Re: foundation application..

[Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>]

> Again, a brilliant question. On the face of it this seems to be purely about
> reducing paper work for the membership committee (i.e. fewer applications
> means less work for them). However there are clearly some implications which
> affect our democratic processes. The question of whether we have a
> justifiable reason to take steps like this to deny this group of people a
> vote or not on the basis we worry they might not use it, is an important one
> because that does not objectively make sense. Clearly, the extra paper work
> shouldn't be a factor in decisions like this.

The Membership Committee actions are unequivocally oriented to the
benefit of the GNOME Foundation. I've been chairing the Committee
since five years now and this is honestly the first time ever someone
arises a controversial point on the policy and procedures we follow
when processing new or renewal applications. The following thread
started by Sriram with the pure scope of enhancing the membership
application experience it diverged into a crescendum of accusations to
the Membership Committee which clearly state the fact you are missing
the point of being a GNOME Foundation Member.

If you scroll back you'll see that several people who either supported the decision or seemed to remain neutral about it, stated it was the membership committee's decision. Those critical of the decision were not actually the ones who "accused" the membership committee of taking it. The reality is some of us had no idea where the decision had come from until it came out on this thread, because it does not seem to have been publicly stated anywhere before it was made or leading up to now either. Once the news had come out on this thread, that the decision was the membership committee's idea then this naturally meant that those critical of the decision, in turn had to be critical of the membership committee for taking it. Ultimately, it's the decision that's the problem (but more the way it's been communicated and carried out, from my perspective to be honest).

Besides all that though, let's get this into perspective a bit: Nobody's actually talking about overthrowing the membership committee or anything like it, here. It's possible to value the work of others and still fundamentally disagree on something like this. Members are not obliged to grant absolute, unconditional, unquestioning support and agreement to all decisions, (including the ones we don't know out about until after they are made) and it does not seem reasonable that should be seen as controversial, or anything else other than what it actually is: a bunch of perfectly valid questions and concerns.

From your point of view being a Foundation member strictly relates to having made a
non-trivial amount of contributions (which is totally correct as per
Bylaws) but there's one more action the applicant should perform in
order for the application to be processed. This action juridically speaking is an act of will. The person by
browsing [1] and filling in all the fields acknowledge its intent to
apply for Foundation Membership. Applying for membership is not an
obligation of any kind and you aren't required to submit an
application if you don't have a real interest in doing so.

 

The following announcement [2] (which seems to have caused so much
confusion between interns) is misleading in many ways and seems to
suggest interns they should apply - not because they believe in the
GNOME Foundation and the values it pursues - but for the mere reason
to keep a blog aggregated to Planet GNOME. 

If I was an intern myself
reading such an announcement and without having a knowledge of what
Foundation membership is about I could definitely started seeing the
membership itself as a way for my blog to stay aggregated on Planet
GNOME.

This seems like an unlikely scenario. As far as I am aware, nobody actually sifts through planet feeds removing the feeds of interns. Besides, isn't our whole vibe meant to be about "assuming good intentions"? ;-).

There's no single reference of what Foundation membership is
about, what the duties are and what we are trying to accomplish in
terms of building a membership base made of people who really believe
in our mission, participate to the community discussions, vote on the
yearly elections.

Well, there are the foundation webpages. In this case though, the application process could be sufficient in weeding this sort of thing out, couldn't it? It's not totally clear why making a blanket rule would make this any easier, anyway but that's been said. One thing which has not really been mentioned in all of this (possibly because it doesn't apply to all the interns, just the summer ones) is the point that, many of the interns get invited to GUADEC and find out what foundation membership is about through their experience there. Do you not think it might send out a confused message to interns for us to go round inviting them along to GUADEC, meet them, socialise with them make them feel welcome at GNOME and then turn around a few weeks later and send them a mailout tell them all that they aren't actually ready to be part of the community yet, after all? Have the membership committee not considered how psychologically deflating that might be to those who are genuinely into the whole GNOME vibe and who feel committed, engaged and involved, as a direct result of their experience as interns, just at a time where they are finishing up, and their other commitments might be compelling them to direct their attention onto other things, already?

Many interns probably applied for Membership after
reading that announcement having in mind the fact having keeping their
public visibility through their blog was only possible if they
requested membership.

Yeah, I still don't get why this is such a concern. I really think nobody actually removes blog feeds to planet GNOME, unless they are specifically asked to do it.

