Hi Irvin, In general I fully echo Stormy's points here, and readily accept that how everyone work together is a continuing topic that needs to be addressed and improved upon, worldwide. But since you singled out Mozilla Taiwan office and painted a pretty bleak picture, I feel compelled to respond to your claims here on this list, even though we have had extensive back and forth discussion at MozCamp Asia last year and subsequently at the mailing list of MozTW. In order to keep this email short, I will briefly emphasize three major points here. I am willing to continue discussion here or elsewhere, as needed.
1. The stories you presented are quite one-sided. Some of your "demands" and "expectations" are unrealistic or impractical. (I use the word "you" and "your" to loosely denote MozTW, because you are the current coordinator, although I am fully aware that there are different voices among the group.) You wanted Mozilla Taiwan to open all marketing and engagement staff meetings to MozTW members, and to publicly share meeting minutes. (Instead we have agreed to share all significant things relevant to the community, to the MozTW group alias, as early as possible.) You wanted to be able to directly assign MozTW tasks to Mozilla Reps (or Campus Ambassadors), and we declined (although we encourage all reps to be aware of MozTW and its activities and we believe some of them are active participants). You wanted Mozilla Taiwan to mandate participation by paid staff at MozTW events, and we said we could encourage them to attend but cannot put that into job requirement. These are just a few examples I can easily recall at this moment. The point is that you cannot use the "open" moniker to try to force everyone to work the way you want, and label people as being "un-Mozillian" if they do not agree with you. 2. I fully accept that Mozilla Taiwan has a lot to learn and have a lot of room to improve in how it communicates and works with the local communities (MozTW being one of the most vocal ones, but clearly not the only Mozilla community in Taiwan). We made mistakes in our first year of the new office, for sure, and we will probably make some more unavoidably in the coming years. Ironically, we initially hired Bob Chao, the then (and long serving) MozTW coordinator into the paid staff as community manager, believing that was the best way to bridge the new office with the existing community. To our surprise and disappointment, that did not achieve the intended results. After the issues have surfaced late last year, we have made, and we continue to make, improvements and try to adjust the way things are done. We have repeatedly said that we are open to constructive suggestions and will adapt wherever it makes sense. 3. In order to improve working relationships between any two parties, having trust and confidence on both sides is essential. If your posture continues to be on the lookout for any missteps at MT and then stomp on it and run a victory lap, that does not help the situation. And I want to flag your reference to Beijing, where Mozilla has an office. It is plain common (not just at Mozilla) to work together among people at different offices, and in this instance our Beijing office has had 7 years of desktop experience so it is natural for them to lend a hand to the new Taipei office (just as our Taipei office is lending a strong hand to the Beijing office on our mobile work). But there is a strong sentiment among certain people in Taiwan at large (and certainly among some vocal MozTW members) that "Beijing is the enemy". I understand that this is related to bigger geopolitical context and the cross-strait relationship at the country level and we cannot completely avoid that in our work life. Nevertheless, I do not see any leadership person at MozTW taking any action to counter this geopolitical issue. It would be good if the MozTW leadership can articulate a clear position over this issue, just as we have made it clear to our paid staff to not bring this type of politics into work at the MT office. To conclude, I would state again that we have every intention to work closely together. What could help us right now is a series of confidence building steps to improve how we work over time. I believe the Mozilla Taiwan office has already started taking steps in that direction, and we are open to further suggestions and ideas. Lastly, let me be super clear that I am not saying the issue (of paid staff vs volunteers), in general, should not be discussed. It should be, no doubt, but it is more fruitful to have that discussion in a mutually supportive and constructive manner. Thanks, Li -- Li Gong (宫力) CEO Mozilla Online Ltd and Mozilla Taiwan On Apr 5, 2013, at 4:43 AM, Stormy Peters <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Irvin, > > I hear your frustration. > > I don't have an easy answer to the problem but I just wanted to let you > know that many of us Mozillians, paid staff and nonpaid staff alike, have a > lot of faith in our whole community. I know the work the community is doing > is great! On many teams that I am a part of at Mozilla, work is welcomed by > anyone who would like to contribute. > > That said, I think communication and trust building are real challenges for > Mozilla as we grow and add new products. We'll need to all continue to work > together - and it won't always be easy! - to make sure our team building > and communication channels make us better. I know there are many efforts in > place to make sure that we can clearly communicated who's a