Re: community managers

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

On 11/13/2012 06:53 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> As a project, we are having trouble communicating our vision because
> everything gets lost in a sea of vitriol due to past actions or
> perceived actions.  For instance, removing fallback is seen as yet again
> the GNOME project is removing a feature instead of an act of maintenance
> and sustainability.

I think that as a project, we have had trouble communicating our vision, 
because as a project we are not sure what it is. There is a part of the 
project that has a very clear idea of their vision, but that vision has 
either not been clearly expressed, or what has been expressed has not 
got clear support from the community of contributors in the project. For 
instance, the insistence that theming will damage our brand, or that 
Cinnamon is not GNOME 3, has led to missed opportunities for the GNOME 
project, and has not got grass roots support among the GNOME community 
(and I'm not talking about users here, I'm talking about contributors - 
developers, translators, user group co-ordinators, and marketers).

> After all, GNOME design doesn't have any authority but is able to
> convince maintainers that doing their approach is best for their
> application.

I disagree with your analogy.

> I'm envisioning a team of 10 volunteers.  10 volunteers who start out as
> community managers and then hopefully will be interested in doing other
> things within the project.
>
> I currently have four as of right now.  Need to recruit six more!

Sounds like a plan, and we certainly need to do something to stop the rot.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary, Lyon, France
Email: dneary gnome org
Jabber: nearyd gmail com