Posted by Robert Archer in Questions for the candidates - changes to the Academy

Posted by Matt Evans in Questions for the candidates - changes to the Academy

[snip]

Second, the server migration had nothing to do with us needing prior notification to accommodate the award changes you wanted. The reason we weren’t able to do so was because you asked us on the day you wanted the changes done and that wasn’t enough time to do it or free up time from our schedules to even attempt to do so. I’m led to understand that changing the awards categories and all is a fairly involved process that needs back and forth communication to get it just right for the award committee and the time frame you wanted it done in would not have worked. So I would appreciate you not throwing this on us for your lack of planning.

So the reason I didn’t communicate about the changes was that no where did anyone communicate that this needed to happen until I asked about it. This rolls into my plans to get minor details like this that are important but fall through the cracks up in a document to for future people to do things like this.

Be that as it may, I’m not sure we even knew you and Gavin were going to be doing the awards stuff until you asked for help modifying them. With that being the case we couldn’t have communicated with you the need to communicate with us. I want to stress the importance of reaching out and asking ‘Hey what do I need to do to do this self-appointed task?’ I guarantee we would have communicated the need for more than a days notice to get the work done without it being last minute. This wasn’t an emergency where the server was down and everyone couldn’t access the site, so you’re unlikely to have us available without needing to drop everything we’re doing.

Joe was the one who gave me access to the Award material such as it was from the last years Awards Matt, so unless Joe did not communicate this through TECH then it should have been known at least Gavin and I were working on it in SOME form, bigger changes like we planned? Sure ok you didn’t know about it, but Gavin and I didnt even plan to make any changes until we got things figured out and by then it still would have been too late, and even then we didn’t realize till we DID speak about it that we HAD to tell someone. We figured if I had access to the material we could change it any which way we needed. So again we had to figure it out as we went since no how tos existed and no offer to help was given on the TECH side which shouldnt have been a surprise given for weeks before I got access I said I would work on it, and then I posted Gavin was helping me.

In either case we’re getting off the main point here, the tie in to this event is that next term if elected Matt and I wish to make as much effort with everyone to make write up details like this more accessible to future members doing things like this. So mistakes like this don’t happen.
Robert Archer

I was prepared to come into this next reply of mine all indignant like with a giant Phoenix Wright ‘Objection!’ image and all, but cooler heads than mine have prevailed and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You were correct in that I didn’t know you were doing awards stuff before you and Joe talked about the last minute help you needed in the #Cabinet channel on May 23rd.

However you seem to be misrepresenting two things in your last statement. I’m going to extend an olive branch here and attribute it to you forgetting and/or life just being crazy, because I can understand that. I do need to address it however, which is separate from your point of having things documented for the next people, and that’s because there will always be something that doesn’t have a set procedure or established process. When something doesn’t have a roadmap on how to do it I don’t want people to just throw up their hands and be like ‘Well I tried but because I don’t know how it just won’t get done.’ I think in this case communication should have been better from your end to meet your objective.

Now I can hear your own objection coming, but let me just jump ahead of that real quick. I’ve asked Joe for a copy of the correspondence between you and him. My first refutation of your statements is when you claimed Joe hadn’t given you access to the awards in a timely manner. The email I’ve seen indicates he did so within two days, as seen in this excerpt:

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 9:44 AM Joe P <redacted email> wrote:
Hi Rob,
I’ve given you access to the “Awards Manager” group in Exodus. You should be able to now see a whole bunch of extra stuff you couldn’t before if you refresh the page and also look in the Admin section.
Joe

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 10:54 AM Robert Archer <redacted email> wrote:
Hey Joe, just had a talk with Kate, evidently she informed me that Steven previously had to request you access to the templates and all that stuff for setting up the Awards. Is this true? If so could you please grant me such access?
Thank you,
Robert Archer

I can corroborate from the log in the Exodus system that you did indeed get the Awards Manager group access on the 10th of April. Having access granted to something within a couple of days of requesting it certainly seems to be in a timely manner. Certainly much more prompt then what you alluded to here: “So again we had to figure it out as we went since no how tos existed and no offer to help was given on the TECH side which shouldnt have been a surprise given for weeks before I got access I said I would work on it, and then I posted Gavin was helping me.”

Maybe I’m misrepresenting what you meant but that seems to me that you’re not surprised that TECH didn’t offer to help when you weren’t given access for weeks after you requested it. In which case you certainly got that factually wrong. And as for the offer of help at all, Joe pointed you to the best people that could help you in that same email when he said: “I would definitely get Linds’ opinion on how to run the Awards. She did it for a long time, even longer than Kate and Steven.” though I will admit he also said this: “I might also remember how the system worked if I take another look at it; I built it into Exodus basically just for Steven and Kate.”

So with a system developed specifically for two people I could see there being a bit of a learning curve but you had over a month to look into it and ask questions. You had ample time to figure things out and reach out to us on TECH when you realized that you needed our help to change things. The fact that you didn’t could very well be attributed to real life sidetracking you and all, which is a fair enough point. But it could also be another example of you deciding to do a thing and then waiting on it until you do a flurry of activity at the last minute because it needs to get done right now. I don’t know and I won’t pass judgement.

At the end of the day though you attributed your failure to do the thing you decided to do to us on TECH and we don’t appreciate that. Be honest with your shortcomings if you’re really trying to go for transparency. Your using us and the pending server migration as a reason why two things couldn’t get done, Library updating and the Awards, just seems like a deflection instead of something as innocuous as ‘Oh yeah the Librarian handles that’ and ‘Well I really intended to get to those awards but I didn’t get to it in time’.

Matt - TECH