Posted by Matthew Bernardin in Question for the Candidates - Matt and D

Posted by Admiral Joe P (Election Coodinator) in Question for the Candidates - Matt and D
Hi Matt,

I have a question about this one sentence you wrote, when describing your governmental audit:

However, first to be audited are some of the legacy positions, such as Librarian, Dockmaster, GM Archivist. These positions have been around since EffWebb and will almost certainly be fully deprecated in Exodus.

Speaking as a long time EDept member, and EDir I would like to also point that Dockmaster hasnt been used recently, but it does get used sometimes! The main uses these days is when we have new specs, ships, names/registery changes. Their duties then get assigned to poll the trove of canon registry lists and names with those we make for our ship specs, to ensure we don’t potentially infringe upon copyright. While this duty can also be given to the AEdir there are times that due to workload say with submissions, or discussions that isnt feasible. So while this is an ‘optional’ and legacy position overall it is something that occasionally does need to get filled for a time. Yes the Edir can delegate to anyone wishing to do that work too but since many people like titles, and feelings of responsibility I dont see it as something needing to be cut given how little use it gets. And case in point given that Discovery is now out, and we have had some new specs made in the past two terms, and ship changes too an audit to ensure compliance of the aforementioned list wouldn’t be unheard of for next term.

I cannot speak to the Dockmaster or the GM Archivist, because I don’t have a good sense of what they do. But I’m very familiar with what the Librarian does, because I am the Librarian. And, as the project lead for Exodus, I know what exactly the capabilities of our new system are going to be. Given both of those perspectives, I find this statement to be highly perplexing.

You know for a fact that I wrote a new Library capability for Exodus; you’re one of the few people who actually cared enough to use it at any point during testing. Why do you think that the position of Librarian would suddenly become redundant and “fully deprecated?” I mean, why do you think I wrote a Library app if I thought there should be no Librarian? Why would we want to get rid of a Librarian?

I mean, yes, the new system makes things vastly easier; you no longer have to know DocBook XML and be capable of running XSL Transforms on your computer to be Librarian. But, we’re still going to have a centralized collection of content, right? And it makes sense to have a person responsible for administering that, right? And there is non-technical work associated with that, like checking things for accuracy, spelling mistakes, copyright issues, etc. If we don’t have a Librarian, who will be responsible for doing that work? Or do you imagine we’ll simply stop doing that work and do some other work? If so, what?

Could you maybe outline your thinking here a bit more explicitly?

Joe

Ok, so this is one of the let’s have this conversation with TECH and the departments to determine both feasability and desirability of implimentation. But how it worked in my head and the idea i wanted to discuss in depth is A. the Librarian position per say would role into TECH’s general resposnsibilities. TECH upkeeps the infrastructure and the Library is now direct infrastructure. As for the librarians duties with regards to content I was envisonaging an arrangement where TECH would perhaps setup books and the individual departments would have direct content control themselves. IE Edept would be able to maintain their own specs and technology articles. Or perhaps an expansion to the library’s permissions to enable access control. There are a few different ways to go about this persuant to that audit.

But at no point am I discussing, pitching or even contemplating just axing stuff and letting it fester.

– Matt

So like Joe my question is why do you believe the dockmaster requires possible elimination?

Robert Archer