New roles in the Ubuntu IRC team

Tue Oct 25 08:28:26 UTC 2011

+1 for Juha on this, especially on sharing workload etc

On 25 October 2011 11:15, Juha Siltala <juha at siltala.net> wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ubuntu-irc mailing list
>> Ubuntu-irc at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-irc
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Juha Siltala
>
> --
> Ubuntu-irc mailing list
> Ubuntu-irc at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-irc
>


-- 
Jussi Kekkonen, Tm_T
  Ubuntu/KDE developer  tmt at ubuntu.com