There are many different types of roles that add to the mixture of Simple Machines, and they all must work together for this organization to thrive. This section highlights the different roles you are likely to encounter, and how they fit into the overall picture of Simple Machines.

LLC Partners

From October 23rd 2006 until 2011, Simple Machines was a Limited Liability Company that registered in the state of Arizona[3]. In order for an LLC to exist, it must have active partners that maintain the legal structure of the company; the management of the company is vested in the names of the partners of the company. In the case of Simple Machines LLC, the director of record is Cathy Bailey of Tucson Arizona.

The partners of the LLC are an integral part of Simple Machines as they ensure that our business records are in-order and up-to-date. We must always strive to keep the partners involved in Simple Machines, lest we lose connection with our legal representation. We are all contributing our efforts to building a successful organization, and legally our software, our processes and our wealth are owned by the LLC, which is technically owned by the partners. This means that we must be selective of the partners we select as our project is in their hands.

If you would like to learn more about the process of adding and removing LLC partners, you can read more about the process on Page 19

Team Members

The people behind Simple Machines are a diverse group of individuals who, in their free time, put their efforts together to help make Simple Machines Forum what it is today. Many different uses of skills are expressed within several teams, including a design team, modification team, development team, documentation team, support team, and a language team. Each team member is a volunteer who has agreed to donate their time and efforts to help improve Simple Machines’ product and service offerings.

The team members are the people who help make this project a reality – and so we must be supportive with of all team members and help them grow as team members and as people. This project was founded by people and for people looking to development their skills as well as themselves. We will always strive to help and encourage others and to provide opportunity for growth, development and learning.

The structure of the team is an organized one, as described in on Page 12. Each team is responsible for a different area of the project’s success, and as such each position is a crucial one. Team members are always encouraged to stretch themselves and to try new things; as such, individuals often help out with other roles as part of their day-to-day activities, and changing teams is not an unusual occurrence[4]. Such rotations encourage new skills development, and provide variety.

SMF Friends a.k.a. Old Timers

- Past team member, or someone who had a lot of influencein the early years of the project. E.g. Zef Hemel.

Forum Users

The users of Simple Machines Forum are some of the most important people in the equation. Most of the Simple Machines team members began their involvement as forum users on simplemachines.org.

Like in any group, there are good users and bad users; there are experienced users and new users; there are users who can form a coherent though and users who can’t. When interacting with the other forum users, please be respectful of their time and be patient with them – sometimes they don’t fully know what knowledge they’re missing. Also, try to remember that ultimately we’re trying to develop a package that will provide value to these same users; remember that we’re trying to sell to them.

Charter Members

Charter Members are those members who have signed on to an annual subscription to receive a number of incentives including priority support, advanced access to betas and access to a closed section of our Community forums. These members are key contributors to our success, as they contribute to our financial health, and have demonstrated that they believe in our success enough to have contributed financially.

Additionally, Charter Members are our primary advocates outside of SMF circles, and thus providing them with exceptional support is important to our continued success. In terms of approaches, many of our charter members are competent installers and programmers, however the vast majority of them are website owners who understand that they don’t have the skills to built their site, and who appreciate our technical expertise and our experience with the software. They are a great source of support, and a great source of honest feedback.

Advertisers

Most advertisers on the SMF site are owners of hosting companies or software companies who advertise to web masters and website owners. If you come across an advertiser using our community, please be considerate and helpful – if we can help their business grow, then they will be able to afford more advertising in the future.

If you ever elect to use an advertiser’s products or services, please take the time to provide them with a testimonial and a comment to let them know that their contributions to SMF yielded them new business, and to help them understand we appreciate their patronage.

Competitors

- Don’t flame competitors
- Assume no privacy – anything you post, even in the team boards will eventually become public knowledge and our competitors will hear about them.

Bots/Crawlers

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[3] Don’t forget to mark that date in your calendar to wish everyone Happy Anniversary!

[4] Although trying new things is encouraged, please remember that helping a team member switch teams does involve administrative overhead and may lead to confusion on the boards. Switching teams frivolously is not recommended