#Callahan's Update 2011AUG23 - Posted by ManinBlak

As always, please consider this an open letter for everyone; feel free to copy it, repost, or link to it as needed.

*UPDATE EARLY AM of 2011AUG24: While I was on the road and unable to post this, the 3-5 day window I mention below did in fact become a 3-5 hour window. The joys of Undernet Channel Services! Please take 2 deep breaths and read this in its entirety for a full explanation of the channel manager change. And yes, for those who sent me a note, I'm OK and this is not due to any sort of medical emergency or something! I appreciate the concern. And for those who were caught off gaurd, I deeply apologize and hope the explanations below fill in the largest of the gaps for now.*

I'm currently activating the '#Callahans Management Succession Policy' that's been in place for a couple of years by elevating one of our 499s to the 500 position in my place and dropping myself back to a 499. Outside of channel, I've been informed of some upcoming changes and projects that will, whether you believe this is physically possible or not, require an even larger investment in my time than I've had to make in the past. Also, Undernet's Channel Services website has, for the first time in years, finally regained the ability to actually *make* channel changes. I'm taking advantage of this 'perfect storm' to make sure that we don't have an issue where the Channel Services system fails under is again in a scenario where I'm unable to log in for such a period that #Callahans becomes unprotected by Channel Services. According to CService, sometime in the next 3-5 days, PauAmma will swap from a 499 to a 500 and my account will become a 499.

Here's some background and reasons for it, besides the simple constrains on my time. Undernet's Channel Services front-end web interface have been unavailable for the better part of 2 solid years, due in large part to their inability to handle the near-constant DDoS's. This interface is the only way to manage higher-level channel functions beyond simple changes thru X (ie, only thru the web interface can we change a 500). A 500 can only be 500 in a single channel, but can be a 499 in multiple channels. And finally, a 500 has to be readily available thru *some* means to regularly ensure that regardless of how flaky CServices login system becomes that logins happen often enough to maintain an active channel status. This became in issue in February of this year when my account became unable to login due to an issue in Channel Services' back-end and I could *not* log in, and there was no way other than the unavailable website to change the 500 even tho the system was going to automatically drop the channel registry if I didn't log in!

As to urgency of the action, as stated above, Channel Services websites and back-end functionality have been unreliable for years, full-stop. I've spoken with some folks involved thru forums and messages in the last few days, and while they're hopeful they've found ways to manage the issue, it's with serious reservations about the long term viability of the fixes. The recommendations have been "If you need to make a change, do it now".

Of our existing 499s, several are ineligible to take the 500 position due to being a channel manager for other existing channels, and quite simply cannot become a 500 in #Callahans without changes to those channels, which may also be time consuming or frankly may be the channel ifor which they have the greatest responsibility.

PauAmma has graciously volunteered to 'use' his one channel 500 slot to ensure #Callahans doesn't end up in a forced position where channel services become unavailable because of Undernet's inability to provide an interface to the system (such as we saw earlier this year). I'm grateful that he's willing to do this, but not surprised. He, FreeTrav, Arcmaster, Oberon, Beki, and Da5id have meen instrumental in keeping channel in an active and viable state as far as Undernet's policies go. For various reasons of existing 500-edness and other time constraints, Pau has become the obvious choice among those eligible to take the position.

This is not in and of itself any kind of sea-change; the exact same group of folks have exactly the same account abilities as before with the sole exception of who has the overrreaching ability and responsibility to manage the basic existance of the channel's channel services. Obviously, this can be modified thru a change to the existing 499s by the new 500, but that's about it. Considering that any level 100+ abilities in channel have been usable only by the same group of people, there's no functional change to the current status.

Now, that statement comes with the caveat that in no uncertain terms the new and hopefully benevolent dictator (because of Undernet policies) is a different person, er, crustacean. Whatever. Pau now will have both the ability and responsibility over channel to make changes to the 499 type of accounts and any other 'sweeping' policy statements needed, pending any decision on his part to juggle the management team.

I do not expect this to happen in the near terms as quite frankly the 499s and 500 have been interchangeable for the most part for several years, and no major activities have taken place in channel without quite a lot of discussion, nail-biting, debate, and commisseration (mostly due to various Channel Services issues). Now would be a good time to see what you might like to see different and write up some kind of "Welcome to the hottest seat from your previously pretty hot seat" notes for Pau if you have any concerns, comments, questions, etc.

Aside from being sure that there *is* a #Callahans that we can know and love, most importantly to me is that Channel has the ability to maintain its status as having channel services available, and this change makes that possible. I'm having to do it quickly because of the past history of Channel Services being so unreliable, so that's why I'm penning this note, as I've just issued the request to Channel Services today and this should take proper effect within 3-5 days according to the notice I've been given. It may very well be 3-5 hours or 3-5 months, given their past track record :) I'll post this as quickly as possible (I'm writing it from the side of the interstate on 2011AUG23 if that helps).

I want to tell everyone how incredibly proud I am of #Callahans as a whole. Over the last nearly 20 years in IRC across multiple networks (past and present) plus more time in Usenet and in other venues such as LiveJournal, AOL, Second Life, and The Well, we've seen each other through births and deaths, weddings and funerals, graduations and career changes, and have watched world events unfold where many of us have called on each other to help out, be it providing places to stay when the airlines were shut down during the September 11th attacks in the US or lending people cell phones or paying for hotel rooms and gas or driving people to somewhere safe when they were the victims of economic fallout, physical or emotional abuse, or dealing with some personal or medical crisis. I'm still humbled that anyone thought I'd ever be a 'reasonable' choice to do my small part in helping keep #Callahans available through Channel Services, and I'm thankful that everyone in channel cares enough to both take action and state their opinions about our taking care of each other.

As I think I said during my last 'long' post in 2009, #Callahans has been and ideally will always be a place where the caring and fun and sharing outweighs the new hurts by a factor of 100:1. I'm hoping this change will let us ensure that it's available for us all for another 15-20 years.