Proposal: increase our Tech Working Group monthly infrastructure spend to ~€150
Update (2022-11-25): this proposal is superseded by https://www.loomio.com/p/PrfjuJAv/proposal-assign-a-250-monthly-discretionary-budget-to-the-tech-working-group, which takes into account feedback by the community.
Hi there!
We are discussing scalability and reliability strategy in the Tech Working Group this week, after the great work by @protean which brought us to the latest Mastodon version safely.
We have located two servers in Hetzner under auction that would let us augment and replace Runko, our current server with hardware from ~2013. To lease them would signify an extra expense of <€100 monthly:
Once they are set up, we could likely retire Runko (with their aging hardware) and save those ~40€/mo if we want that -- or replace it with newer hardware at a similar price, keeping our monthly server spend in the €150 range.
@Nathan Schneider, we discussed having a discretionary budget elsewhere -- do you think this proposal needs more details and a consultation with the community or do you feel comfortable approving it? Moving fast would enable us to start working on balancing the current load better, and prepare us to grow the instance further if we want to do that and the opportunity arises. But I'm unsure what the right way forward it.
@Ian Smith @Bo Jeanes among others from the TWG reviewed so far, review of the rest of the working groups and the wider community is of course very welcome :)
Ana Ulin Thu 24 Nov 2022 12:01AM
It looks like we have space for this in our budget. I'm all in favor! (cf. https://opencollective.com/socialcoop#category-BUDGET and https://www.loomio.com/d/jSvw79qE/we-have-room-in-our-budget-to-do-more-what-should-we-do-)
Konrad Lawson Thu 24 Nov 2022 12:09AM
This sounds good. Certainly in favor of supporting growth and sustainability of hosting solutions. If there are promising links to be made with other coops and May First on this front also favor that as makes best sense in terms of cost and flexibility.
Jeremy Rose Thu 24 Nov 2022 12:16AM
Sounds like a good idea to me! We're all here to use this server, so IMO this is our first priority for funds.
Poll Created Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:03AM
Proposal: increase our Tech Working Group monthly infrastructure spend to ~€150 Closed Fri 25 Nov 2022 1:07AM
Poll closed to be replaced by a new reformulated proposal
This poll was labelled urgent. It no longer is.
It was labeled URGENT as it appeared the funds were required quickly (read below) and so that it could comply with our [bylaws](https://wiki.social.coop/rules-and-bylaws/Bylaws-for-social.coop.html)
Can see more details about the expenses in the [thread](https://www.loomio.com/d/Oakf6qgh/proposal-increase-our-tech-working-group-monthly-infrastructure-spend-to-150)
People whove already indicated they support the proposal can be manually added to the poll totals after it closes
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 56.5% | 26 |
|
| Abstain | 26.1% | 12 |
|
|
| Disagree | 17.4% | 8 |
|
|
| Undecided | 0% | 224 |
|
46 of 270 people have participated (17%)
Darren
Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:08AM
Members of the tech working group have been super active applying upgrades to our Mastodon server over the last few days. Very happy for the necessary resources to be made available in a timely manner to smooth their work and make our instance more robust
Calix
Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:08AM
I am, feeling very conflicted, voting "no" because:
I don't know anything that would justify this being an "URGENT" vote; what is the time pressure to decide this within 24 hours instead of a week?
There is still disagreement between folks in the "Tech Working Group" Matrix channel about this change; I'm not sure if folks were just referring to the TWG "Ops" members, but I don't think it's accurate to say that the TWG has agreed to ask for this.
Greg Malkov
Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:08AM
Sounds great! Is the plan replicate data and/or application deployments across the two servers?
Aaron Wolf
Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:08AM
In general, I suggest having some buffer for any working group to make temporary decisions to use a modest amount of extra funds for any urgent need without getting a full-membership vote. Such decisions should be done in ways that are easy to reverse if possible. Then, the WG should explain why the extra funds were needed and to propose to the membership any long-term changes.
Long-term changes should not be made urgently. Urgent temporary changes should not have excessive obstacles.
Matt Noyes
Thu 24 Nov 2022 3:08AM
Don't see why this is urgent? Am I missing something?
Also, I had hope we would explore doing this jointly with Meet.Coop and/or MayFirst.Coop
Jamie Gaehring · Tue 29 Nov 2022 2:06AM
Finally catching up on all this, but sounds good! I'd be interested in knowing more how May First Coop works in general, as much out of personal curiosity as anything else.