On 10/17/2015 09:54 PM, Jason Harrer wrote: > Hi, Jon - > > I'm assuming you're referring to the Team Member designation for users > affiliated with projects on Snowdrift.coop. If you're referring to > something else, then this response may not be valid for your question, > and my apologies in advance for the misunderstanding. >
Thanks for the thoughts, Jason. I think this perspective *will* help Jon make sense of other things. But the topic is indeed different. This is about who gets to count for which class of co-op member as Snowdrift.coop proposes a *multistakeholder* co-op model. So, there are three classes: Snowdrift, Projects, General. The first is for the employees/team of Snowdrift specifically (like working on the site itself), the second is those who work on other projects that we help fund, and the third is people who are only patrons. The question is: How do we determine who gets to count enough as a team member of Snowdrift and thus get to vote in that member class in the co-op? The same question also must be answered for counting as a member of other project teams too. > My first thought on your ask is that there seems to be an assumption > that all projects that will be signing up for Snowdrift.coop will be > coops themselves. We do not assume that projects must themselves run as co-ops, we just encourage them to. > > Many of the Open Source software projects that are out there are a > one-man or few-man show. There's not enough folks there to justify a > full on command hierarchy like there would be at a corporation. > Especially at the beginning, many of the folks will be purely > volunteer. Until these projects get up and running, there's a chance > that not even the one-man contributors may be getting paid to work on > the project (or, potentially, paid enough, as some only get paid a small > amount each month, potentially less than minimum wage in whatever > state/province/county/country/etc. they hail from, which would then lead > to the question of... at what threshold of payment would one be > considered an employee vs. a volunteer?). If you're talking about some > of the other project types that Snowdrift.coop is available for (music, > art, writing, etc.), it's even less likely that they'll fit a coop or > command-hierarchy mold. Regardless of internally working as a co-op, each of these projects gets to have their participants be members of the Snowdrift co-op. So your question remains: how do we determine someone counting as the project class? In other words, does a musician who lists their music on the site and fails to get much support get the same membership status and vote as someone who gets their entire income funded through their project on Snowdrift.coop? It's not about their internal operations, it's about the position in decision-making for Snowdrift.coop policies and decisions. > > That being said, a team member to me is someone working on the project. > It makes no discernment about whether they're paid or volunteer, nor > does "team member" on its own really provide any hierarchy, nor do I > believe such a distinction is really necessary. They are all working on > the project, and from the public's perspective, that's really all they > need to know about any individual person. Yes, we can have a spot > somewhere on a project page that identifies how many paid employees a > project has, as I can see the benefit of that from a "Where is the money > I'm donating going to?" perspective, but calling out individuals as > employees or volunteers in the list is really unnecessary. Right. But for the issue in question here, we need to determine *legally* sound definitions of who gets to count as a project team member given that they have legal rights as a co-op member (voting for Board elections etc., with a distinct voting class being project teams vs general patrons). So the challenge is that we *need* some way that isn't totally unspecified as to who gets to decide or what criteria is used for whether someone counts as part of project teams. I definitely prefer the idea of not making it strictly about pay, but this issue is challenging to nail down. And we have to nail it down in some legal form. > > Yes, there are admins and moderators outside of the team member moniker, > but that's related to who controls what on Snowdrift.coop, not > necessarily the project itself, and there won't always be a direct > correlation between the two (e.g. Assuming a company structure here, > neither a CEO nor even a CIO may necessarily be the administrator for > their Snowdrift.coop project pages... it could potentially be just > someone on staff in the IT department or even an admin assistant). > > Again, my apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but if you're asking what I > think you're asking, then my vote would be against changing the project > user designations. So, in the end, your points aren't entirely off-topic, they are very relevant. We want to have the same public presentation of who is on a project team as the legal specification of who gets to vote in the co-op as part of the project class. At some level, it makes sense to say "projects decide however they like who is formally part of their teams" but we don't want a situation in which a project can artificially pack the project class with people who support them just by claiming a bunch of people as team members when they really aren't. But that may be a worry that never materializes… In the end, we should provide *some* specification to projects about what qualifications a person should meet to be considered a formal part of a project's team, and that same qualification might apply to the Snowdrift team itself, or we could possibly have a more specific qualification fo us… > > On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 3:45 PM, Jonathan Roberts > <robertsthebr...@gmail.com <mailto:robertsthebr...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Hey all, > > I've been trying to solve the problem of what makes a "snowdrift > project team member?" Snowdrift project team members elect a special > representative on the board of directors, and it is assumed that > they are tied in some way to the work of the co-op, but it's unclear > what qualifications this group of people has, how their roles should > be organized, what expectations should be put on them and who has > the authority to ad them to that class. > > I propose that instead of one class of "team members" that we have > "employees" and "contributors." The "employees" would be hired and > overseen by the general manager and would elect a special board > representative. The "contributors" could be a much more open list; > it could give credit to anyone who's helped out, list their contact > info, and indicate whether they are still actively working on > anything and what it is. There is a question in this framework of > whether this class should also have a special board representative. > I would say no, except that I think it is important that there be a > designated advocate for anyone who thinks they should be getting > payed for the work they're doing. > > The biggest downside to this system I see is that we don't know, > especially starting out, if we're going to have any money to pay > people, even if they are indispensable to the ongoing functioning of > snowdrift. One solution to this would be to let the GM include > "unpayed staff" in the class at their discretion. We could also have > it be a job qualification for any potential employee that they be > listed as "active" on the "contributors" list, which could be > governed by an algorithm that measures a base level of activity on > the site. > > Thoughts? > > -Jon > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop <mailto:Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop> > https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop > https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Aaron Wolf Snowdrift.coop <https://snowdrift.coop> _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.snowdrift.coop https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/discuss
