A camel is a horse designed by a committee

[Gil]

You know that old saying. It implies that committees are not the most
effective way to get something done. At this point, even a camel of a
website would be okay with me. A platypus? Heck, even a tree sloth of
a website. The beast can always be improved later, but we need a
website NOW.

Time is of essence in getting ORBlogs2 up and running. Oregon bloggers
and visitors to the old site have waited a month. That's ages in
webtime. How much longer will we all have to do without ORBlogs?

The problems are that (1) Paul (bless his heart) did not provide any
advanced notice of ORBlog's demise so that plans could have been made
for a smooth and timely transition to a new site, and (2) an ad hoc,
loose-knit committee has taken on the challenge, but the committee
members have many other obligations, leading to delays. Another
possible problem is (3) the lack of consensus about the design and
operation of ORBlogs2, which seems to be contributing to further
delays. There's even (4) the future possibility of the Oregonian
creating such a site, or taking over ORBlogs2, which tends to diminish
enthusiasm for current efforts by committee members.

So here's my point: It's time for the committee to either bring up a
website, or for an individual to step forward and volunteer to take
this bull by the horns (or this camel by the nose, or this platypus by
the tail) and drag the beast online. That's what Paul did in the first
place.

I'm frustrated enough to take a run at it myself with drigg or pligg
or some other such software. If I had started when Paul posted his
notice early in September, there'd be a site up by now. Perhaps
someONE else could do a better job at it than me, but that someONE has
not stepped forward. I'm inviting them to do so now.

[A.J. Weinzettel]

Unfortunately, I am not that great with Java, or I would have dug into the bigbark code.  I am currently getting some pretty decent functionality working in perl and I will have something up and running by Friday.

A.J.
aka linuxaid

[Rick Turoczy]

This post might be of interest, as well:

http://blog.orblogs.org/2008/09/oregon-blogs-aggregator-goes-live/

[Jake Ortman]

Just an FYI to everybody as well, if anybody's familiar with MovableType (I can't remember if I shared this or not). I've been talking with the folks at SixApart, the folks who created MovableType as well as blogs.com (which is powered by movabletype as well). They've given me some beta plugins that they developed in-house for use on blogs.com, if anybody's interested. I'm considering using them for when I finally get around to re-doing bendblogs.com.

 

-Jake

---

From: orb...@googlegroups.com [mailto:orb...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of A.J. Weinzettel
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 10:42 AM
To: orb...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ORBlogs] Re: A camel is a horse designed by a committee

[mett...@gmail.com]

Yes, that's a nice saying. I've used it myself on a number of
occasions.

There's also the one about people who complain and don't actually do
anything to solve a problem. I like that one too.

Which is specifically why I've been working so hard on setting things
up and organizing people, in the absence of another ONE person who
took both the responsibility and the accountability for the project as
a whole, as I believe I recommended strongly in my original blog post.
I decided to take on that accountability- and I honestly believe that
if ORBlogs fails, it is my fault- and mine alone.

You will, of course, remember reading my posts on the subject where I
continually say that one person needs to be the point person and do
something. And my repeated suggestion that the person is not me? You
stepped forth then, right? Took charge? Accomplished something? No? In
the absence of you becoming that person, I was trying my best to do
so.

Yes, I should have worked on it more- I realize- but things happened.

Like people in my family dying.

Wow, that was dramatic- you like the single sentence on it's own line?
Nice effect. I live for that stuff, because I'm a blogger. I also live
for that description because making a joke out if it will potentially
keep me calm and happy instead of, say, driving my calm happy ass to
Portland and...

...<sigh> meeting with you over coffee to discuss how rightly
frustrated you are.

You see, Gil, there's no committee. There are a lot of people helping
out in small ways- actually HELPING Gil. There's AJ staying up late at
night by himself programming parsers- he programmed 8 parsers- and
built up the entire database by himself Gil. There's Patrick
organizing his code for us to use.

