[TOS] Infrastructure Team: Can haz?

[Mel Chua]

On 01/12/2011 06:21 AM, Sebastian Dziallas wrote:
> Subject line says it all. :) Seriously, Mel and I have been talking
> about this more and more in Doha, since we're pretty sure that
> there'll be a higher amount of requests coming in starting in March

So, at every POSSE, there are these little snags that hit again and 
again - "I wish we could instantly create/grant you a git repository!" 
"Oh man, the wiki's down again!" "Now if we only had a POSSE Remix with 
all these tools installed..." "Er, setting up your own blog planet would 
take... a little while..." (instead of being able to click a button and 
give them a Planet - same goes for Etherpad, which is consistently a hit)

...and we're missing the same opportunities and running into the same 
frustrations over and over again. These frustrations are fine for an 
individual POSSE, but if we try to run 10x the POSSEs, those 
frustrations also multiply 10x and become pretty much unbearable.

We need sysadmin cycles we can allocate to ironing out these sorts of 
burrs. Maybe we need a ticket queue where we can request these sorts of 
things to be completed. I'm actually at the point where I might say 
"hiring someone to be the TOS sysadmin 10h a week is a good idea," so we 
can have some sort of predictable project completion for this, since 
those with skills don't have (consistent) time, and those with time (er, 
do any of us have time?) don't have the skills (or at least I am a 
terrible sysadmin).

Basically, I'm *highly* incented to swap work-in-kind or figure out some 
sort of arrangement for people who can answer Sebastian's 
call-to-action. You scratch our back and we'll scratch yours - repay 
regular sysadmin time in IRC mentorship for your class, a site visit, 
etc. If you have the skills but not enough incentive to devote the time, 
lemme know how we can sweeten the pot.

--Mel