Dear Mozillians, whoever or wherever you are, I am a sixty year old ex UK regional sales & marketing manager, now retired through ill health. My responsibilities were for producing over 4 million UK£ of sales per anum at ever increasing margins, employing in excess of eighty members of staff of all age groups and experience. I have trained, mentored, sold & purchased for some fourty years and have spoken on a one to one basis and to a 3,000 strong audience. I thought I would be an asset to someone within Mozilla and/or Firefox, though my financial and physical/mental health imposes many restrictions.... the computer is the one thing that occupies and develops my brain when every other part of me is falling apart. I have written and produced fanzines & magazines for musicians, I love art, artwork and design, photography, making and listening to music..... and I have a true passion to help others. Computers & technology fascinates me in the same way as engineering has for all my working life.
For the last six months I have been investigating, learning, training and practising everything Mozilla & Firefox, with the clear intention of offering my services and experience to further develop the Mozilla cause, and spread the principles behind a truly open web, Open Source, available to all cultures regardless of colour, religious or political beliefs, of gender or financial status. Everything I know to date has been self taught through self motivation and a willingness to learn, but with the future interest of helping others being paramount..... Key to all of this has been safety and security in the products used, gaining an understandability of the systems and software, and with a heartfelt passion to help others, particularly those with little income, with educational restrictions, and without access to high cost computers, laptops, mobiles, tablets, etc. After today I'm no longer sure that Mozilla is the organisation I thought it was. My personal online security & privacy was recently brought in to question as a direct result of Mozilla's actions, or lack of them..... emails & passwords being posted and left online for all to see, followed by a 'sorry' that was as unconvincing as it was constructive. I am now being bombarded by emails that are anonymous, malicious, potentially unfounded, but certainly unwanted & totally unnecessary yet you seem to have little to no control over this. There are people within the 'organisation' who clearly make a living from their work. I hope they work long and hard for their income and are of true benefit to the organisation. There are 'employees' who appear to enjoy many benefits from being part of the existing infrastructure.... enjoying travel, expenses, accommodation, equipment, as well as promotional material and various other freebies (where can I buy a XXXL Mozilla/Firefox tee shirt?!*) There are a much larger number of interested parties who may or may not be offering their services free of charge, but who volunteer their time and effort.... but who appear to be unable to step up a gear in to the organisation, gaining access to funds to finance meetings, development sessions, or to even finance tea and coffee for attendees. I live in an agricultural region of France with a relatively low tech culture, low levels of income, an ideal region for development, but whilst my brain works I have physical and mental restrictions..... yet despite my willingness, the responses to my messages have, by & large, fallen on deaf ears. So, where do I sit now????? Bemused, confused, disheartened and extremely excluded. What information I do read, and I read a lot, is in a different language to me (I don't mean non-English) as its a world of abbreviations and buzz words, in-words used and understood by the select few that therefore marginalises the majority, knowingly or unknowingly. The Mozilla & Firefox website is a potentially amazing tool, but is almost impossible to access and work on/through because of the unnecessary jargon and language used. I've contacted a fairly 'local' UK representative who initially replied in a very negative, unhelpful way. I tried a second representative, more local to my region in France who was very polite, helpful and offered some initial guidance. I've had no contact since at a time when help was really needed. Finally, I'm bemused by the apparent openness of the organisation and its various regions, but in reality it is a minefield to try and work through that has just resulted in complete confusion and ultimately disinterest. Just getting a name or email address for a specific question was almost impossible to find quickly.... These anonymous e-mailers who obviously have no name, no clear structure to their rantings, no specifics to speak of, no understanding of how to communicate clearly and to me are almost cowardly in their approach, are probably the last straw for me...... it has become a school playground in the last twenty for hours that gives me little hope in developing a working interest in such a shambolic theater. If anyone would like to speak to me constructively then I would welcome the opportunity. If any of my skill sets or knowledge can benefit the cause then please, just step forward. If all you can offer is incompetence of data management & security, homophobea, elitism, confusion, lack of organisation, and now almost childish behaviour then I'll simply walk away..... albeit reluctantly. Key notes to ANYONE (capital letters do not automatically mean shouting ..... that can easily be in the mind of the reader rather than the writer (though BOLD text or INCREASED size of a bold fonts will often come across badly!), but it can simply have meant to emphasise a word or phrase!..... if anyone who wishes to make valid points, regardless of subject matter, they would do well to follow these simple few bullet points. The 'junkmail' writer missed almost all of this simple structure out. Maybe I can help people put there points across more clearly???? PreparationIntroductionRequirementsBenefitsInvestmentClose Who? What? Why? Where? When? How? Kind regards, Ken Jones Finistere, Brittany, France > From: [email protected] > Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 12:42:09 +0300 > Subject: Re: [Reps-General] Words from a Mozillian > To: [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected]; [email protected] > > I agree with Robert. Criticism does not solve a problem, but rather > constructive outreach and offering of plausible solutions as well as > reaching out to the right people. And indeed all caps is rude/angry... > > Some of the people who have been added to this email spam or not really > concerned about this my community's list inclusive. I'm getting many > complaints about spam. > > Thanks. > > > > *Regards,* > > > *Lawrence* > > *Community Manager* > *Mozilla Uganda | GenOpen* > _______________________________________________ > community-uk mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/community-uk _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
