ADMIN/MEMB: Prospective Members (reformatted)

[Cindy C.]

Hey!

I wrote:

> How many people do we want, anyway?
> 
Ali replied:

> Well, can we hold our horses and decide that question first?

Just to be clear . . . 

I was answering Tom's question.  He asked for other nominees, so I
gave a few.  I do agree, though, that we ought to decide a few things
about how this group is to work.

 
> I personally would rather that we decide on those who we *owe* a 
> response to first. 

Yep, seems like a plan.  Maybe we should pick a date by which this
process of deciding on the prospective members Sheryll identified will
be concluded?  Tom suggested a week, which sounds fine by me.  But a
week from *when?*  Are we certain that all FAQ members received Tom's
message?  If not, it hardly seems fair that the clock ought to be
ticking just yet.

>To me, it would seem common decency to decide on 
> outstanding membership requests. Those who are already "pending" 
> won't really change the dynamics of this list too much, but a 
> decision on how big FAQ should be, might.

Well, maybe we can multi-task and do both things at once?  

We can discuss the merits of those proposed thus far (which we are
doing) and wrap that by a date certain (a week-from-whenever), and at
the same time, we can talk about just how big we want to be and
anything else anyone wants to discuss.

 
> I am not in favour of opening the group to anyone who wants. This 
> could mean that we would end up having a really large group of 
> people and still nothing happens.

Yeah, maybe so.  I guess we have to figure out the reason nothing is
getting done.  Personally, I would attribute it to boredom/low morale;
a lack of leadership, focus and accountability; abandoning the idea of
working in groups rather than working solo; and a relatively small
number of members who have actually committed to (and followed through
on) beginning the writing of a FAQ or assisting in the writing of a
FAQ.  Unfortunately, diagnosing the problems is a lot easier than
curing them, in my experience.

 
> Forgive me, but I think that the real reason that this group hasn't 
> been productive in recent months, is not because of our numbers or 
> because of the people on the list. It is because of OoP and the 
> problems which have spilled over here. 


I'm sorry, Ali, but I'm not sure I'm following you.  Are you saying
that we haven't been productive because of OoP and OoP-related
problems that have spilled over here?

Personally, I think the reason we haven't been productive is because
we haven't made "being productive" a priority.  A few months back,
several of our members said they didn't wish to be nagged to finish
FAQs.  IIRC, the sentiment at the time was that we don't need
leadership or accountability or any of that stuff, as people will do
what they will do.  Penny's Message 2264 contains a better explanation
than my rough paraphrase above, and sums this up nicely.

So.  I think we should decide what kind of group we want this to be. 
I really don't think our current working model will yield much anytime
soon, but we may not have a whole lot of choice in the matter.


>Having additional members did 
> not solve the problem when they came on board earlier in the year, 
> so I'm unclear as to why inviting more people now, would solve the 
> problem.

Well, I dunno.  When we jumpstarted the list last October, we did it
with a large influx of new, eager members who catalogued their brains
out (Eileen, Eloise, Ali et al.).  Again this spring, we brought in
another group of new members (Phyllis, Tom, Abigail et al.) and we
were really rolling there for a while  -- including Abigail's detailed
Harry outline, which is the first time the group has come anywhere
close to progress on a Harry FP.  So I wouldn't automatically discount
the value of some new faces.  

But like I said, a lack of bodies may well not be the problem here, so
it's hard to say that it would be the solution.  It may be that we
just haven't decided that we *have* to produce anything.  I dunno. 
I'm waffling, myself.

 
> What we really need is some kind of catalyst to kick start us into 
> action. To me, this would be some individual or group beginning 
> their FAQ and others following on a crest of enthusiam. 

<waffles>

At first glance, I think this makes sense.  

But then again, poor Abigail has asked for comments on her Harry
outline again and again, and it seems to be stalled.  So the effort of
one extremely dedicated person hasn't been enough to jumpstart the
whole FAQ list so far.  Dicey uploaded something on Sirius, and it
didn't light a fire under other FAQ writers either, so far as I can tell.

It's like we're about to deliver a *huge* baby, and the contractions
are weak and ineffective.  The doctors and nurses are all milling
around, waiting for someone else to grab some forceps and *do
something!*  It's almost like we need a shot of Pitocin* to get us
from zero-to-sixty!  I don't know that a hit of Pitocin would be
sufficient to generate enough momentum to carry us through to actually
"squeezing out" any new FAQs, but it can't hurt.

Cindy -- who loves metaphors and is fresh out of Pitocin  ;-D

*Pitocin is a drug given to women in labor.  It makes their
contractions really, really strong so the baby can be born.