They were basically waiting for me, who- and I realize this was wrong,
now- thought that a basic functional basic site was possible by Oct.
1- as I said in a number of forums. I was supposed to get the code
running, and really thought that I could.

I know it might seem- to someone who's not actually communicating with
anyone involved- that there's a big "committee" sitting around
drinking coffee spending all of your hard earned money and not making
any decisions. But the truth is, Gil, that it's just a lot easier to
be angrier and complain about a committee than to meet me- or anyone-
face to face, and shout at them for only staying up until midnight-
instead of, say 2am.

There's no committee, Gil, there are just a few people, giving as much
time as they can- and having life sometimes happen around them.
There's AJ, there's Patrick, there's Rick- each actually DOING
something.

There's even Kyle, who decided to not actually write wildly
inflammatory and insulting remarks to very kind and helpful people.
Kyle just went ahead and quietly created a functional website. You, of
course, being fully involved in the effort already know about it
because complete details are posted on the ORBlogs blog- where I try
to keep people informed about what we're doing...

And about what we need help on to get a site up and running- the small
things that people like you can actually do, right now, to make it
work.

So, you're absolutely right. I guess we are sort of a committee. More
than one person just screwing everything up, just sitting around
spending your money and allowing you to have completely righteous
anger towards people who have never prevented you from DOING anything,
ever. You know, the ones who physically prevented you from building
the site yourself? The ones who wouldn't tell you where the code was
that needs just a little work before it's fully functional? That
committee.

You're right- there should have been someone to come and make a simple
site.

Oh, right, he did- and with nary a word of complaint. And then he
contacted me and said, basically "You know, I'm just trying to help- I
don't want to derail the current efforts."

But, of course, as I said, you already know that story.

Look, I'll refrain from addressing your points individually because
that would only escalate a serious amount of anger I have right now. I
will, however say that nearly everything you say is incorrect and
quite insulting to an effort that has, I believe, very successfully
avoided the "committee" you speak of. There are basically three
people- all staying up late at night and working.

So I'll end by saying this. I can't speak for everyone- but I myself
am insulted and angry to the point of explosion because- and I may be
wrong- you seem to be chastising me for working my ass off for your
benefit. Others have suggested feeling the same way.

Rather than insult a large group of people, why don't you just insult
me directly. My phone number is 541.387.3872. I'm @Mettadore on
Twitter. I'm not hard to find.

I live in Hood River- I don't know where you live, but you're welcome
to come here and we can meet for lunch and you can yell directly to my
face for not working hard enough.

I'm sorry I can't drive to where ever you are. I'm already too busy
working on this to take the time.

-J

[wajiii]

Hey now, watch what you say about camels. They are way better than
horses!

[Jmartens]

Ruh-Roh, I think we have a scandal on our hands!

Mettadore- I don't think Gil was personally attacking you. I don't
think he was attacking anyone.

Gil- Know that something is being worked on, but yes...things could be
communicated better.

Jmartens' Opinion: we have a great effort under way, with people I
can't wait to meet in person and develop relationships with. However,
I don't think ORBlogs2.0 is gonna happen. Sorry, I know how negative
it sounds.

Just that I've seen the Oregon twitter/blogging crowd get hyped up on
ideas in the past, with NOTHING to show for the initial enthusiasm.

I generally think that loose networks of people with other things
going on in their lives can rarely get something done...unless there
is a financial interest (we are all human, don't even try to deny that
you can be motivated by money).

this is exactly why I proposed, very early on, that we do a Startup
Weekend type of effort. One weekend, everyone in 1 room together, a
financial stake for anyone that helps out, walk out the door on Sunday
night with a funcitioning site.

Until we all get in a room together and take a financial stake in the
product, nothing useful will happen.

> > not stepped forward. I'm inviting them to do so now.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[John Metta]

<sigh>

Learning from my mistakes, I'm letting the dust settle before I jump on
this on New York style.

