New roles in the Ubuntu IRC team

[Juha Siltala]

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 04:22, Benjamin Kerensa <bkerensa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could a term other than "Champions" be used? To me Champions seems a tad
> elitist and may make other contributors feel that their contributions are
> not as important since they are not "Champions"

Certainly, the term is not important at all. There are examples of a
similar levels of delegation, like the "Linus's lieautenants" term
that was fashionable when the Linux project famously added a level of
"hierarchy" to their organization during the "Linus doesn't scale"
incident. Borrowing military terms is not something I'm a big fan of
though. Another term that comes to mind is "maintainer", borrowed from
the software side. However, that smells like a higher level of
resposibility and stress than we probably mean here.

In general, I like Jussi's suggestion, and would like to name a few
benefits we could gain:

* The people who notice first when things need action are not usually
the IRCC but team members who are already working in the affected area
of our work. This is especially true if Council members opt to step
back from active op duties as is advisable in order to ensure
neutrality.

* This could enhance team spirit and sense of involvement and
empowerment within the team.

* Simply and practically, larger "administrative" workforce which
would lighten everybody's load.

When there is more work than the current system can handle, delegation
is a sensible thing to do. It is quite clear that things are currently
done too slowly and sometimes issues linger for unacceptable lengths
of time.

The IRCC should of course still remain responsible for the team, and
answerable to the CC just as it is now. This would be about enhancing
our organization of work, not about the IRCC dodging responsibility.

Juha

>
> On 10/24/2011 11:49 AM, Jussi Schultink wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> One of the criticisms the IRCC has received recently is the lack of
>> interaction with the IRC team in terms of decision making, as well as
>> the lack of things getting done. There has been a lack of teamwork to
>> get things done, as well as a lack of communication.
>>
>> I would like to propose some new roles within the IRC team to help get
>> more stuff done that also have the added benefits of communication
>> improvement and teamwork.
>>
>> I would like to see "champions" for several areas that need taking
>> care of within the team. These "champions" would be responsible for
>> awareness in the team of their area, as well as ensuring tasks get
>> followed up on. (the champion doesn't have to do all the work, just
>> ensure that it gets done)
>>
>> The champion would also have a lot of input into the overall direction
>> of what happens with that area of the IRC team, thus these roles would
>> give people an opportunity to have a real impact on the team and its
>> direction. There could be more than one champion for each role.
>>
>> I would propose the following areas to have champions, but please feel
>> free to suggest other areas - especially if you are willing to take up
>> the role.
>>
>>  *Bots&  bot direction (Specifications, idea management, perhaps some
>> implementation)
>>  *Ban list maintenance/eir care (everybody would be still responsible
>> for bans, but this person would be ensuring the ban list does not get
>> overfull, ensuring new ops get proper eir training, following up on
>> any bugs in eir)
>>  *Documentation review (reviewing the wiki and other documentation on
>> a regular basis)
>>  *Channel list review (Reviewing the channel list of our namespace
>> channels for stale and/or inappropriate channels)
>>  *Factoid Maintenance and review (reviewing factoids and checking for
>> old and outdated factoids on a regular basis, updating factoids).
>>  *Policy review (reviewing policies for efficiency, usefulness,
>> scale-ability, suggestions of changes to policy)
>>
>> Again, I want to stress that the champion doesn't need to do all the
>> work, just follow up and ensure it gets done.
>>
>> Also, as part of this, I would like to change the IRCC meeting name to
>> IRC Team meeting, and have the champions be a part of the meeting when
>> appropriate, to bring things that need changing to the attention of
>> the IRC team and the IRC council.
>>
>> The IRC Council's role in all of this would be to approve changes to
>> policy and set out a long term plan for growth and maintenance of the
>> IRC team, in consultation with the IRC team and the champions.
>>
>> I would like to hear all constructive thoughts on this route, be they
>> positive or negative.
>>
>> I would like this to be a part of our long term plans to be discussed
>> in the UDS, following discussion on the mailing list and hopefully
>> also in the next IRCC meeting this Sunday.
>>
>> BR
>>
>> Jussi
>>
>
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Benjamin Kerensa
>
>
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>



-- 
Juha Siltala