Hi Akshay, Thanks for your feedback. Since this is about the Reps program and you have already opened a conversation on the Reps discourse (where I'v already commented some of your points).
Can I suggest we centralize the conversation there so it's easier for everyone to follow? Thanks! El 2/11/19 a las 6:48, Akshay S Dinesh via governance escribió: > After sending that I realized I forgot to mention another major bottleneck. > > The reps council which is a 9 member body with 7 of them being volunteers > is another bottleneck. (From what I know and read the reps mentors do not > actively contribute to the governance of the reps program) > > Many of the problems have been brought up by nominees to the reps council > themselves. Let me quote: > > "When I will join the Council again I will continue to work on the > accountability of the Council and of the Reps starting from the onboarding > to the report system." > "not all reps seem to feel involved in the program" > "lack of resources (time) to keep engaging and motivating long-time > participator. People still contribute, with or without Rep program seems > less different." > "Too many people, who do not even have the potential to bear the > responsibilities, have been appointed as Reps." > "But we still need to work on the balance between different parts of the > world. Have thousands of people from one area is good but if we are not > able to get even hundreds from another area means something is not right > from our side. We have to keep updating and make a ecosystem which can > sustain diverse group of people from diverse region." > "There is no easy fix but it’s an ongoing process. Creating a special group > of Volunteer and Staff to study the ecosystem of regions which lakhs > representation can help to better support them. Council can play a big role > in this to under regional diversity and can encourage volunteer Leadership" > "By encouraging regional leadership and initiatives which aligns with > Mozilla goals helps to get better outcome from small group of people." > "Mozilla Reps council together with the participation team must first adopt > a bottom-up model that engages volunteers, reps and staff when drafting > participation strategic plans." > "Its biggest weakness is in its ability to sustain itself, through > onboarding, branding, amplifying and inspiring new volunteers." > > These are from April 2018. > https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/important-council-elections-spring-2018-nominee-q-a/27331 > Things could have changed in one year. > > Here is the ones from October 2019 > https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/important-council-elections-h2-2019-nominee-q-a/46004 > "Since the last election, I started to believe that our biggest weakness is > the monitoring/tracking of the local communities’ health. Sometimes we lose > a community as a whole because of small local problems that go unsolved." > "Keep improving the onboarding process" > " Reps and Rep Mentors’ inactivity hurts the Community the most" > " Onboarding experience should be improved to better understand the Reps > background and their work." > "Refinement in the Mozilla Reps application and onboarding process." > "Establishing a bridge between Mozilla Reps and Council team for sorting > out community conflicts." > "Geographical diversity of reps, if you see the reps map, there are some > places where we don’t any presence and a global community we should try to > have someone who can spread some MozLove around." > > > The point of this exercise is not to fix all the problems that have been > mentioned above. (Some of them may not even be real problems). The point is > to ask *whether a 9 member reps council (7 of whom are volunteers) is the > best structure to take care of the reps program*. > > I believe the reps council as it is now can at best improve reps program > only incrementally. Volunteers have limits on how much they can > engage/contribute. There are various existing tasks for the council members > that they may not be able to think about new ideas in their short time. > > *Alternative models* > I don't know all the things that reps council does. So, I'm not in the best > position to recommend an alternative model. But consider this one as an > example of how there could be alternate models: > > Divide the tasks of reps council into 7 categories. Make reps task forces > for each category and keep that task force be responsible for that task in > the reps program. Keep the membership to these task forces open to any rep. > Periodically elect representatives for each task force (you'll have 7 > representatives who resemble the current reps council). > > This model may not fit the role of reps governance. That's okay. I'm not > saying use this model. I'm saying there are alternate models and that > someone should put their thought into whether reps council is having the > best model at the moment. > > *Accountability while allowing Mozillians to request funds* > > Emma asked me on Telegram "how [do] you see financial acountability > occuring/possible without formailty of role?" and asked for "examples of > where that