Dave Cridland for Board 2024

Dave Cridland for Bored

Board is, usually, quite boring. I should know, I've done it for several sessions - even chaired it - and each time I start out with grand ideas about how I'll achieve this, or that, or the other. I've tended to get very little of it done, and the result is that I feel drained at the end of it, and have never done more than a single term at a go.

These are grand ideas, like improving participation, or corporate outreach, or...

But not so this time.

This time, I'm going to live the boring life.

So here's my to-do list for this Board term:

Process Documentation

One of the nice things about the XSF is that we mostly stick to the process we have documented. I hate documenting this stuff, and I hate sticking to awkward processes that nobody likes purely because it's what's written down. It's achingly dull, and really annoying. But, having what we do documented nicely means that doing what we document is easy. And we should do what we document - it's easier for newcomers and old hands alike.

So, priority number the first is to work through our process, and update XEP-0001 (and others as needed) to ensure they match reality. Not the other way around, I'm not the process police and have no intention of doing that.

Does this sound like fun? No. But will it turn out to be fun? Also no. But will it let me use my signature witty and whimsical style of prose? Definitely not.

SIGs and Things

As a particular case of the above...

Most XSF people haven't really encountered SIGs. We don't use them. We have tried.

But we also have other stuff that's sort of a bit SIGgy, but not. Ever noticed we have an XSF chatroom *and* a jdev chatroom, but neither are covered in our process of things we do? What are those? Is the "xsf" chatroom an official venue for the Standards SIG? Probably not, really. Should it be? Maybe.

We also talk a lot about mailing lists, and some of us assume that discussion of XEPs takes place on them... But it doesn't (much) anymore. Some of it is on github pull requests, some of it in chatrooms, some of it I'm not sure happens at all.

The problem is that we're meant to be an Open Standards Organisation, and that implies (vaguely) that we discuss our proposals and achieve community consensus, and that's tricky to do if people can't even find the discussions to participate in them.

I'm about 99% certain I won't disentangle this at all. But I might make a start.

That's it

I'm not going to attempt anything else. Maybe I might get a couple of things done, but it's doubtful. Inertia is high.

Vote for me?

Or don't. In all honesty, I'm bored already and if you don't vote for me it'll just save me from having to make good on this.

On the plus side, it's a great excuse to pop over to FOSDEM and drink beer. And I'm all about the beer.

Who are you?

Oh, good point, well made.

Try reading User:dwd.

Short version is that I'm one of the old hands, rather than newcomers - though not as old a hand as some of the others. I've done quite a bit professionally with XMPP, and written a reasonable amount of Open Source as well. My technical knowledge is pretty solid, though that's unimportant in this role. I've run multiple businesses, and been involved in the running of others too. I've been a bit quiet for a couple of years, and maybe the jolt of seeing what's changed coming back to it has thrown me a bit, hence my thinking that Something Must be Done If I Can Be Bothered.

So yeah, bother me a bit more by voting for me and I'll have to get some of this sorted out, right?