[Businessmtg] Issues with Current web site, Part 2

[Steve Rankin]

Hi ASPers,

 

As I mentioned in a post titled "Issues with Current web site" I mentioned
that the second part would address my objections to the current website.  In
all likelihood, this will be a multi-part post due to the complexity as well
as the fact that I am still discovering problems. I also need to point out
that I wasn't alone finding these problems. Several other members have
written me pointing out things that I hadn't noticed or hadn't found yet. 

 

One of the most disturbing things that I discovered as I investigated this
is how many changes have been made to pages that described ASP policy. I
grew up with the Dean of Education of US Berkeley, so I learned many, many
years ago that words count. A lot. And punctuation counts, too! I remember
an Al-Anon Assembly in California in the late 1990's. Quite a few GRs were
quite unhappy with the way some things were being handled in the Area and
brought a motion to the Assembly. The cadre of Past Delegates didn't like
the motion at all and fought it. The Past Delegate's final attempt to
"amend" the motion was to strategically place a comma in the text of the
motion. It didn't take but a moment for the GRs to figure out that one
little comma would completely reverse the intent of their motion. They
refused to accept the amendment, and the motion passed easily. 

 

Just one little comma would completely reverse the intent of their motion.
May I ask you to remember this when you read these examples of what has been
changed on our website.

 

 

1. During the SC deliberations regarding Bronwyn joining the SC, Jane posted
an email to the SC challenging the fact that two Founder positions existed
on the Steering Committee. Three members of the SC were so upset with this
that they made a motion to ban me from ASP. 

 

Jane on 3/16/2017:

Ok it says, "The Steering Committee is the primary business committee of A
Serenity Place. The Steering Committee is composed of all elected officers,
Chairpersons of committees (but not sub-committees), one 'founder' (one of
the original founders of A Serenity Place or one or two of those most nearly
so)..."

 

ONE founder OR one or two of "those most nearly so" doesn't seem to warrant
a search for a long-time member to join the SC. We have one founder on the
SC so why seek out another one? Doesn't seem warranted by what's written.

 

The actual wording of the Founding Policy:

 

The Steering Committee is composed of all elected officers, Chair persons of
committees (but not sub-committees), two 'founders' (the original founders
of A Serenity Place or those most nearly so), . . .

 

Please note how they changed the wording of one of our Founding Policies
from:

 

two 'founders' (the original founders of A Serenity Place or those most
nearly so),

 

to:

 

ONE 'founder' (ONE OF  the original founders of A Serenity Place or ONE OR
TWO OF those most nearly so)

 

This was not a typo. This was a deliberate attempt by the Web Master and/or
List Administrator to alter our core policy to suit their agenda of not
having a second Founder position on the SC. It is not possible to consider
this acceptable behavior in any Al-Anon meeting.  ASP has previously treated
this kind of behavior as a violation of server security. 

 

2. I have found numerous instances of pages and/or material REMOVED from the
previous web site. This is totally inconsistent with Jane's insistence that
"I tried very hard to make sure everything from the old site was on this
one." 

 

3. The "Home Page" of the original website contained numerous over 30 links
to the wide variety of content on the ASP website. That was almost cut in
half on the current home page; just 17 links. Were the links removed trivial
and unnecessary? Not hardly. 

 

For example, a year plus ago I got a lot of grief from some members of the
Steering Committee and was often accused of making up new policy as I went.
In fact, I was merely referring to our Founding Policies that every member
is required to read when joining ASP. Naturally, we don't expect members to
remember all of that stuff, so providing a link to our Founding Policies is
a critical one. 

 

Another example that our members frequently deal with yet is very difficult
to find on the current site is the CAL contract with WSO. We used to display
the actual contract on the ASP website so members could read it themselves.
Doing this confirmed that we really do have permission to reprint CAL,
exactly what CAL we may use in our meeting and exactly what we have to do
when we use CAL. This also lets the members see if our contract is current,
as our List Administrator let it lapse for the first half of this year. 

