[Proposal] Bulldrek Maintenence Schedule

[Kai]

Because I really don't have time to go trying to remember who wants what when and how, an idea I just had. Impose a maintence schedule.

• All issues, changes, additions, requests and etc can be discussed however long people want.
  First of the month, people can put up proposals with a yes/no vote only. Everyone gets 7 days to vote.
  On day 8, if there's a majority in favor, its added to the Maintenence List.
  Also on day 8, a poll is put up with everything on the Maintenence List, everyone gets 3 days to vote on what gets worked on this month.
  For the month, the task with the most votes gets worked on, if it gets finished, the next task in votes is started

What do we think?

[3278]

Of course there are a ton of things to get done, 70% of them are in the eternal Bulldrek limbo of there's no way to declare concensus, another 20% are in the limbo of no one wants to take the time to list these things, and its only the other 10% waiting for answers from upstream, time from me, or someone else to learn things to be able to help

I don't think the problem is that we can't decide what needs done, and I don't think the solution is having people vote only once a month on proposals. I think the problem is that there's not enough people who have enough time to fix these problems on the Control staff. [There are actual, well-known bugs that haven't been fixed since the server move, so the problem definitely isn't that we can't reach a concensus!]

I've always assumed, if people don't say otherwise in the poll, that people have a week to vote. That's actually written down somewhere, if I recall. In any case, almost every problem/request on the board hasn't had a new vote for weeks, so I think we can safely say they're decided.

As I see it, there are two problems. One, not enough staff time. This is both a lack-of-staff and a staff-time problem. How many people are on the staff? Three?

The second problem is that there's no master list of what's been proposed, what's been decided, who's going to do it, and when. There have been various attempts to do this - Sal's done it more than once, if I recall - but since the main problem is lack of staff [and has been for a couple years] nothing gets done on them.

The solutions to these problems seem fairly clear. We need more staff time - which means more staff or more time - and we need a clear, systematic method of keeping track of what needs done. I do not think the solution to these problems is a maintenance schedule.

[Kai]

Well a list would be emminently useful by all means. I have yet to see one that includes only stuff we've decided on, though. Being as that's not a job that requires much in the way of skill, I at least would appreciate someone being in charge of that, post it monthly or something.

Staff wise, I've done all I can. OpenBoard still sits there for people to learn phpBB. No one wants to from what I can see there. I can't teach it, god knows I can't show anyone. I haven't seen anyone who knows it step up either. Adam has the email thing under control, Toon has the photo album, minus trying to get the problem with thumbnails fixed (upstream is looking into it), everything else is unfortunatly dependant on knowing at least the basics of phpBB. I would love to see 6, 10, 20 people working on board code, it would certainly help my stress levels.

Time wise, simply put, this is a hobby, a pasttime, something I do for fun. I don't expect any money because this isn't a job. This does mean it does have to come after jobs I do get paid for though, and sometimes, a lot of time recently, after the other responsibilities in my life like a wedding.

Unfortunatly, I don't see the situation changing anytime soon much as I would like it to, so a maintence schedule is the best I can come up with to make things better. Sorry.

[Salvation122]

I'll get the list together today or tomorrow and start looking at Farm when I can; I was under the impression that it had been shut down since before I had finals.

[3278]

Staff wise, I've done all I can.

And please don't think I'm indicating otherwise. You've done more than anyone in the last year or so; the problem is in circumstance, and not effort.

[Szechuan]

I volunteered for WWA a year or more ago. I still haven't gotten my server info yet, and now the whole issue is moot.
[/bitch]

How long will it take to get me server access if I want to help?

[Kai]

Server access for...? There's different passwords for different parts

[Szechuan]

Depends, really. What do you want me to try and fix?