Process question

Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 11:47:21 -0300 (ADT)
From: "David L. Potter" <potter@chebucto.ns.ca>
To: Bob Adams <bobadams@ns.sympatico.ca>
cc: editors@chebucto.ns.ca, CCN Tech <ccn-tech@chebucto.ns.ca>, ccn-ip@chebucto.ns.ca, ccn-board@chebucto.ns.ca
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Return-Path: <ccn-ip-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>

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Hi Bob,

This rather long communication, attemps to provide:

1) some  background on the discussions (which I consider still 
   preliminary) relating to CCN's services offered to IP's and the 
   implications these changes might have with repect to editors and their 
   relationship/role; and,

2) information about (and my personal reaction to) recent 
   and surprising changes to the IP registration process.
 
----

First the background that leads/relates to discussion of a dedicated FTP 
account.

The rational for considering this type of account lies in CCN offering a 
level of service that can be compared to the services offered by other ISP. 
If all other ISP provide direct FTP access to the website it can be very 
confusing to a potential IP if we start throwing a completely different 
system at them without clearly identifying specific benefits resulting 
from those diffreences.

The CCN system has it's roots in the days when almost nobody coming to 
us knew what the web was or how to get there. We had a text based 
interface when the world was switching wholesale to Windows/Mac and we 
needed a system that facilitated access, with a large focus on 
preparing an IP for the process of getting the website constructed.

In this day and age, we have a significant number of people/organizations 
arriving on the doorstep with a good idea of what they want and an interest 
in getting things done quickly.

While volunteers such as the editors previously to devote a lot of effort
in facilitating the establishment of websites I personally think it's 
time (the world is largely ready, and there is a need...) that the focus 
shifts to making the IP information content more available.

---

Having said all that, I agree with you that there are a lot of unanswered 
questions which need to be thought through very carefully.

---

The new IP 'membership' options include some form of ftp access to an 
organizational website, one text dial-up account or two PPP dialup 
accounts (seems to moving around... I though it was three). 

**It makes sense (to me) for the PPP accounts to have FTP access that 
does not _require_ them to learn about the text dialup... especially when 
an organization has a web designer who is not necessarily a member of the 
organization and is used to interacting with commercial ISP's.

At the same time organizations/editors who are currently comfortable with 
the text interface should be able to establish a new website using that 
option... and maintain the website in a similar manner as others under their 
charge.

----

The design of the IP registration process most recently in use, included 
considerable interaction between the editors and the IP to ensure that the 
IP was sited properly within the Community. 'Editors' were able to work 
with the IP to slot them in the right category, identify suitable names for 
the mailing lists, confirm that they had the necessary technical skills to 
establish the website, etc...

We now live with the reality of the 'zipless' website... five 
minutes and a credit card will get you a web site with any number of 
providers. People (some people at least) want it now! And for those that 
do, the CCN IP registration process probably seems, complicated and time 
consuming. Streamlining the registration/IP creation process and 
centralizing it in the office makes a certain amount of sense but it 
still needs considerable review. If some of the 'up-front' work previously 
undertaken by the editors is transfered to the office some provision has to 
be made to provide continuity through staff changes.  While at the moment 
the office/Andrew may be able to provide some of the facilitation that 
editors handled in the past there is certainly no guarantee that subsequent 
office staff will come to work with an understanding about any of this.

-----------------------

If we look at individual parts of the IP registration process, 
several decisions have a long term impact, are difficult or inconvenient to 
change, and need a decision to be made 'up-front',
 
+ an appropriate directory name/jump name, and
+ the names of any mailing lists,

...come to mind.

In addition, there will always be a need to locate the IP within 
the community, Churches with other religious organization, etc... 

Although we have not yet identified the specific software tools, it is 
likely that we will find ourselves in a position to 'physically' locate 
IP anywhere within the 'info/' tree and, using a combination of the IPDB 
(See note 'a') (or it's succesor) and 'META TAGS' locate the IP 
appropriately within the community. 

Note 'a': IPDB refers to the Information Provider Data Base - in the 
past this has been the main source of information for administering/managing 
the Information Provider Resource)

An analogy might be that all churches need not be built on Church St.... 

This probably involves building second/third pages dynamically, every 
evening, or after an addition/change in the IPDB.

As I previously noted, ***we do not yet have these tools in hand*** so 
there is still a need to retain important elements of the previous 
registration process.


Recent Events
======================

It has recently come to light that several weeks ago, a significnt change 
was made to the IP registration/creation process.

This basically involved discontinueing the use of the IPDB, and registering 
IP's as individual users with filespace allocated under the 'home/' tree 
with urls in the form of:

http://chebucto.ns.ca/~HAPCS 

rather than

http://chebucto.ns.ca/Technology/HAPCS 


***
At the same time, the office stopped notifying editors about the 
receipt of IP agreements.
***

These changes have several administrative and technical implications. For 
one, the integrety of the IPDB has been weakened without a suitable 
replacement identified... and further that this change was 'silent', 
there was no announcement.

An urgent requirement to implement a new registration process seems 
to be the justification for making these changes without first obtaining 
consensus from the IP and Technical committees. 

However, no request for specific improvements to the process/IPDB were made 
prior to the changes and the 'silent' nature of the changes could be 
viewed as an attempt to conceal these events for as long as possible... 
Although I came away from the a meeting last Tuesday with the impression 
there had been a 'flood' of IP's signed up, it appears as if only 4 new 
accounts (with an income of $175) were created in the two weeks before these 
changes came to light.

---

In previous correspondence to the CCN board I have described these events 
thus:

"The recent changes to the IP registration process were arbitrary and flawed 
in process, they seem to reflect questionable technical judgement, and 
evidence a lack of regard and consideration for other stakeholders."

---

I believe that these events run counter to the long tradition of full 
discussion and concensus building that has served as the foundation for 
the CCN decision making process. 

I hope that the board will review these events a