SCN: suggestion for SCNA

[J. Johnson]

On Fri, 8 Jul 2011, Doug Schuler wrote:

> [....]
> I'm willing to volunteer to be one of the new board members. I have no
> particular agenda except to encourage SCN to serve its original
> principles and to advance its technological base to some degree. How
> many volunteers do we need?
> 

Have you read the principles lately?  They are quixotic at best, and
largely irrelevant.  It is useful to recall their context, when the World
Wide Web was still in its infancy, and the up and coming services on the
Internet were Gopher (anyone recall what that was--without looking it up?)
and WAIS: Wide Area Information Service.  (Hey, let's have a list of all
the files available on local computers!)

The principles are heavy on commitment to community, democracy, and the
future, but rather light on how these commitments are to be served.
("[P]rovide access to databases and other services"; also "electronic
town halls ... or electronic encyclopedias for enhanced access to
information."  Wow.)  Nothing on how these services are to be provided.

SCN's problems are not simply that the Directors went AWOL, but that
various problems were not resolved.  I think installing new Directors is a
good start, but won't get far unless they _do_ have an agenda -- of what
to fix. 

=== JJohnson =====================================================


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