[Linux-aus] Re-igniting the Membership Committee

Thu Feb 11 22:52:23 AEDT 2016

Neil, it’s actually not clear to me what’s broken about the current memberdb … I actually think we’re concentrating on technical issues when the problem isn’t technical.

I commend your work on membershipdb-ng.

From: Neill Cox [mailto:neill.cox at ingenious.com.au] 
Sent: Thursday, 11 February 2016 10:13 PM
To: David Lloyd <lloy0076 at adam.com.au>
Cc: Kathy Reid <kathy at kathyreid.id.au>; linux-aus <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>
Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Re-igniting the Membership Committee

To be honest, I chose flask because I wanted to learn about it. memberdb seemed like something that might be useful to LA. I was aware of the problems with the current implementation and thought a rewrite might be helpful.

I've had some fun and learned quite a bit, it may yet prove to be useful, but if it isn't it's still been a worthwhile exercise for me.

I encourage any LA members with knowledge of CiviCRM to step forward and help implement a replacement for memberdb.

In the meantime I'll keep working on the flask version - gratefully accepting any help, and without expecting LA to feel any obligation to use the final product.

This is one of the strengths of free software - we're all free to contribute and LA as an organization is free to choose the platform that best meets their need.

I personally have a preference for python over php, but it's just that - a preference. I don't have hard data to back it up, just feelings :-)

Reinventing the wheel can be fun, but feel free to stick with Wheel 1.0 if you prefer.

Cheers,
Neill

On 11 Feb 2016 10:25 PM, "David Lloyd" <lloy0076 at adam.com.au <mailto:lloy0076 at adam.com.au> > wrote:

CiviCRM is already a stable product, based on Drupal and no doubt could
leverage the various Drupal modules already developed with sufficient
technical knowledge. I doubt there's insufficient technical knowledge in
Linux Australia to do so...

...why would we reinvent the wheel? Sure choosing a PHP based solution
might hinder those who don't know PHP but choosing a Python based one
hinders those who don't know Python. In fact, choosing a solution based
on X will hinder those who don't like X and let's face it, we can't even
sort out a name for the organisation - we're not going to settle on the
best technical solution.

This last point is probably a good thing BUT I would argue that Linux
Australia doesn't exist to create a confounded CRM system. Or reinvent
electoral systems. Or even create open source software itself.

The tools we use for membership management are important but they're not
our goal in life unless I've seriously misread Linux Australia's
constitution and policies.

The question I would actually put to the membership committee, would be:

"Can you find ways that would cause the membership of Linux Australia to
increase such that we needed a technical replacement urgently?".

TL;DR - I think we're concentrating on the technical side and missing
the actual issue...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-aus [mailto:linux-aus-bounces at lists.linux.org.au <mailto:linux-aus-bounces at lists.linux.org.au> ] On
Behalf
> Of Kathy Reid
> Sent: Thursday, 11 February 2016 8:25 PM
> To: linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au <mailto:linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au> 
> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Re-igniting the Membership Committee
>
> Thanks AJ for the thought you've put into this, and to Neill for the
work
> that you've done around this as well.
>
> I'd be very comfortable with this approach - ie pitching for your idea
to
> be developed further, with iterative proof points before an
> implementation.
>
> Are there any other people who'd be keen on being on "Team CiviCRM"?
>
> Kind regards,
> Kathy
>
> On 11/02/16 16:32, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 10:00:43AM +1100, Kathy Reid wrote:
> >> I'd like to
> >> reinvigorate the debate over our Membership Committee[0],
> Membership
> >> platform[1] and related pieces[2].
> > I wonder if it would work to structure this more along the lines of
> > linux.conf.au <http://linux.conf.au>  bid teams, rather than as a sub-committee. ie, the
> > council posts a date for bids to be in; Kathy does as civicrm
demo/bid
> > showing how cool it could be, maybe someone does a drupal
> bid/demo,
> > and maybe Neill does flask/memberdb-ng bid. The council gives a few
> > rounds of feedback to see how if the bids can be further improved,
> and
> > then chooses the most promising bid (and a committee is formed at
> that point if needed).
> >
> > (Personally, I'm more philosophically inclined towards Neill's
> > approach; but Donna pointed me at some drupal election modules
> which
> > seemed pretty impressive, and while looking for survey software, I
> > noticed civicrm actually has some and is already packaged for
Debian,
> > both of which seem like plusses to me)
> >
> > If people like this idea it could be implemented by the council
doing
> > a call for bids asking for:
> >
> >    - a bid document describing what's great about the proposed
solution
> >    - a public demo site where people can try things out
> >    - access to the demo site's management side, so the secretary at
least
> >      can review that as well
> >    - instructions/packages/config items/etc for how to deploy the
> system
> >      (for public review, but more importantly for the admin team to
> review)
> >    - and anything else that seems helpful and enlightening
> >
> > and setting deadlines of maybe "now" for interested people to get
> > together and start doing things, April 4th for sending expressions
of
> > interest to the list/council, June 1st for initial submissions and
> > feedback, and August 1st for final submissions, so a decision could
be
> > made and rollout begin in September or October?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > aj
> >
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>
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