(that's a joke, I don't jump on anything New York style)

I do want to say that it's painful that someone would say they don't
think it's going to happen when we have everything we need except for
small tweaking of a directory's worth of solid, functional code.

There are no decisions to make, there's no money needed, and there are
no over-hyped ideas or meetings.

There is a directory.

There is a directory full of code- working functional code. It only
needs a little tweaking to get it running.

We've got a server, we've got a database, we've got parsers...

and we've got code.

Seriously, Jeff. Work with me here.

You want a financial stake? Fine. I'll personally give $50 to the first
Java-comfortable programmer who grabs the BigBark code (it's public- on
the Google Code page), gussies it up and gets it running. We'll hook up
the database wires later- just get it so it goes on a server. No images,
even- just get it running. $50- the first ORBlogs "money where your
mouth is" contest (only not as cool because I can't enjoy the after
party in Portland)

After paying $50, I'll send it off to Louis & Clark, and we'll have
ORBlogs immediately.

$50- it's more than I can afford, but there you are.

(by the way- I told you it was a joke. I jumped on it New York style anyway)

-J

[Jmartens]

Actually, John....I have offered to help multiple times and have not
received a single response from anyone on what I can do. You say
"Seriously, Jeff. Work with me here." Well John, thats exactly what I
have been trying to do all along.

I have however participated by reading long blog posts that I can't
seem to parse out into what is actually going on.

So can you blame my pessimism?

This is probably the 4th issue that I have witnessed the Oregon blog/
twitter crowd take up. And all the others I can think of have failed.

Past performance is the best predictor of the future.

Nothing personal, John. You are doing great work...and you don't have
to. You have spoken up and volunteered, so for that and so much more,
I applaud you. But it still seems like a loose knit effort with little
coordination. I DONT blame you, or anyone. Its just the nature of the
beast. Which is why I have proposed an alternative.

I do apologize if I was hurtful when I said that I doubt the project
will happen. However, please don't blame me for pointing out the
typical outcome and nature of these projects. As they say, "don't
shoot the messanger."

...and keep your $50, you have obviously misunderstood my point of a
"financial stake".

[Gil]

It's nearly 7:00 pm and I just stopped by to see if anyone responded
to my post from 10:30 am. Yikes. More posts today than in the last
week or so. I guess there's life in ORBlogs2 after all.

John, I'm sorry you've had a death in the family recently. I lost my
mom this summer. ORBlogs2 is, of course, insignificant in comparison
to such losses.

My comments this morning were not intended as criticism towards you or
anyone else involved in trying to create ORBlogs2. I was simply
pointing out the obvious--that committees are often less efficient
than individuals in making a project like ORBlogs2 a reality. Paul
seems to have created ORBlogs alone.

I contacted Paul soon after he posted his notice to express an
interest in taking on the responsibility for the website. I'm in
Corvallis, as he is, so I thought that would make the transition
easier. I'm retired and do not have to make a penny from the effort
and expense involved in maintaining the site. Anyway, he said he
wasn't interested in selling or giving away the ORBlogs domain, and he
didn't want to "inflict" the code on anyone. But he did indicate that
some others were already working on a successor to ORBlogs, and he
directed me to: http://siliconflorist.com/2008/09/04/can-orblogs-be-saved/

I must confess that I had doubts about a committee approach to
ORBlogs2, but since there seemed to be several people in the Portland
metro area already at work on the project, there was no point in me
trying to create ORBlogs2 myself here in Corvallis. If John says
there's been a lot of progress, then so be it. I just wasn't aware of
it.

Admittedly, I am impatient to see ORBlogs2 up and running. I guess
Kyle was also impatient, because rather than wait any longer for
ORBlogs2, he took the initiative to create www.ignoregon.com. I just
found out about that site this evening, and at the very least it looks
like a good interim solution. With a little more work, perhaps it
could turn out to be a worthy successor to ORBlogs.