Plug - Who is it?

[Brian Cluff]

On 12/02/2014 03:49 PM, Gilbert T. Gutierrez, Jr. wrote:
> I think der.hans bounced
> her from the email list (I think her comments were getting redundant and
> that is I guess in his power).

Nobody has ever been kicked off the mailing list, ever, including Lisa. 
  We have had exactly 2 people in the history of PLUG that have been put 
into moderation and Lisa was one of them.
However, out of all the moderated messages ever, only 1 message has ever 
been deleted and it was off topic political flame bait about illegal 
aliens.  Everything else has made it to the list.

> I met Lisa once, probably 10 years ago at
> a function hosted at a site on 12th St and Northern. My impression was
> that she was nice and knew her stuff. I am not to say if she is right or
> wrong with her complaints, but I see no way for her to bring her
> complaints to the leadership of the group. A public message list I
> believe is the wrong way to go but really one of the only avenues
> through the website.

There is and has been a contact us on the website for as long as I can 
remember.  You could also grab one of us and give us any comments that 
you might have and although the names aren't listed on the website, Hans 
routinely introduces the steering committee at the meetings so it's 
hardly a secret who they are.

> I know nothing of how the group functions or who the leadership is. I
> can obviously guess and probably guess correctly because of how long I
> have been on the list. This group is a volunteer group and not everyone
> will participate and usually only a handful of people will want to take
> the bull by the horns and lead. However, leadership information should
> be posted on the website if you want to call this a group.


Examples of things that would be helpful...
>
> 1. List of names of the leadership committee
 > 3. A path for members to send complaints to the group for the committee

We will be adding these items very soon

> 2. A path for members to suggest directions for the group to the committee
> to review and address as necessary
> 4. Minutes for any committee meetings
> 5. A way to nominate people to be on the committee
> 6. An election cycle to populate the committee

The above would imply that there is a lot more going on in the steering 
committee... we don't have meetings, the members are simply a list of 
the people that have contributed the most to PLUG and can be counted on.

The steering committee (which is probably a bad name for it) is just 
some people the make sure there is a meeting from time to time and when 
there are issues like someone proposing that we start a 501c3 we arrange 
for a meeting to ask the members what they would like to do.  Issues of 
how the group is run aren't decided by the steering committee.  PLUG is 
majority rule, plain and simple.  The steering committee will put out 
announcements, make sure that we have a location, presenter, and 
anything they need to make the meeting go where.  It's the minutia.
It's not hard to get on the steering committee.  If someone wants to be 
on the steering committee, all they have to do is help out and be 
dependable. that's it, there is no set size to the committee, it's just 
people that can be counted on to to do stuff and right now, it has 
pretty much everyone that contributes a lot and has agreed to be on the 
steering committee.  Everything could just as easily be done in the 
discuss mailing list but then we would be back to the situation where 
everyone would just assume that someone else took care of the minutia 
and nothing would get done.  There was also a HUGE problem with very 
vocal people that had all the ideas in the world but would never 
actually DO anything...

> I don't see how the group could
> consider something like an 801c3 filing without that structure. It is
> like putting a cart in front of a horse.

That was exactly the point of the majority that voted to keep PLUG the 
way it is.  Nobody (at least nobody we trusted) wanted to deal with any 
of the extra structure, paperwork and taxes that would be required to 
change the organization.