Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of projects/membership-meeting/2012/reports/support

Timestamp:

Oct 4, 2012, 8:59:26 PM (13 years ago)

Author:

Ross

Comment:

--

projects/membership-meeting/2012/reports/support

@@ +1 @@
+= 2012 Membership Meeting Report =
+
+It has been an exciting, challenging and productive year for the support team.
+I want to offer deep appreciation to everyone who has participated in support
+work over the last year.  This includes Jamie, dkg, Greg, Nat, Joseph, Jon,
+Brandon, Daniel S., Dana, Drew, Langston, Josue, Stephen, and Enrique.  Without
+the continued efforts of this group of people this years successes would not
+have been possible and our failures would have been much worse.
+
+== Ticket Tracking ==
+
+The last year has been the single busiest year for the support team with over
+1600 support tickets opened and over 1700 tickets resolved.  Ticket quantity
+increased for a number of reasons.  First, we have expanded our use of the
+system to include accounting documentation (specifically membership accounts in
+danger of being disabled for unpaid dues) and a translation workflow.  Second,
+after donating servers to the Occupy Movement, we increased our membership by
+10% within two months and with the increased membership came additional needs,
+often from people new to website creation and/or maintenance.  Finally, we have
+tried to be more explicit in documenting the creation of new virtual servers, of
+which there have been quite a few.  Over the last year, we have increased our
+number of servers from 96 to 139, a 44% increase.
+
+== Server Maintenance and Monitoring ==
+
+To manage the significant increase in our number of servers, we have built a
+new site dedicated specifically to organizing our servers
+http://servers.mayfirst.org .  This site tracks all of our servers and the
+individual responsible for managing and updating each.  We have also built new
+monitoring tools to track the disk space on each server as well the software
+update status.  These things combined have allowed us to keep our systems as up
+to date and secure as possible in a way that distributes the labor across
+support team members.
+
+== Team Building and Collaboration ==
+
+This is the first full year in which we've had consistent monthly face to face
+meetings of the support team.  We currently meet every first Saturday of the
+month for 10 to 16 hours to work on various parts of our infrastructure.  These
+meetings have proven to be quite fruitful, allowing us to pull in additional
+participants.  Fifteen different people have attended face to face meetings
+this year, another support team record.  The increased participation gave us
+the opportunity to figure out ways to include participants with fewer
+privileges, a historical struggle.  By reducing the barrier to entry, we have
+garnered a significant increase in participation.
+
+== Email ==
+
+A number of significant improvements have been made to our email
+infrastructure.
+
+=== Roundcube ===
+
+This summer we finalized our Roundcube installation, another free software web
+mail client, which has a much better interface than our classic Horde client.
+Members can now choose between Horde (https://webmail.mayfirst.org ) and
+Roundcube (https://roundcube.mayfirst.org for webmail, resolving a long standing
+member request.
+
+=== mail.mayfirst.org ===
+
+In addition to improving webmail, we centralized the domain needed to configure
+email accounts.  Historically, members were required to enter their specific
+server name in order to configure a local email client.  Now everyone shares the
+same mailing host domain name mail.mayfirst.org.  This simplifies setting up
+email accounts and should prove much easier for members to navigate.
+
+== Social Networking ==
+
+We have been working for some time on finding free software alternatives to
+popular proprietary social networking sites and tools.  We believe we have found
+a legitimate alternative to those tools and now have a fully functional social
+networking site of our own at https://friends.mayfirst.org using the FLOSS tool
+friendica.  Our hope is that this tool will assist us in building a network for
+our members in a non-proprietary fashion in which their data will not be
+controlled or owned by anyone.  Based on extensive testing and use,
+https://friends.mayfirst.org is ready for widespread use by our membership.
+
+In addition to friends, we have a fully functional mumble server up and running
+at mumble.mayfirst.org.  This software allows audio conferencing for users who
+have installed the mumble software.  This stable and widely used software is
+excellent for audio conferencing, though the software can be a bit challenging
+to configure.
+
+== Security ==
+
+After the FBI stole one of riseup's servers from our server cabinet, we
+installed cameras on all of our server cabinets to increase our awareness about
+who might be gaining access.  This has already led to the video capture of the
+FBI returning the server (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mikBKmxVyb0 ).  While
+we do not expect any interference with our cabinets, the new security measures
+should at least keep us informed of any unwarranted or warranted as the case may
+be invasions.
+
+== Internationalization ==
+
+In the efforts to build a bi-lingual May First/People Link, a number of efforts
+from the support team have been undertaken.  We have internationalized
+both the control panel and the support system so that all primary menus read in
+both English and Spanish.  Additionally, a translation macro was installed on
+the support system so that all wiki pages can display multiple languages in a
+breakout menu.
+
+== Challenges ==
+
+=== SPAM ===
+
+Spam caused some significant problems this year for some members.  A number of
+email accounts got high-jacked due to members not using adequate security on
+their accounts.  This lead to a number of cases in which servers were bogged
+down with email send/receive requests.  In addition, a few sites left themselves
+vulnerable to spam posting in which up to 5 million pieces of spam content got
+posted.  These sites generated some significant slowdowns for other members.
+While the support team handled these problems once they were known, these types
+of issues need a more robust approach than we currently have in place.
+
+=== Server Monitoring ===
+
+While we implemented additional monitoring this year, we also encountered a
+number of situations in which our monitoring needs improvement.  In one such
+case, an entire server's email capabilities were off-line for over 48 hours.
+Due to our reliance on members reporting problems, we were unaware of this
+outage for a significant period of time.  Unfortunately, no definitive secure
+approach to the type of monitoring we need has yet been decided upon.  This is a
+challenge that must be adequately met in the coming year, and the support team
+is committed to it's implementation.
+
+=== MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) limits ===
+
+Another challenge encountered by the support team this year was a mysterious
+reduction in our MTU limits for servers in our xo colocation center.  This
+problem impacts all servers in this location causing some sites not to load
+until a reduction in the server's configured limits.  Even though we found a way
+around this problem, a definitive solution has yet to be discovered.  We
+continue to research this issue but have yet to find any legitimate explanation
+for the problem.
+
+== Looking Forward ==
+
+=== User Interface/Experience ===
+
+One of the projects we began this year involves redesigning the member's control
+panel.  Still in the early stages, our plan is to spend time in the upcoming
+year revamping the look and feel of the control panel to make it easier for
+members to navigate.  This includes creating some wizard like functionality to
+target the most used control panel features.
+
+=== Wordpress Web App ===
+
+Due to the explosion of wordpress sites on our servers, we have committed to
+implementing a wordpress web app in the coming year.  Some progress has already
+been made with this project with a model outlined for implementation.  This
+should be completed within a few months.