- Management

This section contains information on how Plasma is managed & organised. Sub-sections include:

• Project Management
• Member Management
• Newsletter Management
• Meeting Management

Projects in Plasma can be anything relating to computers. However there are set categories which are recommended. These are shown below:

• a program
• a graphic
• an animation
• a piece of music
• a sound
• a web page

Although anything can be a project. Every project has a few things in common. The first is that there must be One Main Project Leader. The main project leader can appoint sub-project leaders which can have leadership for a specific task or shared leadership role.

When a project is started by a member of Plasma, a few things must be decided. These are detailed below:

• Deadline for project
  eg:
  • 24th December 2004 (A Specific Date)
  • No set deadline, but within 2 years
• People needed to complete task (the absolute minimum)
• Can be external and internal people (in relation to Plasma)
  eg:
  • 1 Programmer
  • 1 Graphics/Animation Artist
  • 1 Music Composer
  • 3 Web Page Maker
• Amount of time that should be spent doing each task
  eg:
  • The project should take more than 1hr/week/person
  • The project will be very time demanding in Programming
• The difficulty of the project or quality demanded from members
  eg:
  • This project is only for people who know ...
• If the project is a formal project, real names will be used
• Costs involved
  • Software
• A status report must be submitted to every newsletter
  • Must be different every time (even if it means reporting 'nothing has been done on the project since last time')
  • A web page must be maintained by one of the members working on the project. - Can be made from set templates, so that anyone can do this (if everyone who knows HTML is busy)

If the person who leads a project loses interest, then if adequate interest remains in the group another leader can be appointed.

To become a Plasma member a person must first fill out the joining for and supply an example of their work. The application is examined by the board of reviewers - which is a selection of people in Plasma who are highly specialised in Programming, Graphics, Music and Web Design. This group selects the type of membership the person will have and how good his/her talents are.

Once this person is accepted they are a Plasma member. A Plasma member has two types of status: Member Type and Specialisation Types.

There are 3 member types:

• New Members
• Non-Specialised Members
• Specialised Members

Specialisation Types are within a category such as Programming, Graphics/Animation, Music/Sound, Concepts, Web Design. There are 3 specialisation types types:

• Normal
• Specialised
• Highly Specialised

For each member type and specialisation type the member has to forfill a specific quota. The most demanding is the 'Specialised' Member Type and 'Highly-Specialised' Specialisation Type. These are detailed for each type of member type below:

• A Senior Member
• • must have all pre-requisites for a Specialised Member and;
  • must have been in Plasma for at least 12 months (13 months including New Membership Status)
  • must have a significant commitment to Plasma through time/effort(*)
• A Specialised Member (Member Type)
• • must have a genuine interest in Plasma
  • be prepared to come to meetings (IRC or in person)
  • have a commitment to Plasma (through Projects/time/etc)
  • must have an example of his/her works in his/her specialsation
• A Non-Specialised (Ordinary) Member (Member Type)
• • must have an interest in Plasma
• A New Member (Member Type)
• • must have an interest in Plasma
  • has 3 months to submit works and become a specialised member or decide to become a non-specialised member

The Movement between these member types is illustrated in the picture below. It can be noted that there can be frequent changes from non-specialised member status to specialised member status (and vice-versa). The reason for this is that a member can have varying amounts of time that they can commit to Plasma, and the non-specialised member status is less demanding than specialised member status.

Note: Projects can only be led by Specialised Members.

Each Specialisation Type will be detailed below:

• Highly-Specialised in * (Specialisation Type)
• • requires a large amount of talent in the specialisation category.
  • must contribute to projects of Plasma.
  • must be a Specialised Member [Member Type] (as the same things are needed in this category)
  • must fulfill the specifics for that category as detailed on the member page.
• Specialised in * (Specialisation Type)
• • must either have a talent or a large contribution to the project of Plasma.
  • can be of any member type.
  • must contribute to some project of Plasma during the year.
• Normal in * (Specialisation Type)
• • must have some knowledge or talent in the category.
  • can be of any member type.
  • should be willing to learn to be specialised in that category.

All big events and news is published in the Plasma newsletter. This differs from normal news in that it is formally presented and only occurs every 1-2 months.

Every newsletter is available in 3 formats:

• HTML 4 by email (requires a new browser and at least 800x600 (for Netscape)),
• Postscript by email (300dpi and 600dpi version available) and
• Hard copy by post (This costs $5 a year).

Every newsletter will contain around 3 pages. The newsletter will contain:

• Message from the editor.
• The most worked on/best project for that month. (First page)
• All other projects with their project status updated.
• A table of contents.
• An Article by a Plasma member or someone from outside of Plasma.
• A list of competitions currently held in Plasma.
• A list of members.
• A list of events that month.

Newsletters will be sent out in the following parts of 2000: (Please note that the seasons are for the southern hemisphere)

• February - Summer Edition
• - Autumn Edition
• - Winter Edition
• - Spring Edition

Articles can be anything relating to computers and technology. They can be submitted at any time before the newsletters come out. (You can submit an article for the last edition of the year - if you want)

A Plasma Meeting is a meeting of Plasma Members to discuss Plasma Issues. A Plasma Meeting can either be an IRC Meeting (on IRC) or at a real location. Since not everyone in Plasma is in the same place (city/country/etc) the majority of meetings need to be on IRC.

A meeting can be called by any Specialised Member. The person who calls the meeting can decide whether it is on IRC or IRL (in real life). If the meeting is on IRC they can also decide the server it is on. However it is recommended to choose one of irc.uq.edu.au and austnet.org, as this is where meetings in the past have been held.

The person calling the meet needs to set up a list of topics to be talked about, at the meeting. This will be stored on the Plasma Website (under Meetings).

A number of set meeting dates have been selected by Konstanty. These meeting dates were selected so that they would be a week or two before Newsletters are released.

There are 3 "important" meetings during the year. These are 2 IRC ones and 1 IRL one. The IRC Meetings are situated on the last Saturdays before people go to work/uni/tafe/school/etc at the beginning of the year and the Saturday in the winter vacation (for countries below the equator). The IRL meeting is some time in January in Brisbane.