Changes between Version 7 and Version 8 of aboutus

Timestamp:

May 6, 2008, 5:18:29 AM (16 years ago)

Author:

alfredo

Comment:

--

aboutus

@@ -23 +23 @@
 Nothing is sold in our organization. Members pay dues and they take from the pooled resources anything they need and want: as many websites, email and mail lists they need. Never a charge for any of that.
 
-Technical support is provided by members through on-line system designed to encourage the involvement of any member in  posting issues, questions and problems and in answering those issues, questions and problems.
+Technical support is provided by members through on-line system designed to encourage the involvement of any member in  posting issues, questions and problems and in answering those issues, questions and problems. In fact, all policy and strategy decisions are openly discussed on our public tracking system.
 
-And all decisions are openly discussed on our public tracking system.
+Members control their own membership (hosting, email, etc.) through our members control panel, designed to allow every member to collaborate in the over-all experience of the organization. Anything a staff member can do for you at a commercial provider, you can do for yourself in MF/PL.
 
-Two principles drive our work: the principle of equality and the principle of collaboration.
+Even a section like this one -- About Us -- is based on members' contributions.
 
-== Equality ==
+But what about quality?
 
-The concept of equality if almost a cliche in our movement and we prioritize bringing into every aspect of our work  the vitally important notion of equality among people as a way of combatting racism, sexism, classism and all other group-specific oppressive thinking.
+Not only is there no contradiction between quality and a collaborative perspective, we believe that they go hand in hand and that the quality of what we have here rivals and even surpasses commercial providers'. For instance, our technical support is one of the things we are best known for and most respected for.
 
-But within the Internet equality can mean a lot more. For our organization, equality means that all members' work is of equal importance so that the work of our techies and their organizations (as members) is as important as, say, the work of a community group specializing in housing...as important and no more important.
-
-This radical thinking about members' work affects and changes not only the way we plan and execute our daily work but the way we relate to each other in that work: for example, in technical support situations. Nobody in MF/PL works for anyone else. Nobody is anyone's boss. Nobody's wish is anyone's command.
-
-== Collaboration ==
-
-While members enjoy all the services commercial Internet providers offer, the stress we put on collaboration makes us a unique kind of organization.
-
-For example, at MFPL, members don't pay for services. Resources are a central part of the collaboration and mutual support our members engage in. We pay yearly dues and purchase equipment and other necessary resources and then each member takes as much from the shared resources as the member needs. There is never a charge for extra services within the list of basic membership benefits. 
+Think about it. When you have a technical problem, you aren't speaking to the first person who answers the phone anxious to demonstrate that the problem isn't the provider's problem. Since your problem is on the public system 
 
 Technical support is another instance. Here we have systems members use to get help with specific problems that are affecting their work, general technical issues, questions or discussion of the organization itself and its work. And any member can answer. Our tech staff is our members; whoever knows the answer to an issue can log into our system and answer it based on their knowledge and involvement. Obviously, the issues about system software and hardware are most often answered by the members who are in charge of our server system but even here other members will often chime in.