A person with root privilege is entrusted by the Board who
is entrusted by the membership to keep its asset useful. If somebody brings
the system up then we should at least get a status of Grex's condition.
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slynne
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response 52 of 92:
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Oct 11 00:44 UTC 2006 |
resp: 50 I am just pointing out that writing technical documentation is
not most people's idea of a good time. Not only that, sometimes people
have real reasons for NOT writing documentation. Since I have no way of
knowing what is going on in the heads of current staff members, I just
used a personal anecdote to illustrate why sometimes people have an
interest in keeping knowledge to themselves.
So the question becomes, how do we motivate people to write
documentation and mentor other staff people?
As it happens, I dont currently have an answer to that question. I do
know that when it comes to motivation, most people respond more
positively to the carrot than they do to the stick. So you will forgive
me if I dont take your approach. I see an end where people donate lots
of time and money to grex because they think grex is worth it and they
get something positive for their efforts (a good feeling perhaps). I
dont, however, know how to get there.
That might make me not well-suited to being on the board but that is a
moot point anyways since I dont agree with that point enough to cause me
to resign from the board. I am also not eligible for re-election when my
term is up and I can honestly say that there is at least a part of me
that looks forward to joining the ranks of those who get to criticize
and make OBVIOUS suggestions like "we need documentation" without having
to worry about actually having to put any effort into making that
happen.
resp:51 I think it is ok for us to ask that staff put something in the
systems problems item or something in the motd. But I dont think we
should require it. One of my fears if we did that is that grex might
crash and someone might think something along the lines of "I have time
to run over and reboot it but I dont have time to log on and put
something in the motd or an item and I dont want to deal with people
being angry that I didnt inform them so I'll get to it later when I have
more time."
My other big fear is what if the board requires such a thing and staff
simply ignores it? What a negative and terrible position that would be,
huh? Because well, you know, punishment works real well with a volunteer
staff.
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