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From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 07:39:55 -0500
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Subject: Re: [Llg-members] Demand for depriving Gleki of his
 administratorship and of official-pretending accounts.
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On 2/28/2016 11:45 AM, Craig Daniel wrote:
> Are there any policies against doing the things described?

I'll take this as a point of inquiry, and as I will indicate below, gets 
to the heart of what LLG, its membership, and its Board, are supposedly 
about.  I address specific comments to mukti and guskant below, and 
Robin may wish to say something if he reads this. My next-to-last 
paragraph is explicitly directed to all members.

You are a Board member, Craig? Shouldn't Board members have the 
responsibility to know the answers to such questions?

The answer is that there are essentially NO official policies of any 
sort regarding the web site.  Robin is the owner/administrator, and he 
set things up the way he wanted with no discussion by the Board and 
negligible discussion in the members or main mailing lists.

I as President, have too little knowledge of how web sites are 
administered in this day and age.  LLG does not have a Chief Information 
Officer, or any other official person whose job explicitly includes such 
policy.  So it would devolve upon the Board as a whole (the 
Secretary/Treasurer probably could assert CIO authority as being a 
communications function, but it hasn't been addressed.)

Note that since Robin was Secretary/Treasurer for the last decade and a 
half, the Board doesn't even know whether lojban.org is owned by LLG or 
by Robin himself.  Nor do we know the ownership of similar named URLs 
(lojban.com, lojban.edu, lojban.biz, etc, which we might have a 
legitimate claim to - at one time a couple of these were donated to us, 
but I don't know if they were ever used).  John Cowan and I and Veijo 
Vilva while he hosted the site, jointly managed the website before Robin 
took over responsibility some 15 years ago, with the approval of the 
membership that wanted the website actively managed and brought up to 
then-modern standards, rather than merely being a loosely organized 
repository of approved content.

Robin did have independent authority from LLG to manage whatever section 
of the website concerned byfy work, pretty much in whatever way he 
wished.  That authority then implicitly passed to selpa'i when he became 
BPFK jatna, but I don't know whether selpa'i is even using the website 
for BPFK business or whether those old pages are still valid or 
obsolete.  That seems like the sort of thing that the members may wish 
to ask the jatna when he reports and presumably seeks authority for 
another year (Old Business).

As I understand it, Robin has over time granted quasi-administrator 
status over party or all of the web site, mailing lists, and even his 
server, to those people who proved themselves by DOING things. He didn't 
ask for LLG direction or permission, nor did we assert any authority to 
do so.  I think he set it up so that almost anyone can get the ability 
to edit most web pages merely by registering, since the website is run 
using wiki software.  But I don't know, and the members have never asked 
Robin to report on his administration of the site.

The same, BTW, is true of any non lojban.org websites used unofficially 
by the community like github (Robin may be using that site officially as 
LLG publisher, but on his own authority, which will pass away when his 
edition is published.)

gleki was working on a port of the lojban.org website to different wiki 
software, on his own, with neither authorization nor direction.  I 
suspect that Robin eventually adopted gleki's effort as superseding the 
older software, but I don't know.  And I don't know who has control over 
that newer wiki system.  It was never brought to the Board or the 
membership, and thus as far as I know is still under the web 
administrator's ultimate control, and not under LLG control until/unless 
we assert authority over the web administrator.

So, guskant, LLG neither made gleki an administrator, and may not have 
the power/authority to remove him.

gleki has said that the Treasurer (mukti) has ultimate control of 
certain pages.  If so, I don't know what they are; I would have thought 
that Robin has ultimate control of everything.  (There probably should 
be a link maybe on the front page, stating which pages are official 
pages, and indicating that we don't control or dictate content on any 
other pages unless someone complains about said content being 
inappropriate.  mukti?)

This is an example of the members getting out of LLG what they are 
willing to put into it; the Board having had no direction from the 
community/membership other than a general desire to keep the site 
up-to-date.

gleki has proposed moving the website off of Robin's server, but if that 
were to happen, we probably need (or want) to know how the site will be 
administrated/managed.  Until/unless that is done, for the most part the 
person who sets up whatever site that replaces Robin's will essentially 
be absolute dictator with nothing LLG can do.  If the community/(members 
representing that community, including guskant AND gleki) wants a policy 
regarding the website, then maybe the members should show a little 
interest/initiative in these member meetings towards discussing such a 
policy.  No one has shown such interest in the past.

(guskant: web pages and open letters aren't especially useful towards 
this.  You probably want discussion/motions raised during the meeting at 
the appropriate time in the agenda (Old Business, which is right after 
the Board election, or New Business, which follows that).  In running 
the meeting, I'm supposed to follow the Bylaw-specified agenda, not just 
respond to whoever posts things one whatever topic they wish. 
Alternatively, you can write (openly or not) to me as President or mukti 
as Secretary/Treasurer, asking for the Board to set certain policy.  But 
most likely with a meeting in progress, we would defer to the membership 
unless it was an issue requiring immediate decision.  Of course, if you 
become a Board member, you would presumably bring up any issues inside 
the Board-meeting mailing list.  But the Board being elected now does 
not take office until the meeting ends).

To everyone:
A couple months ago, I asked people to discuss what LLG should focus on, 
in future.  If LLG goes away, as it might if no one wants to do what is 
necessary to keep the organization going, it is not clear that anyone 
(other than whoever first grabs site ownership in LLG's absence) will 
have any control/authority over lojban.org.  Perhaps this is something 
the members will want to think about in deciding the future of LLG, and 
also in choosing who will be on the Board.

> If not, I think it might be preferable to simply create some, and to
> direct Gleki and others with such access to act in accordance with them
> in the future. But there certainly *should* be such.

Per above, new Business, unless it is subsumed under byfy authority, in 
which case Old Business.  You (Craig) are a Board member until the 
member meeting ends, even if you do not seek reelection, and thus can 
bring it up at the Board meeting if you want a more immediate policy 
discussion/decision.

lojbab

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