I have one thing to add to my PAC impressions, which maybe azarias can gut-check. In chestnut_pod's post, one of the things they mentioned was the need for more efficient and higher-volume recruiting. And that certainly seems the case with PAC-- like, there are just so many fucking tickets! And although process improvements are clearly necessary, one of the first processes that needs doing IMO is "how many people do we actually need based on the average amount of work done by a single volunteer? Let's make sure we have an maintain that number of people or above."
And one of the specific things that frustrated me was that the lack of volunteer oversight meant that, well, people on PAC needed to be really certain of their colleagues' trustworthiness, because it would be very possible for a bad actor to fuck shit up for a while without being caught! (For obvious reasons I don't want to lay out exactly what those ways are in public, since they presumably still exist, besides what we already know has been done by a bad actor somewhere within the org.)
So during my time there there was a recruitment drive, and we could volunteer to be on the committee that evaluated applications, which I did. I happened to have two friends apply that round, people who I had known for several years and knew to be truatworthy and organized. And I don't want this to sound like a butthurt "how could anyone reject MY friends!" complaint! I mention it because in a context where a) we really need warm bodies taking tickets, and b) many accepted volunteers drop off quickly before actually putting in much work-- you would think that the goal would be to accept as many people as possible who didn't show obvious red flags, and then continue to evaluate, correct and monitor them over training and beyond. But instead, the evaluation of applicants just seemed... kind of paranoid? It seemed like we were looking for the tiniest of hints that someone might be a bad actor or doing it for the wrong reasons, and in so doing finding plenty of probably meaningless reasons in nitpicking word choice to reject people. And in two cases I knew the stuff was meaningless because I knew the applicants in question personally, but I'm sure there were way more cases where someone who might have been good was thrown into the "what if they're a malicious anti trying to infiltrate? Better not risk it" pile. (Not a real pile, obviously, but that was my impression of the underlying thinking.)
So the fact that there's so little official oversight leads to a situation where volunteer numbers have to be kept artificially and harmfully low-- IIRC, I think my entering "class" had three people in it? Maybe there were more accepted who dropped out before training, idk, but I think of those one is still there, I stayed about a year and a half, and one dropped out after a few months. And it's just not enough!
And obviously more people requires more organization and oversight, which requires new processes and tools, but... yeah, that's the point!
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I have one thing to add to my PAC impressions, which maybe azarias can gut-check. In
And one of the specific things that frustrated me was that the lack of volunteer oversight meant that, well, people on PAC needed to be really certain of their colleagues' trustworthiness, because it would be very possible for a bad actor to fuck shit up for a while without being caught! (For obvious reasons I don't want to lay out exactly what those ways are in public, since they presumably still exist, besides what we already know has been done by a bad actor somewhere within the org.)
So during my time there there was a recruitment drive, and we could volunteer to be on the committee that evaluated applications, which I did. I happened to have two friends apply that round, people who I had known for several years and knew to be truatworthy and organized. And I don't want this to sound like a butthurt "how could anyone reject MY friends!" complaint! I mention it because in a context where a) we really need warm bodies taking tickets, and b) many accepted volunteers drop off quickly before actually putting in much work-- you would think that the goal would be to accept as many people as possible who didn't show obvious red flags, and then continue to evaluate, correct and monitor them over training and beyond. But instead, the evaluation of applicants just seemed... kind of paranoid? It seemed like we were looking for the tiniest of hints that someone might be a bad actor or doing it for the wrong reasons, and in so doing finding plenty of probably meaningless reasons in nitpicking word choice to reject people. And in two cases I knew the stuff was meaningless because I knew the applicants in question personally, but I'm sure there were way more cases where someone who might have been good was thrown into the "what if they're a malicious anti trying to infiltrate? Better not risk it" pile. (Not a real pile, obviously, but that was my impression of the underlying thinking.)
So the fact that there's so little official oversight leads to a situation where volunteer numbers have to be kept artificially and harmfully low-- IIRC, I think my entering "class" had three people in it? Maybe there were more accepted who dropped out before training, idk, but I think of those one is still there, I stayed about a year and a half, and one dropped out after a few months. And it's just not enough!
And obviously more people requires more organization and oversight, which requires new processes and tools, but... yeah, that's the point!