Official Tinker Different Poll: Board Size Reduction

[Androda]

Hello everyone,​

The Tinker Different Board of Directors would like to put forth a question for a vote.​

Currently there are six positions on the Board of Directors, which are intended to be voted in from Forum membership on a schedule posted in the Board Governance Policy:

• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Director of Policies and Guidelines
• Director of Admins and Mods
• Public Relations Liaison

In addition, we have the Administrative Group which is the Treasurer (fogWraith) and Director of IT/Ops (eric) as permanent positions due to the sensitive nature of their roles and platform access.

If Tinker Different was a multinational corporation it would make sense to have this many people involved to keep up with everything. But right now Tinker Different is a forum and Discord server, and trying to get six people to serve as Board Members in addition to the two Admin Group members has been quite hard.

In the last two years, Tinker Different's policies have become much more formalized, and there have been effectively zero issues which would require the intervention of a Board member at all.

The Board of Directors would like to propose the following:​

• Decreasing the number of Board positions down to three: President, Vice President, and Secretary

These three individuals, along with the Admin Group members, would be responsible for forum steering and operations. None of the existing functions and responsibilities would be cut, rather they would be shared among a smaller group of people.

In this Poll there are two choices:​

• "Yes" to agree that cutting the number of Board Members to 3 is the right way forward
• "No" to signal support for the existing system

Either way, please feel free to leave a comment in the thread or message a Board Member to let us know what you think.

 

[Stinkerton18]

Yes, I do agree that a decrease is in positions is sound. The additional positions can be staffed at a later date easily enough with the current policies.

 

[Kai Robinson]

Yes, I do agree that a decrease is in positions is sound. The additional positions can be staffed at a later date easily enough with the current policies.

Exactly my feeling - we can always INCREASE if needed in the future, but for now - things just run along just fine with a small group. Finding people to stand for positions and take their time is a hard enough ask as it is.

 

[Mac84]

Yes, I think this makes sense and leaves open the possibility to increase (if needed) in the future.

 

[fxgogo]

Hi, I agree to reduce to 3 members on the board. Too much red tape and admin can be a stifler of community.
I did not realise tinker different was so formally organised. Is there a reason it is so? Not that I object, but curious when compared so many other vintage computing communities.

 

[Stinkerton18]

Hi, I agree to reduce to 3 members on the board. Too much red tape and admin can be a stifler of community.
I did not realise tinker different was so formally organised. Is there a reason it is so? Not that I object, but curious when compared so many other vintage computing communities.

I can answer that. It stems from an issue that's occurred in a couple other communities, some non-retro computing, where things like a conflict of personalities can cause significant damage to a community or lead to loss of some very important/critical information that really doesn't exist anywhere else. Things like a rogue admin/moderator removing someone's posts because they felt insulted, or a user getting banned for violating some unclear/arbitrary rule and having no clear recourse to appeal.

The processes we have in place are all designed to prevent that kind of abuse through multiple moderators and admins, with oversight and accountability, sound board procedures, site/server hosting best practices and backup procedures to protect against data loss due to software/hardware issues, etc. There's quite a few very useful guides and tips/tricks shared that are not always available elsewhere on the net, especially as companies like Apple/Microsoft/etc. purge old info/drivers/manuals/etc. off their servers.

 

[fxgogo]

I can answer that. It stems from an issue that's occurred in a couple other communities, some non-retro computing, where things like a conflict of personalities can cause significant damage to a community or lead to loss of some very important/critical information that really doesn't exist anywhere else. Things like a rogue admin/moderator removing someone's posts because they felt insulted, or a user getting banned for violating some unclear/arbitrary rule and having no clear recourse to appeal.

The processes we have in place are all designed to prevent that kind of abuse through multiple moderators and admins, with oversight and accountability, sound board procedures, site/server hosting best practices and backup procedures to protect against data loss due to software/hardware issues, etc. There's quite a few very useful guides and tips/tricks shared that are not always available elsewhere on the net, especially as companies like Apple/Microsoft/etc. purge old info/drivers/manuals/etc. off their servers.

That makes SOO much sense. Thanks for the explanation.