[RFC] (re)working the http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee page

[Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshan mukhopadhyay gmail com>]

Hi,

As Baris pointed out earlier, http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee
has far too many links. My recent interaction with the new members on
#membership led to similar conclusions. I was working on a new look to
the page.
Attached is the draft of the main content of the page. The general ideas
behind the content were:

+ giving a check list to the new members as to what stuff should be done
+ giving a sequential introduction to the two main aspect of the
Committee work - RT and Mango
        - introduction to RT3 and then on to Form Letters
        - introduction to Mango

Do you think that the membershipcommittee.readme should be attached to
the page ?

The following links is suggested to be re-ordered so that anyone
visiting that page can at a glance figure out the priority of information.

o Current members of the committee : this would be required to be pushed
up, that allows anyone browsing the page to have an idea as to whom to
contact

o The links below to be clubbed as Relevant Information:
        - MembershipManagementSystem
        - RT3
        - FormLetters
        - ProcessingApplicationsAgain
        - ElectionsHowTo (is this reasonably up-to-date ?)

o The links below to be clubbed as Additional Information
        - ToDo
        - Roles
        - HowWeWork
        - MembershipGuidelines

o The link below to be clubbed as Obsolete Information
        - ProcessingApplications
        - OutstandingIssues

What do you think ?

Warm regards
Sankarshan


-- 

> From Untruth, lead me to the Truth,
> From Darkness, Lead me towards the Light,
> From Death, Lead me to Life Eternal.
www.linkedin.com/in/sankarshan

Welcome to the Membership & Elections Committee of the GNOME Foundation.
The Membership & Elections Committee, as the name suggests, the
Committee is tasked with processing applications for membership to the
GNOME Foundation and based on a set of policies approve, reject or ask
for more information on the applications. The Membership & Elections
Committee are also responsible for conducting the Elections to the GNOME
Foundation's Board of Directors.

Please check that the items list below are all available you as a new
member of the Membership & Elections Committee

    + an access to the GNOME version control system
    + an account for Mango - the GNOME Membership Management System
    + an account for RT3 - GNOME Membership Application Processing
System
    + Mailing List Administrator access for foundation-annouce, vote and
membership-committee mailing lists
    + IRC client configured to be on #membership (irc.gimp.org)

If you do not have access to Mango, please write to accounts gnome org
with the request that as a member of the Membership & Elections
Committee you would require access to Mango. Please keep the ticket
number you obtain in the auto-reply and let the existing members of the
Membership & Elections Committee know about your account request.

If you do not have access to RT3, please write to accounts gnome org
with the request that as a member of the Membership & Elections
Committee you would require access to RT3. Please keep the ticket number
you obtain in the auto-reply and let the existing members of the
Membership & Elections Committee know about your account request.

Note: For both the above requests, the Accounts team should be
processing your request within a reasonable timeframe. If you do not get
access within what is a reasonable duration of time, do ping anyone from
the Accounts team on #sysadmin (currently Toni is the point of contact)
and also post the status to the membership-committee mailing list

Additional Note: The mailing list administration for foundation-annouce,
vote and membership-committee is optional. Should you choose to be an
Admin on those list, do let the Membership & Elections Committee know of
that intent. Your name would be added as an administrator and the
password to access the administrator interface would be sent to you
privately on mail.

The Membership & Elections Committee uses the RT3 to receive and work
upon a set applications. Before you get to work on applications for
membership to the GNOME Foundation, you need to familiarize yourself
with the system. Even if you are familiar with the GNOME RT setup, you
might want to read http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/RT3. Do
feel free to ask questions on it on the membership-committee mailing
list.

The Membership & Elections Committee also has a few templates in place
to help process the applications. Since applications are limited to a
small number in variety, the
http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/FormLetters page provides the
various Form Letters or Templates used to respond to applications.

The Membership Management System or Mango is somewhat simple to use with
a pleasing user interface. Once you have access to Mango, you should
read
http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/MembershipManagementSystem and
get familiar with the various tasks to be performed.

Allow us to begin by thanking for taking the time and interest in GNOME Membership Committee and volunteering 
to be a part of it. In spite of what you might be reading on blogs or mailing lists, the task is not boring 
<smile>. However, it requires sticking to processes and doing things by the book.

So, to answer the obvious question of "what does the Membership Committee do ?" - we process applications for 
membership to the GNOME Foundation and based on a set of policies approve, reject or ask for more information 
on the applications. If you would rather read all of the above from an URL, 
http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee would be a place to start.

Now that you would be sufficiently armed with knowledge, the following are the bits you would be required to 
have:

        + a CVS account (do we need this still for all ?)
        + Account for Mango (GNOME Membership Management System)
        + Account for RT3 (Request Tracker or Application Processing System)
        + Mailing List Admin access for the foundation-announce and membership-committee mailing lists 
(optional)
        + IRC client configured to be on #membership
        
We use the RT3 to receive and work upon applications for membership to the GNOME Foundation. To ease our work 
processes, we have a set of Form Letters or templates handy at: 
http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/FormLetters

To more about how the RT3 works, do take some time to read up http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/RT3

The details about Mango or the Membership Management System is at 
http://live.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/MembershipManagementSystem

Additionally, you might want to read 
http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2006/12/01/stuff-meant-for-someplace-else/ to understand some of the 
issues that come as part of being a member of this Committee.

All said and done, it is a fun job which gets a bit hectic only during the Elections to the GNOME Board time. 
Saddle up and have fun.