Super Assurers

Warning

Note that the Super Assurer programme is more or less deprecated.

Note that the SuperAssurers programme is effectively Frozen

Super Assurer Program has these problems:

With that understanding, the following is OLD information.

Current Information

Super Assurers are approved by the board. Email to cacert-board at lists.normal.place.

What exactly is a "Super Assurer"?

A Super Assurer is an assurrer with at least 100 points, who has temporarily been granted "Super" status by the CAcert Board of Directors. This allows them to issue up 150 points when they assure someone. This is used to "seed" areas which do not have many assurrers yet. The extension of the priviliges last only during a public event, such as an Assurance Party, trade show, or similar event.

To better understand the need for temporarily increasing the point value, consider an area where CAcert has not yet established a foot hold. It takes a minimum of 3 assurances (at 150 points), or up to 10 assurances (at 100 points) for a new person to become an assurer themselves. That means at least 3 people in a geographic area must go through the TTP process in order to be assurred. If one (or more) of those assurrers are not available, new people wanting to be assured will not be able to do so. By allowing temporary Super Assurer status, a dozen (could be a lot more depending on attendance) new Assurers can be created, which will make it much easier for people to get the necessary assurances.

See also EventOrganisation


Historical Information for Research only

these are old statements, kept for the historical record for those who are documenting and re-organising the SuperAssurance Policy.

Origins of the Super Assurer policy

(from Duane, 2005-06-21, record of the origins of the Super Assurer policy)

The most efficient way is to email board at cacert dot org

The rules are any 2 board members can approve a time limited increase to anyone with 100 or more points so long as there are no objections from the other board members once the increase is issued. The only otherthing is that people are organising a user group meeting or attending a conference.

It generally helps to include a little background information on why you need an increase, likely numbers going to the conf/meeting and likely number of people that will be assured etc etc etc.

While we have limited funds, in some cases we will also help with printing/travel/accommodation costs if it's deemed a worth while enough.

While someone with a time limited increase can issue up to 150 points, it's generally a good idea to get 2 or more people witnessing documents as past increases show some people in the rush make some small mistakes but having 2 people view all requests tends to catch everything.

It's also been suggested not to give out the full 150 points if possible, but to give out say 120 points and then let people assure others for the other 30 points, this gives people a "safe" environment to learn how to do this, and it will increase the inter-web trust links.

More Details

After the flurry of emails about lack of response to time critical requests and such, I think what we really need is to develop some simple automation for the repetitive board work that is required at the moment.

We should be a in a position where we can direct the overall, more abstract, direction of CAcert, and not have to spend copious time dealing with the micro-management of CAcert's assurance system.

I'd like to start a conversation on how we can reduce the work-load required by all of us without jepardising the security of the assurance process, and at the same time improve our processes. To this end, I've got some suggestions:

This is just a starting point off the top of my head, so any suggestions are welcome.

Another old statement


SuperAssurers (last edited 2010-01-24 02:19:44 by UlrichSchroeter)