Hi Mark, Thanks, that was a calm and diplomatic email.
recognise where they might need to apologise I will start the ball rolling here, as I have not always been generous in my interpretations of others' actions, and have certainly contributed to escalation. But I wonder if you would also help get the ball rolling; your reasonable tone gives me hope that you can. The topic for me has been: can board members recognise publicly where they have misstepped. Doing so provides assurances to the whole ASF community that the board can be trusted. https://www.mail-archive.com/user@cassandra.apache.org/msg48692.html In this email chain not long ago, you attempted to apply a misreading of the ASF guidelines to non-ASF individuals. When I pointed this out, you went silent. In that chain, as now, I had a righteous indignation that no doubt inflamed the topic, and could have resolved the issue with more diplomacy. I'm also sure you had excellent intentions. Nevertheless, you did misstep as a board member by quite badly misapplying the guidelines. With no public recognition of this, I was left with an impression of unaccountability; I don't know how others responded. I think it would be fantastic if board members, as people in positions of authority, lead by example and began recognising where their public behaviour has missed the mark. Perhaps that would promote those in less lofty positions to begin doing the same, and greater trust all round. On 6 November 2016 at 21:42, Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org> wrote: > For the sake of clarity I am a member of the ASF board but I am not > speaking on behalf of the board in this email. > > On 06/11/2016 01:25, Jeff Jirsa wrote: > > I hope the other 7 members of the board take note of this response, > > and other similar reactions on dev@ today. > > I can't speak for all seven other board members but I can say that I am > monitoring this thread and the related threads (although I haven't > looked at Twitter where a lot of this seems to have originated). It is > apparent to me that a number of the other directors are monitoring these > threads too. > > > When Datastax violated trademark, they acknowledged it and worked to > > correct it. To their credit, they tried to do the right thing. > > When the PMC failed to enforce problems, we acknowledged it and worked > > to correct it. We aren't perfect, but we're trying. > > I think you are being a little hard on the PMC there. There was scope > for both parties to do better in a number of areas. > > I do agree that things in the PMC have improved and are heading in the > right direction (with some more work still to do), as I hope I made > clear in the summary section of the review e-mail I wrote (privately) to > the PMC a few weeks ago. > > > When a few members the board openly violate the code of conduct, being > > condescending and disrespectful under the auspices of "enforcing the > > rules" and "protecting the community", they're breaking the rules, > > damaging the community, and nobody seems willing to acknowledge it or > > work to correct it. It's not isolated, I'll link examples if it's > > useful. > > I take it you mean "nobody on the board seems willing...". Again, I > can't speak for the other board members but let me try and explain my > own thinking. > > A number of posts from a variety of authors on this topic in recent days > have fallen short of the standard expected on an Apache list. Trying to > correct that without causing the situation to escalate is hard. The last > thing I want to do is add fuel to the fire. I've started to draft a > couple of emails at various points over the weekend only to find by the > time I'm happy(ish) with the draft, the thread has moved on and I need > to start again. > > Alongside this I had hoped that things would have slowed down enough > over the weekend to give everyone time to reflect, recognise where they > might need to apologise and aim to start this coming week on a more > positive footing. There have been signs of this which I take to be > encouraging. Moving forward I'd encourage everyone to pause and review > what they have just written with the Code of Conduct in mind before > pressing send. > > > In a time when we're all trying to do the right thing to protect the > > project and the community, it's unfortunate that high ranking, long > > time members within the ASF actively work to undermine trust and > > community while flaunting the code of conduct, which requires > > friendliness, empathy, and professionalism, and the rest of the board > > is silent on the matter. > > Your calm responses and efforts to inform the community are appreciated. > It is not an easy task and kudos to you for taking it on. > > As as been said several times in recent days, board members are rarely > speaking on behalf of the board (i.e. representing the agreed position > of the board). It is unusual enough that when we do we'll make it > explicit. One of the reasons for that is that getting 9 volunteers with > day jobs in widely distributed timezones to reach an agreed position on > anything takes time. Based on what I have seen so far, I am expecting > there to be a response from the board to this series of threads but I'm > not expecting to be especially quick. > > Mark >
