SpringRTS Organizational specification

[8611]

Those groups/titles are good for nothing (both functional and organizational) and simply historic relicts that are only kept because whenever someone is about to delete that someone else came up with silly reasons like "it is part of spring history" or "he deserves to keep old title."
Or maybe it eases people's mind if for every uneasy decision there is the loophole of "Let's see what others have to say" even though those others are clearly inactive.

Anyone that hasn't logged in since 2013 should be relieved from such a role.

2013 is very long ago. Limit of inactivity should at MAX be one month, unless prior notice.

[gajop]

Anyone that hasn't logged in since 2013 should be relieved from such a role.

2013 is very long ago. Limit of inactivity should at MAX be one month, unless prior notice.

I agree, but even with this we would purge 80% of mods/admins.

[Silentwings]

Limit of inactivity should at MAX be one month, unless prior notice.

One month seems very short to me, six sounds more appropriate. Some people have regular workloads irl, for others it goes up and down.

imo: try and error

+1, I'd be happy to help but I think only forum admins can edit groups.

[dansan]

I think it's a bit weird that the entire Spring infrastructure is not financed by Spring.

About the server: springrts server rent forum thread.

[gajop]

I removed the information regarding the current status from the etherpad and put it http://springrts.com/wiki/About/Organization .
If you think some of those things can be still discussed (although etherpad seems quiet for a few days), feel free to add that thing back in.
Next we need to decide who'll hold Spring's finances. Seems no one is stepping up..?

[Kloot]

I will.

[abma]

I will.

thanks a lot! (added to the wiki)

i've added some stuff to the organization page: buildbot i.e. was missing which is quiet important for development. it already shows a bit how many projects/servers/people rely on each other. :)

[gajop]

I will.

Thanks, please add to wiki your PayPal+BitCoin+whatever else account that we can use for donations.
We also need to keep track on all donations, spendings* and status.

*spendings is something we need to find a way to agree on as a community (or find a way how it gets decided).

[gajop]

I've added Anarchid to the SPI liason of "finances" as there have been no direct objections so far and we need to handle it.
The next thing is we need to figure out who decides how Spring money is spent.
Imo a group of around 5 people is required, and I would prefer if they could be chosen by the community, but since we don't have the whole "choosing process" agreed upon yet, I say we should just have people step up on this and we'll see if there are any particular objections.

Please write your name here: http://etherpad.springrts.com/p/organization at the "Treasury" section. Do not nominate other people. If there are more than five who would like to do this, we will organize some polls.

I would suggest that we have at least one person from each important section of the community, in order to represent as many interests as possible.
- Spring engine
- ZK core game developer
- BA core game developer
- 2+ other prominent content developers
- Community leads (I honestly don't think we have such a person, but if anyone is willing to step up, please)
- ..?

The reason why I think we need a set number of people instead of having everyone vote on every issue is because it would be too cumbersome to do so. Still, I would prefer to use a democratic approach to choose those in power.

[Silentwings]

I don't think content developers should have a huge role to play in how Spring spends its money - imo engine/server developers and forum admins are much better placed to do so. This is partly because projects can occasionally "outgrow" Spring, which comes with the danger of non-neutrality, and partly because typically someone who is a content dev doesn't need to be familiar with Springs infrastructure.

So my proposal (up for alteration):
Take decisions on how to spend Springs money in minuted meetings with 1 engine dev, 1 forum admin, 1 server admin and 1 finance person. Finance person has deciding vote if split. Content/etc devs may attend and propose spending, may join in discussion if/when proposals affect them, but don't vote.

[Jools]

Forum admins should just be moderating the forum, not be concerned about money. Don't we have enough nepotism already as it is?

[raaar]

I've added Anarchid to the SPI liason of "finances" as there have been no direct objections so far and we need to handle it.
The next thing is we need to figure out who decides how Spring money is spent.
Imo a group of around 5 people is required, and I would prefer if they could be chosen by the community, but since we don't have the whole "choosing process" agreed upon yet, I say we should just have people step up on this and we'll see if there are any particular objections.

Please write your name here: http://etherpad.springrts.com/p/organization at the "Treasury" section. Do not nominate other people. If there are more than five who would like to do this, we will organize some polls.

I would suggest that we have at least one person from each important section of the community, in order to represent as many interests as possible.
- Spring engine
- ZK core game developer
- BA core game developer
- 2+ other prominent content developers
- Community leads (I honestly don't think we have such a person, but if anyone is willing to step up, please)
- ..?

