Re: [Fwd: Resignation from GNOME Foundation Membership Committee]

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

Folks -

I am more than a little outraged at Mike's treatment at the hands of -
well, who? They don't seem to have had the courage of their convictions
to flame him on a public list, do they?

I would suggest that the people who are flaming him should bloody well
have volunteered themselves to serve on the membership committee. They
didn't, he did, and he was trying to do the job we gave him - to apply
the criteria, vague and muddy though they may be.

The flamers seem to be suggesting that Mike and the committee should be
willing to accept someone's application based on name recognition.
That's a clique, not a serious foundation with membership based on an 
attempt to gauge contribution and apply a set of criteria.

Cheers,
John

On Thu, 2002-09-19 at 04:15, Glynn Foster wrote:
> Hey there,
> 
> I'm not sure whether I should forward this mail, but I think everyone
> should read it, and have probably already seen the CVS commits [1].
> 
> This makes me incredibly sad - since Mike has dedicated much of his
> spare time doing a job that seemingly no one was interested in up until
> a day or two ago.
> 
> I would appreciate it if the people involved would apologise to Mike
> over the next day or two. I only hope we have as many volunteers looking
> to join the membership committee as there were to flame him.
> 
> I'd like to personally thank Mike for his work over the last year,
> you've been great to work with.
> 
> 				Glynn ;)
> 
> 
> [1] If you haven't, Mike has removed himself and his membership from
> gnome-foundation.
> 
> ----
> 

