Re: Caroline Henrikson's foundation membership

[Pascal Terjan <pterjan gmail com>]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2018 at 19:08, Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me> wrote:
> Heya Tobias!
>
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 1:52 AM Tobias Mueller <tobiasmue gnome org> wrote:
> > Hi Sri,
> >
> > On Fri, 2018-09-21 at 15:26 -0600, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > > I understand that Caroline's application for GNOME Foundation
> > > membership was rejected?  Could we revisit this decision?
> > Sure. Given that we are humans, we make mistakes. The process currently
> > requires the applicant to appeal.  Alternatively, the Board is free to
> > make whatever decision it likes.  Another common procedure is to re-
> > apply.
>
> That's great to hear!
>
> > > I think everyone on this list can vouch for Caroline's application.
> > > She has produced all the illustrations and graphics for GUADEC 2018
> > > and Libre Application Summit and has spent long hours working on the
> > > designs for both these conferences.  She also designed stickers as
> > > well.
> > The application didn't make that as clear as it could have done, I
> > guess.  Generally, we require the applicant to provide the evidence of
> > "non-trivial" contributions rather than hinting at it and us chasing it
> > down ourselves.
> > Also, we tend to wait for the applicant to be somewhat stable in their
> > contributions.  In this case, it was stated that the contribution
> > started with "helping out with the engagement team for a little over a
> > month".  That itself seemed like an exaggeration to me after I've
> > searched the mailing list archives.
>
> So, Caroline's contributions are non-trivial, in her 3 month stint she
> has: (others can correct me)
> * Designed the GUADEC  t-shirt
> * Designed GUADEC stickers (Kat please correct if i'm wrong)
> * LAS website, colors
> * LAS branding
> * Designed the banners for LAS
> * Man the registration booth for LAS for two days
> * Shared responsibility in recording all the LAS talks
> * Spent her own money to come to LAS (taken into account all the work
> she has put into LAS)
> * vigorously participated in all LAS discussion and engagement discussions
> * Provided advice on design as needed.
>
> Her contributions have been consistent and she cotinues to participate
> even after LAS.  Herr contributions are highly impactful in the event
> space.  She continues to be involved and we are quite grateful.
>
> Also be aware that her partner, Britt applied at the same time and his
> was approved.  Britt is the outgoing one so... :-)
>
> > > I'm quite puzzled as to why her application was rejected considering
> > > the all the work she has produced.  I'd love to understand why this
> > > happened and what the membership committee's concerns were for her
> > > application that lead to her rejection.  In general, the membership
> > > team has been quite generous in accepting memberships in the past and
> > > arguably Caroline's candidacy is very strong in our estimation.
> > The way applications are processed is written in the wiki. Whether this
> > is generous is left up to interpretation.  And whether it should be
> > generous would need to be discussed.
>
> Fair enough.  It's been my experience that we've been generous but
> that could be baesd on who is processing the application.
>
> I think it comes down to the fact that she didn't sell herself as well
> as she coudl be.  But she was encouraged to apply by all of us.  Let
> me know what I can do going forward.

My impression from reading the tickets is:
- Caroline gave a list which seemed exhaustive of contributions over a
small period of time and this didn't show doesn't that she is still
involved
- Britt was very bad at selling their work and didn't detail any of
the listed contributions so the given references were asked about it
and supported the application which was then approved
So not selling your work well can actually be better :)