This totally goes against what Foundation membership is about. Our
mission - as the Membership Committee - is to make sure a strong and
consistent membership base is created in terms of contributors who
want to step forward and join the Foundation because they believe
doing so can definitely strengthen their relationship with the project
and bring it to the next level. As stated on my previous e-mail [3]
we've seen a lot of interns dropping their contributions to zero right
after the internship ended so while they contributed in a non-trivial
way to the Foundation why would they even decide to apply afterwards?

I don't doubt this happens, but you ask a good question. Why would they apply? I imagine they wouldn't bother if they weren't interested anyway, either. One concern here is that we treat the ones who have made contributions, do want to apply and who are engaged, being asked not to and also that a lot of assumptions led us to a decision which was never really properly thrashed out before being imposed (and that seems to have led to further confusion and concerns about periods of times, motivations etc, etc of what's all been said in a previous mails).

With all this said, one point I like about the two month rule (yes, I am actually about to say something positive about it) is that it seems to be a more reasonable length of time than 6 months. It also could take away the ambiguity for interns on when an appropriate time to apply might be which in some senses makes the way interns are treated with respect to one another, much fairer than when things were more ambiguous.

Further to that, on looking at some of the recent membership data gathered so far with specific regard to the interns, I have to say, it does seem like a few interns have been significantly undervaluing their own contributions by waiting much longer to apply than seems appropriate for active contributors to be doing with some seeming to have waited as long as two years actually, which is of course, absolutely ridiculous. I have gained a little more confidence in the two month idea after recognising that this may be an even bigger problem that interns are facing (i.e. not even considering applying close to as early enough as two months, after their internship has ended). That's not to say the reservations have disappeared, mind. :D

 

they are NOT obliged to apply for membership and they probably
wouldn't apply if they knew that being a member is not only receiving
a bunch of benefits but also being an active part of the community
participating to discussions and voting at every year's elections. The
rationale behind an extended period for interns isn't there because we
don't believe interns have contributed enough or because of their
gender (yeah, you even managed to accuse the Committee to apply
blanket rules depending on the gender of the applicant [4]) but just
to find out whether there was a strong and real interest in joining
the GNOME Foundation going beyond having a blog aggregated on Planet
GNOME.

Please reread what was actually said about that because I don't know if you realise it, but here, you are actually accusing me of accusing the membership committee, without addressing any of the specific concerns that were actually raised, which seems rather defensive.

While this thread (not how it started but how it diverged) is full of
accusations I don't recall hearing a single intern reaching out the
Committee complaining about her application being rejected. Not a
single case out of hundreds I personally processed since 2009. We
value our members and we always make sure to use our discretionary
power to further the goals of the GNOME Foundation, this in many ways:

1. by introducing Emeritus [5]
2. by supporting former members who have decreased the number of
contributions to re-apply and be accepted trying to encourage them
keeping up their valuable contributions over the project without
leaving

Look, nobody here is saying the membership committee are lousy. We all know you do a great job overall and that you specifically have done a lot to improve infrastructure (well, I personally appreciate people who pay attention to improving infrastructure, and I do understand that these things can seem like a thankless task). To be clear, this is is a very specific criticism of the handling of a very specific issue and that notwithstanding, personally I can recognise that it would have taken more than the membership committee alone to have got involved for the idea to have flown as it clearly has. It is certainly not my intention to make you or the membership feel personally attacked and I don't believe anyone else here has set out to do that either so I hope that eases any concerns you may have had, about that.

We aren't scared about having more paper work in place and we never
neglected to call for help in case we needed it. [6] [7]

I am scared of paperwork. It's scary! So that would have been understandable from my perspective, but it's reassuring  to know that you ask for help when you need it.

 

The Membership Committee - as I see it - is here to make the
Foundation a welcoming place for every single contributor willing to
join (and not being forced to do so for a specific benefit to be kept)
and having a real, strong, durable interest in the Foundation and the
values it pursues. That's all we care about.

Good, then we are all on the same page. I think for the time being we perhaps ought to all agree to disagree on the 2 month rule, but I suggest that we keep communicating with the aim of determining a concrete long term solution which we can all be comfortable with collectively sticking to and presenting to the public concerning this because, whatever the decision ends up being in the long run, I hope people can at least agree that it should be consistent, evidenced and published openly, where this is possible, for the sake of fairness. From my end, I can continue to delve into statistical patterns in what we are all concerned about and am happy to involve anyone who cares, in that process as it chugs along. It may actually take a while to bring all the information together to draw meaningful conclusions from it, since there's actually a lot of miscellaneous bits to gather together, but I think it will be worth challenge some of the assumptions we may be making about something which affects our community and how we treat people who contribute to it.

Magdalen