> From: Mike Newman <mike gtnorthern demon co uk>
> To: board gnome org
> Cc: baudais kkpsi org, atai atai org, ghee teo sun com, vincent vuntz net, Glynn Foster <glynn foster sun com>
> Subject: Resignation from GNOME Foundation Membership Committee
> Date: 19 Sep 2002 09:43:41 +0100
> 
> Dear Board and fellow Membership Committee members,
> 
> This mail might get quite long, and will hopefully have some utility as
> well as being a resignation. I'll get the personal bit out of the way
> first however.
> 
> I'm resigning because I think that as the chair of the Membership
> Committee I have been placed in an untenable position - defending a
> policy I didn't write or vote for against attacks from people who mainly
> haven't read it, certainly have never applied it, and definitely think
> they could apply it better.
> 
> On a personal note I'm also resigning because I don't enjoy waking up to
> a mailbox full of rubbish asking me on what basis am I qualified to make
> decisions, why I hate some community member or other, why I'm part of
> the gnome foundation when I can't write code, and other less polite
> things involving all sorts of unpleasant things which I won't bore the
> board with :) All pretty childish stuff. I could of course spend time
> responding to the more sensible mails among these, but I somehow doubt
> it would help.
> 
> I've spent a year working on the committee and mainly I've enjoyed it.
> Its not a glamourous role - and its actually quite hard work. So perhaps
> my qualifications as requested by some indignant correspondents are just
> those - that I don't mind doing hard work for little or no recognition.
> In recent weeks I've inherited the chair of the committee and we've
> taken on new members to deal with the renewal influx. This has all been
> positive - and I've enjoyed very much working with the new volunteers.
> Elections are always fun, and I'm sad I won't be involved in the next
> one.
> 
> However, I feel somewhat 'hounded out' - the kind of treatment I've
> received in the past 48 hours makes me want to not be part of the GNOME
> community at all, which I think is incredibly sad. I'd also point out
> that I don't take this decision lightly - having been a candidate for
> election in UK local and national politics, and a trade union official
> for many years, I've been on the receiving end of more than my fair
> share of personal attacks :) This is different though, this is about a
> community deciding who is 'in' and who is 'out'. 
> 
> I want to take the opportunity to thank the few board members who were
> supportive during the difficult last couple of days. Also, Glynn Foster
> has been amazingly supportive and helpful despite having pretty much
> left the committee.
> 
> Having said all that I want to provide a few insights into the last
> year, and more specifically the last few weeks from my point of view
> which I think might be helpful, or at least interesting for thr future.
> 
> Firstly, the current policy by design is open - that remains a good
> thing I believe. However, it has not been applied to the majority of
> people who work on GNOME before. I'm pretty certain for example that at
> renewal I would never meet the requirements. What is fantastic about
> such an open policy is that the contribitons of documenters, graphic
> artists, translators etc. can be included. What some people want - a
> list of apps which qualify and ones which don't (the latter being a huge
> and impossible list of course) - would make this very hard to do. Put
> simply, the membership policy tries to be open to all forms of
> contribution, whilst the membership themselves seem to want code and
> little else.
> 
> Secondly, that every application is treated individually is also very
> important to me. The committee has spent a lot of time checking people's
> contributions and examining past decisions to ensure we treat people
> fairly. No-one among us ever enjoyed making controversial decisions - in
> fact I'm sure Glynn won't mind me mentioning how we both found saying
> 'No' very difficult at first. What may appear to be a bizarre decision
> to others is usually pretty clear on examination of the application. The
> recent business about Elliot Lee confirms this - people were apoplectic
> about our response, but most of them didn't bother to check the fact
> that he had returned a pretty useless and vaguely offensive application.
> 
> This leads me on to a third point. The community doesn't seem to want a
> foundation at all - it seems to want a cult of celebrity based around
> people who have done good things in the past. This is great - I recall
> mentioning last night that my grandfather built a social club, so they
> gave him a life membership. This isn't what I think the Foundation is
> for however. As Foundation Membership becomes a gateway to more aspects
> of GNOME participation (the GEP process, the Boston Summit etc.) it
> becomes ever more important to remember that the membership needs to
> consist of a broad group of people with different talents working
> towards a common goal. That's why the foundation exists, and that's why
> the committee exists I believe. The community perception seems to be
> that we should be automatically approving anyone who has achieved a
> degree of fame (notoriety?).
> 
> Also, its important to remember that this storm blew up over 'renewals'.
> Why are we asking people to renew - and after all, its been part of the
> policy and an intention since the Foundation began. The fact that
> membership times out reflects that people move on, do other things, work
> on other projects and (sad to say) lose interest. When we sent the 380+
> renewal mails, 63 bounced. That is 63 people who hadn't bothered to
> update their details, and hadn't been reading the various lists on which
> we alerted people to the renewal. The turnout at the last election was
> pretty appalling. The membership needs to consist of people who are
> _actively_ working on GNOME in whatever respect. I would not expect to
> walk back into membership of a professional association which reflected
> the job I used to do.
> 
> As one mail I received stated - "I looked at the list of outstanding
> memberships, anyone who sits on IRC or reads mailing lists could
> pre-approve almost everyone on that in five minutes". Is that what we
> want? If we are nostalgic for 'the old days' perhaps the board might
> want to give 'life memberships' to some luminaries - this would avoid
> the embarassment of people being rejected.
> 
> Some of the more constructive mail I've received has focused on issues
> of privacy and accountability. Since we inherited the jobs, the new
> committee has been eager to improve this. We planned to work on a more
> secure and effective way of storing membership data, improving the web
> pages and reviewing the policy and process. I sincerely hope all this
> continues, and that the board will support the committee. I hope also
> that the board realises that this doesn't happen overnight because the
> day-to-day work of the committee is quite time consuming and not as
> simple as it might look.
> 
> Democracy is hard to do well - the older I get the more my faith in it
> is tested. However, I sincerely hope GNOME gets it right. There is so
> much talent and so many interesting people out there. The danger is that
> the community itself will alienate them - which is far more likely than
> strictly applied membership criteria driving people away.
> 
> Regards,
> Mike Newman
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h) jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.inkstain.net http://www.abqjournal.com

"Sometimes, a diner is all about the mac and cheese." 
  - Zippy the Pinhead