 

 

4. Jane has included a private email from me to her in what she posted on
the website in her attempt to justify her changes to the website. She posted
this private email from me without notice or permission from me. This is a
gross violation of anonymity when the Web Master posts private emails on the
web site.  Consider how you might react if you discovered that I had posted
a private email from you on the ASP website on my server.
http://asp-afg.org/members/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Website-Decision-2014-
Switching-to-Wordpress.pdf

 

 

5. Difficult to navigate. I know that some will argue this point, but the
fact is that many people have struggled to find things on the current web
site. I've also seen this to be quite true with the members of the SC as
several of them accused me of constantly creating new policies while I was
merely quoting long-standing policies. The several members of the SC were
unaware of and unable to find the job descriptions of the elected members
and Steering Committee that are part of Motion #4. 

 

 

6. Jane and Sandie posted a new web page for newcomers without notifying or
seeking collaboration or authorization from the SC or the BM. This page
consisted of 3 quotations of CAL, which violated our permission contract
with WSO to use CAL in our meeting. Additionally, the primary quote was of
our Suggested Welcome. Our Daily Chairs send a copy of this to every member
every day. I don't understand how a redundant publication of the Welcome is
supposed to be of much benefit to newcomers. Especially when the Welcome was
the first and foremost piece of CAL quoted on the page. 

 

 

7.  Jane's description of the changes she made to the web pages lacks
critical detail. 

 

 

8.  There is no link to the old web site. Members of ASP should be able to
access the old website as an archive, if nothing else. Asking the members to
approve the new website without providing a detailed description of the
changes along with access to the old site for comparison denies the members
the opportunity to make their own informed decision. 

 

 

9.  Jane made significant changes to a critical page previously called Our
Business Meeting. 

Jane: "The text on the corresponding page of the old site didn't really jive
with my experience, so I assumed it was outdated. I clicked on the links and
found the lengthy explanations really confusing, so I summarized the
information, compared it to my own experience in ASP and explained it to the
best of my ability. I added a link to a more lengthy explanation called
"KBDM Meeting Process and Steps" (see below), but copied and pasted the text
into a new page: http://asp-afg.org/members/business-meeting-process-at-asp"

NOTE: Please notice how Jane "assumed" that the page was outdated. 

NOTE: It is on this page that Jane added/created "policy" of allowing the
Chair of the Business Meeting to add agenda items and open the Business
Meeting after it has begun.

 

 

10. Numerous and significant changes made to the Business Meeting Format
page without notice or approval.  This results in another layer of changes
in ASP policy without approval by the Business Meeting. 

 

 

11.  The KBDM process at ASP. Links to the KBDM process are clearly labeled
in the Index on the Business Meeting page on the old site. Among those links
is a link to the documentation from WSO that ASP used to develop our own
version of the KBDM process. This link merely served as a link to WSO's
format "FOR REVIEW".  Jane changed this and elevated the WSO documentation
to the status of ASP's Q&A regarding KBDM. Please note that WSO does not
provide Q&A for ASP, nor has ASP chosen to use any documents from WSO as Q&A
for ASP. Tradition 2 applies here. 

 

 

12.  ASP policy on the old website stipulates that the Business Meeting
agenda is to be posted on the website. This is an immensely valuable
resource as it provides a history of our past discussions as well as the
trusted servants we have elected. It appears that most of our previous Web
Master were reasonably effective at posting this information. This faltered
with the Web Master before Jane and was a little over a year out of date. 

Instead of either (a) seeking help with updating the Business Meeting Agenda
page, or (b) continuing the entries from where she found it, Jane decided on
her own to terminate it. 

Again, I'll point out that this is an extremely valuable resource for both
members and our trusted servants as it is often desirable to determine when
something happened. This page made it easy to find, but it is now over 4
years out of date because she decided to drop it.

 

 

OK, that's enough for this evening. More shall be revealed. 

 

Hugs,

Steve