The reason why I think we need a set number of people instead of having everyone vote on every issue is because it would be too cumbersome to do so. Still, I would prefer to use a democratic approach to choose those in power.

we don't need everyone to vote on every issue. I agree that would be cumbersome and hamper progress.

but there should be polls open to community ocasionally:
- polls to decide on key issues (rare, like one or two per year)
- polls to get feedback from the community on issues (less rare, a few per year)

smart polls help everyone know quantitatively how everyone else feels. That's important. It also helps prevent nepotism (at least when it goes against community will). For each poll, a discussion should be launched first. Both with set deadlines to prevent them from dragging on for too long.

content devs should have a role, but not as part of the deciding group, because of neutrality issues. I think polling the content devs occasionaly would be a good idea. Games with an active community should have higher weight, but not by much (2x, 3x max?).

[Jools]

If you talk about doing it in a democratic way, there is no way around letting the people decide. If you have only elected appointed people decide then it is not democratic. Yes, not everyone can have a say in daily affairs or the decision making will be very slow, but like in an association you typically have a governing body but with an annual meeting that controls that governning body. That's how it's done in civilian life.

By the way, when someone says something like:

I would suggest that we have at least one person from each important section of the community, in order to represent as many interests as possible.
- Spring engine
- ZK core game developer
- BA core game developer
- 2+ other prominent content developers
- Community leads (I honestly don't think we have such a person, but if anyone is willing to step up, please)
- ..?

Then he is not representing the whole community. He is representing zk, ba and '2 other prominent games'.

[Anarchid]

not representing the whole community

Hivemind or nothing? conjoin into the neural demarchy today!

Some decisions might warrant a referendum of all people with actual contributions, but you don't get anywhere if you regularly require coordination of more than 7 people for minute decisions.

[FLOZi]

I don't think content developers should have a huge role to play in how Spring spends its money - imo engine/server developers and forum admins are much better placed to do so. This is partly because projects can occasionally "outgrow" Spring, which comes with the danger of non-neutrality, and partly because typically someone who is a content dev doesn't need to be familiar with Springs infrastructure.

So my proposal (up for alteration):
Take decisions on how to spend Springs money in minuted meetings with 1 engine dev, 1 forum admin, 1 server admin and 1 finance person. Finance person has deciding vote if split. Content/etc devs may attend and propose spending, may join in discussion if/when proposals affect them, but don't vote.

There are only 2 forum admins and one of those is an engine dev.

I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, but I think the contribution of content devs should not be discounted (though deciding which opens a giant can of worms).

[smoth]

There are always engine decisions that can effect projects but working around them has become a way of life here. Content devs will raise a huge stink if the engine change is bad for them but will tend to get ignored if the devs feel the concern is unwarranted. If the concern is valid, they will address it. I think this should stay that way here.

[FLOZi]

Regardless:

Who are the end users of Spring Engine?

Why should they not have a say in how it's resources are used?

From whence do we expect the overwhelming majority of Bounty contributors?

[Tim Blokdijk]

I've added Anarchid to the SPI liason of "finances" as there have been no direct objections so far and we need to handle it.
The next thing is we need to figure out who decides how Spring money is spent.
Imo a group of around 5 people is required, ...

You are moving to fast for me to back your ideas. Please understand that I have a dayjob and need time to think things over. A lot of your proposals are controversial at best that need *a lot* of discussion. Now don't misunderstand, I do really appreciate that you try to move things forward! I want to help you be effective in that.
But give me some time to at least reply to your pm. Moving to fast with things that are not agreed upon by the people that would need to agree is a sure way to fail.

[AF]

All the social profiles minus Google+

moo

[Anarchid]

I think this as good a time as any to breach the SPI issue.

It has been discussed in lobby chat that basically having one individual person rather than an organization to handle the donations, and generally having assets which keep Spring alive in hands of various possibly irreplaceable individuals represents a risk.

The suggested strategy to remedy this situation is to have SpringRTS become an SPI associate project.

Software in Public Interest is one of those legal scaffold organizations in the form of an USA nonprofit. They can handle donations, defend against lawsuits, such stuff. In particular, SPI provide these services to Debian and 0AD, amongst others.

Relevant to the bounty discussion, it seems that 0AD were able to do their crowdfunding campaign with the help of SPI.

So: does anyone actually have issues with, thoughts about, or other ideas about Spring actually becoming an SPI associate project?