Bantari wrote:People vote for the Leaders, who all campaign and make promises and apparently have ideas. Where are they and their ideas now? The first and most important thing to get followers and volunteers is to give them something worthwhile to follow. This includes the leaders up front and highly visible.
Again, there's the Board, and the people who do things. Sometimes, there's overlap, but not always. Kind of a "legislative vs. executive" kind of thing. Sure, there's crossover, and many of the board members do their own thing, but if there's been a problem implementing board policies, well, that falls squarely on my head. If there are board members out there who have policies that i'm supposed to be working on, PM me or give me a call -- and expect me to ask you to help
Bantari wrote: Arguments like 'because you love the game' does not cut it since there are many alternatives to give your time to (KGS, L19, etc) which seem to already successfully doing what AGA is trying to get into. Take for example the new proposed Kaya.gs server... what a great opportunity to offer help!
I would suggest that the rich constellation of these things ringing the game are instead, perfect examples of the market that the AGA should already have been catering to. We don't have our own servers. We don't have our own forums. That's ok, i'm not saying we should supplant them, just observing that where there was a vacuum, an ecosystem has emerged. Consider the myriad of sites to help promote your club -- igolocal, promotego, goclubsonline, just off the top of my head. Not only do they all do what the AGA should've been doing in the first place, but their success is indicative of how well the AGA wasn't doing it!
So yes, you can change the system from without or within -- and i sound like shapenaji here -- but it is always thus. I think we're all pushing the wheel in the same direction, so no skin off my nose if you find working for Kaya.gs or the AGF or whatnot more satisfying
Bantari wrote:
I see the shadow of what somebody else said the AGA (leadership) wants: 'come up with an idea, execute it, and hand it over to us in a ready and neat package so we can take the credit.' Not many people go for such stuff, it makes you feel used.
No, we need people who can get things to 100% because the nature of things is such: people get to 80% (if that!) and fade away. If it's not done & ready to go, finding another volunteer to finish the job is really nontrivial. Like pwaldron said -- getting a group of people together and keeping them together until it gets across the finish line is
*hard*, organizationally
*hard*. Can't have this argument both ways.
That said, i am trying very hard to make it possible for volunteers to make incremental advancements. Github, for instance, is a real good way for people to do this. For instance, if you'd like to improve next years gocongress site -- it's on github, along with an issues list. Fork it!
(and NB that i *do not* include pwaldron in the list of people who get things to 80% and fade away -- not at all!)
As for other people taking credit for
faites accompli -- that should never happen. Won't ever happen on my watch. If it is happening, SPEAK UP.
When I search Gmail, your real name comes up eight times just this year. So I'm not sure why you don't want your name on the forum, unless...
@_@
Nice to finally meet you on the interwebs after knowing you from the reallifes. 
It's not a very forgiving audience -- something about being blamed for the sins of the fathers, yadda yadda.