I wholeheartedly agree with what Robert said (and just deleted half my email not to repeat him).
I also feel sorry that things seem to be as bad that it drives a Mozillian to post something like this to so many people. The format does not help the matter though: * We should never go for caps. Computers evolved beyond them. I like that, although I miss my C64 * I can not take someone serious who doesn't take others serious. If you put people's job titles in quotes you diminish their impact before you attack them. This is a cheap shot. * I am allergic to propaganda talk. "we, who do not wish to be identified, yet, have a lot to tell-or rather, EXPOSE! Friends, Mozillians, Open Web enthusiasts! Lend me your ears;" We're not anonymous and that kind of V for Vendetta intro gets tiring really fast. If you expose, you expose facts, times and dates. This had a lot of attacks hinting at information and context people who want to change the issues lack. There are a few things in here we should be addressing and some that I will in follow-up meetings and discussions. I would love this to be a topic on next Monday's meeting for example. What this shows me is a few things where we need to improve: * Provide simple to use, official channels for feedback (Robert's offer to triage is good, but doesn't scale). That someone found it necessary to scatter these messages everywhere shows me we don't have that. * Get a handle on events and budgetting. I am part of the group that reviews developer events and sponsoring for them. We keep getting asked to sponsor events that are not developer focused and we keep getting feedback that the budget process for other events is complex. We should make this easier and be faster in turning requests around. Again, the problem here is that we rely on a few individuals who get overworked instead of having a group that can say yay or nay. * Be very transparent in what we are doing and where our people are. There is quite some criticism and jealousy about evangelism in this post painting a disturbing picture. This has been a concern for me for quite a while and I will describe in gory detail just how physically and psychologically draining our jobs can be. I have a hard time parsing this post. It was written in anger and that's when we become incomprehensible. Don't post in anger! (http://christianheilmann.com/2012/06/04/de-trolling-the-web-dont-post-in-anger/) I was named in person in one section and asked for feedback about a certain situation that was just hinted or half-explained. I don't know how to react to this and yet I feel I should. I'd love to hear more details about this: "To RE-AFFIRM this point, one of the so-called ‘Community leaders’ and “Evangelist” in the community openly disagreed the support of the L10N team-thereby meaning that the volunteers who contribute to the same are just “jobless”. Yes, this might be justified by saying that these are his personal views, BUT ARE THEY REALLY THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SAID BY AN EVANGELIST!? Would love to have your thoughts on this Mr.Christian Heilmann." Was that me? Should I comment on somebody without knowing what the person said or the context? This feels to me like "I tell your boss". Let's make this better. Let's not throw blame and confusing hints around. Also, let's never, ever use Sendspace. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Nyman" <[email protected]> To: "Mozilla Reps - General Discussion mailing list" <[email protected]> Cc: "community-india" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Dicky Moe" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Community Evangelist Mailing List" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, 30 September, 2014 8:48:40 AM Subject: Re: [Reps-General] Words from a Mozillian Hi, First, thanks for being a part of the community and for being so passionate about it. If you believe things can be better, it's always good to give that feedback. With that said, in my mind, there are a number of issues with the form of this: You decide to e-mail a huge number of people and mailing lists, thus spamming a lot of people You write in uppercase letters, which is perceived by most people as shouting and being angry. And you might very well be angry, but shouting is not the constructive path forward Using words like EXPOSE turn this into some kind of witch hunt, where someone has to be judged for their actions. This does not breed mutual respect nor understanding You bring this forward anonymously. If you want to bring change and give feedback in a constructive fashion, it is a lot less likely to be taken seriously if you can't be open about who you are (and if the reason is fear of possible repercussions, that's a bad thing and should also be discussed and addressed) You call someone out for what was said in a specific event. Me myself, I'm a professional speaker, and I make mistakes as well with that I say. If people will refrain from public speaking out of fear for saying something wrong, we will very soon not have any speakers, because, trust me, no one is perfect. All you can ask for is that people learn, improve and, most importantly, dare to keep on trying Moving forward, instead of e-mailing everyone, I suggest approaching the people working with community directly, such as: William Quiviger Chris Hofmann Janet Swisher David Boswell Pierros Papadeas Brian King If you have a problem with anyone in the above list, I suggest you give them the courtesy of letting them know, to fix and build this up together. Also, feel more than welcome to contact me directly, and I'll help you talk to applicable persons at Mozilla. - Robert Nyman On 30 Sep 2014, at 05:19, priyanka nag <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Dicky, > > I can't really say I appreciate you taking this initiative, but I > definitely agree to the last line you have said - 'better to act now than > to be sorry later'. > > Being in an Open community, I am sure the concerns you have raised are > shared by more members in the community. So, just putting in my 2 cents > into this, with full faith this would avoid future misunderstandings. > > Regarding the issue raised on the budget requests and it being an easier > process for community leader, is not entirely true. You had given an > example of a WoMoz event, organized here in India. If you go through the > bug and comments on that (bud id - 1033932), you will realize it wasn't an > "easy" process to get the budget sanctioned. I totally agree to your point > of the event (it was actually a series of events) not being able to show > sufficient short term metric...but at times we do things for long term > goals as well. This event was an initiative towards several different > things, including an opportunity for more collaborative work with the > WeTech (http://www.iie.org/Programs/WeTech) community in India. These are > tough metrics to show on the reps portal and anyone missing on seeing these > goals is completely possible and thus, your point raised in valid enough > from your perspective. > > Coming to the next point raised regarding a tweet passed on after one of my > events. Well, honestly, I don't have a recording of my that day's talk, > else would have been easy for me to prove that I had never exactly said, > what I was accused of. I have not visited 12 countries in my life yet > (Mozilla or no Mozilla funded) and thus had not mentioned that number at > all. > My sole purpose of talking about my personal experiences and journey was > just to motivate other young students in the room towards Open Source > contribution, citing examples of how we are rewarded, and why we work even > though we are not paid. I may have phrased it wrong due to which someone > from my audience got upset and made the tweet. After I realized my mistake, > I had not only apologized to him, I had also apologized publicly - > http://priyankaivy.blogspot.in/2014/07/my-apology-against-happenings-of-last.html. > But some sins probably can never be forgiven. Since that incident, I have > been avoiding any public speaking for any Mozilla events, scared to harm my > community's name in any manner again. > > I am not trying to justify my actions. But, since these issues were raised, > being in an Open community, I thought it as one of my responsibilities to > keep things as clear as possible. > > -- > Regards, > Priyanka Nag > Dev Evangelist, Scrollback > Contact : +91- 9731923363 > > Website: priynag.in > Blog: priyankaivy.blogspot.in/ > _______________________________________________ > reps-general mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/reps-general _______________________________________________ Evangelism mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/evangelism _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
