[OpenID] We Need a Site Editorial Committee (Was: Changes to the OpenID Foundation member page login)

[Chris Messina]

One element of the challenge facing us is that good open source projects
tend to develop cultures that can operate on highly independent and
meritocratic bases. You still need your hubs for all the empowered nodes to
provide leadership and coordination, but work is done in a very distributed
way.
Over the past year, the care and feeding of the corporate members of the
foundation has taken up a great deal of attention and energy, and lead to,
in some ways, the stagnation of infrastructure that might have lead to
better communication flows, collaborative processes and distributed
responsibilities. This is the result of centralizing responsibility for
winning over these corporate members with the foundation; it certainly
accelerated their adoption of OpenID by these parties, but it meant leaving
the community ecosystem as a whole somewhat beyond the purview of the board,
and beyond the reach of those overworked heroes at the center.

No matter; I think that now that we have the hard-earned institutional
support of some of the largest internet brands, we can beyond to expand and
push outwards again. To some degree, I believe that this process will
actually increase the kind of natural accountability and transparency that
defines healthy open source projects. This won't happen, however, if there
is are not clearly and well-articulated goals and objectives however, and
those will hopefully be defined and refined by the incoming board.

Chris


On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Johannes Ernst <jernst+openid.net at netmesh.us
> wrote:

> We differ in our assessment then, which is fine ;-)
>
> I'd like to see us scale this organization so it can be effective globally,
> not just on a few mailing lists and through the heroic work of a few
> individuals.
>
> So far, we have not managed to do that at all: a handful of people is
> totally overworked, while collectively we are not meeting the needs of the
> members, or of the market, and we are not effectively taking advantage of
> the resources that are being offered.
>
> The only way that I know to improve this situation dramatically is to apply
> what is good organizational practice. Accountability, transparency and clear
> understanding of the key processes in the organization is at the very heart
> of this.
>
> It's not bureaucracy at all, it's what required to scale beyond the garage.
> And I'm really surprised that I sound like the lone voice in the wilderness
> here.
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 5, 2008, at 15:02, David Recordon wrote:
>
>  What I've been hearing in this thread is that accountability isn't the
>> main issue; transparency is.  We already have people responsible for the
>> website, Scott and myself with Chris Messina and Will Norris pitching in.
>>  Hold us accountable.
>>
>> As one of the people who is accountable, I see the problem being expressed
>> is others not knowing how we make decisions or how they can more easily
>> contribute.  That should be fixed.  We've already shown that others are able
>> to contribute whether it be upgrading the WordPress installation, writing
>> site content, or blogging but all of those currently require people seek us
>> out if they want to contribute.
>>
>> On Dec 5, 2008, at 2:52 PM, Johannes Ernst wrote:
>>
>>  A problem of accountability cannot be solved with a mailing list I'm
>>> afraid.
>>>
>>> We don't need accountability on all issues, or even most. But we do need
>>> it on a few, and this is one of them.
>>>
>>> Which is why there needs to be a body with a defined membership and a
>>> defined decision making process, chartered by the board of the foundation.
>>>
>>> If that body then decides that it conducts all of its business on a
>>> mailing list, all the better.
>>>
>>> But starting with the mailing list instead of the accountability gets it
>>> exactly backwards.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Johannes Ernst
>>> NetMesh Inc.
>>>
>>> <lid.gif> <openid.gif> http://netmesh.info/jernst
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> general mailing list
>>> general at openid.net
>>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Johannes Ernst
> NetMesh Inc.
>
>
>
>  http://netmesh.info/jernst
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> general mailing list
> general at openid.net
> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
>
>


-- 
Chris Messina
Citizen-Participant &
 Open Technology Advocate-at-Large
factoryjoe.com # diso-project.org
citizenagency.com # vidoop.com
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