works outside of such structures [like reps]" > > I did a quick search and found out that wikimedia has a program called > Rapid grants https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid > > Here is how the selection criteria is > >> Strategic priority: Do your activities improve one or more of >> Wikimedia’s existing websites? >> Potential outcomes and impact: What are the concrete outcomes that are >> anticipated as a result of the activities? What difference do you expect >> your project to make? >> Contribution record: Do you have a history of engaging with Wikimedia >> projects and communities? >> Support and endorsement: Do you have sufficient volunteers to complete >> the project and endorsements from community members? >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn > > It seems to me an example of funding without formality of role. There could > be problems in this model. There could be alternate models. But, again, my > question is whether we need a mechanism to enable mozillians (not reps) to > request funds or do we not trust them. > > Please feel free to question my assumptions and I'll try to defend why I > make those assumptions. > > Akshay > > > On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 10:22 AM Akshay S Dinesh <asdofin...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> I am writing as per Emma's advice to email someone I'm comfortable with >> about the problem I'm most focused on. >> >> The activate.mozilla.community has been relatively successful. As per >> Ruben's previous email to the governance list, there are 40k+ people >> getting activated. Also there is a community portal that will come up where >> all these people will be able to create events and groups. >> >> These changes are all good. But I believe they have to be followed by a >> few more major changes to meaningfully empower all the people who come >> onboard mozilla's mission through campaigns like activate (also other >> means). >> >> *The problem * >> >> The problem is that the reps program as it is designed now is a >> bottleneck. In >> https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/feedback-regarding-the-reps-program-in-india/47657?u=asdofindia >> I've written about how that plays out in India. There are about 161 reps in >> India at the moment. Many of them are inactive and waiting to be removed in >> the routine/regular cleanup by the reps council. >> >> I don't see how such a large movement as we're envisioning can be >> successfully mobilized by so few reps. And I don't see that as a fault of >> the existing active reps. They're trying their best. But in widely diverse, >> large, and populous countries like India, there are hard limits on what a >> few individuals can do. >> >> *The bottleneck* >> >> The bottleneck arises at multiple places. One is in onboarding. There are >> very few people who are able to successfully onboard as new reps. >> >> The other is in remaining active. Many people by the time they gain enough >> experience to "qualify" for the reps program are in full time jobs where >> they have very little time remaining. >> >> Yet another bottleneck is created by not being able to remove inactive >> reps quickly. What happens is that many community members who want to >> organize events try to reach out to these (inactive) reps and get >> lukewarm/unhelpful responses. This is counterproductive. >> >> *The suggestion* >> >> I'm nobody to suggest solutions. So, my first suggestion would be that >> people who care about the mozilla mission and the reps program ask >> themselves whether I make sense and try to figure out ways to modify the >> reps program to address the bottlenecks that I mentioned above. >> >> Another thing that could be done is to build mechanisms that allow many >> more people to become reps. In the past reps were "official >> representatives" of mozilla. Now they are just community mobilizers. I >> don't see why there should be very strict criteria and "qualifications" for >> this role. >> >> An alternative to do could be to make budgeting available for non-reps as >> well. There are many mozillians who may be interested in doing a one-off >> event. (Let's say one of the events in activate campaign). With the current >> bottlenecks, they can neither find a rep to help them, nor ask for budget >> on their own. Imagine if a system can be built to hold these people >> accountable and allow them to use funds from Mozilla. You may ask me how >> they can be held accountable. But should that be a negative question or a >> positive question? Do you want to find solutions or use accountability as a >> stumbling block to not allow mozillians to use funds? >> >> These are questions to ask. >> >> Akshay >> >> -- >> https://mozillians.org/u/asdofindia >> > _______________________________________________ > governance mailing list > governance@lists.mozilla.org > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance -- Rubén Martín [Nukeador] Mozilla Reps Mentor http://www.mozilla-hispano.org http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano http://facebook.com/mozillahispano
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