trusted member > of our community (Mozillians, Mozilla Reps, etc) and ways we are working to > bring people together (more open work weeks, Mozilla Summit, etc). > > So please continue the great work and we'll all figure this out together! > > Stormy > > > On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Irvin Chen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> We'd feel this problem a lot at marketing side at Taipei newly office. >> >> The marketing team of TW office begin with a marketing Lead, marketing >> manager and web designer at winter 2011, >> beside make a website, they also opened a blog translate news from >> http://blog.mozilla.org, which community had done for more than 5 years, >> but they not letting community to help on office's blog for any bit. >> In fact, they done it badly, the translated article are usually contain >> mistake and not fluency compare to community-owned blog. >> >> I just feel that they just don't believe anything non-employee had done, >> we had maintain highly quality news blog (mostly the same resource as >> company's), >> a product website, a lot of subtitled videos, made a numbers of posters >> before, >> and they use really small thing we made on the "official event", and >> nothing on "official site". >> >> I can understand why this "official" insist came from, >> for those newly hired employees formally worked at other company, >> "volunteer" just mean un-trust for them, >> even they'd hired a formal community liaison, >> the manager still don't trust him on 'community can help' idea. >> >> But this should not be at Mozilla, and it just don't work for as to >> suggesting that "we can help", for many many times through out the whole >> one and half year, >> we just gave up, and make better quality things after they publish bad one. >> >> For ex., there is an "Mozillia 2012" poster made by employee, and it done >> badly not only on translating but also on layout. >> We re-make one in 2 days, and here is the comparison: >> MoCo-TW version: >> >> https://www.dropbox.com/s/vem1uxjipuipmbk/Mozilla-in-2012%20%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%89%88.jpg >> Community version: >> https://www.dropbox.com/s/jww8g8h7rtaqxqe/Mozilla-in-2012.png >> http://images.plurk.com/3TOFjy1QuOFweeWvsJ87ic.jpg >> The company's blog with the poster: >> >> http://blog.mozilla.com.tw/posts/1706/mozilla-2012-%E5%85%A8%E9%AB%94%E5%8B%95%E5%93%A1%E4%BB%A4 >> >> It just one example, and we'd face many, like "release channel poster", >> translate of "Mozilla 15 anny. fact"... >> >> After we share with them, they still resistant to use better one on there >> published blog[1], only because it's NOT OFFICIAL MADE BY EMPLOYEE. >> >> In fact, as we observed, when they really need help, they'd rather to call >> for help with employee of Beijing office than community volunteer who is >> good at the things they need. >> >> And to solve the badly translating issues, guess what, they finally hired a >> employee specific to do that this month. I just wonder Why bother spend >> salary on things community can help (and community had done for years), >> because they had budget? >> >> I think as we open more offices and hire more non-premozillian employees, >> the problem will getting worse. >> I don't see any chance for us to change this situation, if we had someone >> in Mozilla Corporation who have faith and insist on "Official production", >> and even seated as regional marketing lead, in such situation, volunteer's >> 'non-official' opinion means Nothing. >> >> Always sadly and disappointment on the things happened at that office, >> which usually against what we believed on Mozilla for years before it >> opened. >> >> Irvin >> Taiwan community liaison >> >> >> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:39 AM, Rubén Martín >> <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I would like to open a discussion here about something that I've been >>> observing more and more at Mozilla, starting probably 2 years ago or so. >>> >>> When some team or employee (it's not everyone but a big number) needs >>> help, first tries to hire or pay someone and then, if he can't or needs >>> extra help, pings the volunteers. This lead to a lot of situations where >>> the volunteers are not needed or they are like a extra or free resource, >>> last bullet good to have. >>> >>> Historically this was completely the opposite, you have a project or an >>> idea, you work with all mozillians (current employees and volunteers) >>> and if you can't make it this way, you look for extra paid help. >>> >>> Why and when this switch happened? >>> >>> I would start the discussion saying that I think this a huge problem >>> right now, if new employees are instructed or used to paid help first, >>> we will kill the community. It's not nice to feel like free people only >>> needed if we can't get anything better paying... >>> >>> Regards. >>> >>> -- >>> Rubén Martín [Nukeador] >>> Mozilla Reps Mentor >>> http://www.mozilla-hispano.org >>> http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano >>> http://facebook.com/mozillahispano >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> governance mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> @ irvinfly: community liaison >> moztw.org Mozilla Taiwan community >> _______________________________________________ >> governance mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance >> > _______________________________________________ > governance mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
