It's not just a possibility, it's the only way significant progress could be made with such a complex project. If one was to attack the problem sensibly. This does ofc have the massive flaw of being able to recognise sanity.
The "IT team" is AIRC's and if this service is anything to go by, then likely their systems are in constant disarray meaning the time and attention they are able to drop into this initiative is minimal. It's either that, or they made themselves systems that actually work, spend all day looking at cat videos in reddit and just threw together any random crap in thirty mins(I really hope it didn't take longer, but there was a EC2 unit mapped to forum.asgardia.space for some time - I bet large sums that, as well as the EC2 instance asgardia.space started on wasn't sanitised, either) in the hope it'd keep us out of their hair. Neither of those senario leave me feeling happy. I'd be honestly too embaressed to push people towards this service if I was responsible for it. It, along with it's mistakes, really doesn't come across as professional, at all.
The "actual team" I think would be most unwise to attribute to various interwebs randoms. It's definitely wise to crowdsource, however, on this and many other subjects. All it'd really take is somewhere to input. As long as anyone can input then solutions can be provided and implimented readily at convenience of "admin". I'm to understand effort is being made to provide "collaborational tools" which if done right should almost entirely encompass needs here, system specifications would be useful, also but not critical. Quite why we're still waiting for this over a month later when there's plenty of open source initatives in this field that can be deployed in less than thirty mins speaks volumes. As do things like absence of PM, abuse reporting, ticketing generally, user authentication, data security policies - and disturbingly, the list is nowhere near exhausted. I cannot help the prediction that even with doing all the actual work for them, the implimentation of will still take disturbingly long times. Eventually - most likely post June - I would predict a massive shakeup in a lot of structure. If we do that right, we can end up with something that has a chance of working.
The selection for such a team really wouldn't want to follow the current scheme at all - the technologies utilised in such suggest anyone willing to actively engage with privacy invasive malware have already proved themselves unsuitable.
Commonly I suggest core focus to be the foundation and construction of our governmental systems, as a logical path, but I honestly think IT takes priority here as really about now we have little else, and it will be the core of our operations for the observable future. A lot of work needs doing with this to fabricate some sort of legitmate voting system for example, as opposed to the opinion polls current capacity allows for generation of - which are probably fine for "market research" but are lacking for almost anything else.
With this in mind, I would suggest that once we get collaborational tools to focus on rebuilding the current services. I personally would envision a common landing page as is currently, but instead of jumping straight into the forum instead a "portal" in which other services - including the forum - are accessible. From here we can begin to define and build a framework around which our services operate, whilst avoiding useless feature creep. Luckily the existing structure - Drupal if I'm not mistaken - should make this pretty easy. To begin constructing these services in a modular fashion would make it easy to upgrade/maintain any individual component and or swap it for another as needs change. There should be no reason for data to move anywhere, it should be able to absorb and operate around the existing DB structure. Modular.
There are supermen amongst - some have grown quite used to commonly encountering incompetence and thusly long since formulated the opinion that the only way to ensure something is not just done, but done properly, is to do it yourself. Everything. Then the only person you have to blame in the unlikely event of failure is yourself - and you're left with something you can easily do about it. It is most unwise to underestimate the overal capacity of an individual. Sometimes all it takes to make(or break) something is just one person. A wonderful example here is Dashrath Manjhi, and what he did with nothing but raw determination and simple hand tools. Ofc, when you start adding the output of people like that together, progress can become impressive.
Just to clarify, I am bashing & criticising people already part of "teams" - if they have a problem with this then they shouldn't of gone out of their way to make it so easy, or at least made some effort in prevention. The dislike of such might even inspire change, if we're lucky. If they're incapable(either in time or skill) then they shouldn't of started, and someone that is capable would of been found. But it's not just bashing for bashings sake - I really shouldn't be left able to, and therin lies the problem. Problems need highlighting or they don't ever get solved.
