Building An Online Community for New Orleans II - Site Ownership
If you've ever worked on a group project, you know how difficult it is to produce a quality product when everyone is an equal. Even on a jury, someone is elected foreman, to facilitate communication with the judge. Successful developments in many fields are solo efforts, dual-partnerships at best. Development by committee rarely produces a quality product.
This project will be a sole proprietorship from a business standpoint. That doesn't mean this is will be a top-down dictatorship, mind you; I see two roles of the site owner. The first deals with the legal/financial aspects of any business. Because I'm using my bandwidth (seashell software's business account with Cox), and my server, initial startup costs are small. This is one of the reasons I can move forward quickly. I'm going to continue to lay out the vision I have for the site in more essays, but the short version from the business side is that I'd love to see it make lots of money from blogads/adsense/whatever, as well as contributions from the community. The ultimate goal here is to generate the revenue to be able to do what Markos does, sponsor paid fellowships for FP bloggers and have a paid tech support person.
The second role is the whole buck-stops-here thing. Again, I don't see this role as a top-down dictatorship, but rather as an ultimate arbitrator for the community. There will be times when decisions will have to be made, and I'll be the ultimate court of appeal in those circumstances. The goal here is for me to be the ultimate appeal; hopefully the decisions will work themselves out at the community level first.
To return to the bazaar metaphor, I'm the guy who owns the property where the bazaar is set up. You own your stall, and the contents in side it. The rules of the bazaar are worked out amongst the various stall-owners. They also (for the most part) set the standards for conduct amongst themselves. When they cannot work things out, they turn to the owner of the property.
In terms of site management, I welcome input. The process will always be transparent.
Comments are once again turned off; go to the Forums to discuss, please.
This project will be a sole proprietorship from a business standpoint. That doesn't mean this is will be a top-down dictatorship, mind you; I see two roles of the site owner. The first deals with the legal/financial aspects of any business. Because I'm using my bandwidth (seashell software's business account with Cox), and my server, initial startup costs are small. This is one of the reasons I can move forward quickly. I'm going to continue to lay out the vision I have for the site in more essays, but the short version from the business side is that I'd love to see it make lots of money from blogads/adsense/whatever, as well as contributions from the community. The ultimate goal here is to generate the revenue to be able to do what Markos does, sponsor paid fellowships for FP bloggers and have a paid tech support person.
The second role is the whole buck-stops-here thing. Again, I don't see this role as a top-down dictatorship, but rather as an ultimate arbitrator for the community. There will be times when decisions will have to be made, and I'll be the ultimate court of appeal in those circumstances. The goal here is for me to be the ultimate appeal; hopefully the decisions will work themselves out at the community level first.
To return to the bazaar metaphor, I'm the guy who owns the property where the bazaar is set up. You own your stall, and the contents in side it. The rules of the bazaar are worked out amongst the various stall-owners. They also (for the most part) set the standards for conduct amongst themselves. When they cannot work things out, they turn to the owner of the property.
In terms of site management, I welcome input. The process will always be transparent.
Comments are once again turned off; go to the Forums to discuss, please.
