Re: [atlarge-discuss] call for a webmaster

["Andrew Bloch" <abloch@alum.mit.edu>]

From: "Gary Osbourne" <gro@direct.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 8:55 PM
> If the atlarge can't find enough folks willing
> and able to provide pro bono the necessary time
> and expertise out of 850 members (and perhaps
> others as I thought you'd agreed with) to run a
> website then I can't see why ICANN should take
> them seriously. If 850+ folks can't even manage
> to run one website, why should their opinions
> be taken seriously about running the internet?
>
> Why must collective ownership be due to cash,
> why can donations not be made in kind? Because
> that way the work gets done but no money changes
> hands? I don't see that as a bug, it's a feature.

I agree.  I can't believe that an upstart organization that is supposed to
be democratic and bottom-up would even think about paying for a webmaster.
I was shocked when I heard that Joop submitted an invoice (even if he did it
primarily to spur the panel to act). If you truly want this to be a
bottom-up, democratic organization, you should try to involve as many people
as possible as full participants in the organization.  Setting up and
running a website of the sort that At-large currently needs is a fairly
trivial task for someone with the right (free) software and a minimal amount
of experience, and there are probably dozens of At-large members who have
this ability (including myself, though I'm not sure I even want to remain a
member after the last 2 months of nonsense).

Creating and updating the content is a much more time consuming task, but
one which can and ought to be shared by as many people as possible.  Think
of a community of people like slashdot.org.

Speaking of slashdot, that and other websites like it would be a good place
to do outreach.  Get stories posted about this atlarge effort and I'm sure
you'd see a spike in new membership (and probably find a few willing
webmasters in the process).  But outreach should have been done well before
elections.  I can't imagine that many people would be interested in joining
after the elections with the next one so far down the road.

Finally, a comment about outreach.  It's not enough just to get people to
join.  You also want to get them involved and keep them involved, and keep
them from leaving.  You should try to get people to join discussions that
haven't before, and encourage them to continue.  Take me, for example.  Last
month I sent an email to this list, and I got exactly 2 private responses.
Here's the full body of those responses: "Thanks" and "Vote early, and
often."  If you take outreach and bottom-up participation seriously, at
minimum I should have gotten 7 brief responses (but at least 2 sentences),
one from each panel member.  Someone should have encouraged me to get more
involved.

Right now, I'd have to call the current atlarge effort a near disaster.  But
I'm an optimist and there may be some slim window of opportunity left.

Andy Bloch



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