Quoting Randall Arnold <[email protected]>:

----- Original message -----
From: "Auke Kok?" <[email protected]>
To: "Dave Neary?" <[email protected]>, "Development for the MeeGo
Project?" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MeeGo-dev] Academic Survey for MeeGo Community
Contributors
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:57:58 -0800



[I posted this to Dave privately too but I think everyone should read
it to understand why I objected in the first place to the original
post. please read the entire reply below, thanks.]


On 11/30/10 02:57, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Auke Kok wrote:
>> On 11/22/10 23:18, Jarkko Moilanen wrote:
>>> Note! This message is NOT directly about MeeGo platform or MeeGo
app
>>> development.
> <snip>
>
>> Did you get express permission from the MeeGo community council
(Dawn,
>> Quim, etc?) to post this to this list?
>
> Do people need permission to post here now? Have I broken a rule
because
> I didn't ask?
>
>> Since you clearly state your survey is "Academic", I assume it
directly
>> benefits you as a person, providing you with research data. As such,
>> this invitation is a direct violation of list policies, and as such
not
>> allowed use of this or any MeeGo mailinglist unless expressly
approved.
>
> Can you point to the policy you're referring to, please?
>
> I treated this as an email I wasn't interested in, and deleted it.
I'm
> sure others on the list did the same thing, or perhaps they clicked
on
> the link& decided it wasn't worth their time. You could have done the
same.
>
> Was there some particular reason you felt that this needed to be
stamped
> out in such a forceful manner?

Yes.

I've been involved in several open source projects for over 10 years
now, and have time after time seen "academic surveys" come on over
without realistically contributing back to that particular community.

I've even been fell for the "may help open source" trap once by
participating in a survey that ended up being funded by Microsoft
which ended up being used against open source in a rather unsettling
way. Needless to say, that was 90 minutes of my life I'd rather have
back and not spent on the phone with a professor from Harvard or Yale.

In the end, I don't have a problem with specific surveys that intent
to help the community that they're surveying directly, but it's up to
the community council members to -screen- the request for a survey
first before it is posted. If we don't set a reasonably low bar
first, we'll end up with daily surveys on this list, and from there
on things will get worse, fast. Once advertisers and recruiters find
out we have a lax policy and thousands of readers, we've already lost.

So, can people who want to do a survey please just "ask first" ?


As in many debates between passionate and professional people both sides
in this one have valid points.

That said, while I respect Auke and his experience very much I also
disagree with the tone of the first response as well as his request
(sorry Auke).

I only see one problem with the original email: that it could have been a
bit clearer on benefits to the community, exactly how the collected data
would be used, etc.? Personally if more detail had been included at the
start I see no need for a preliminary "hey can we post this survey to the
list?" query.? Informed people can choose to accept or ignore based on a
single email.

Does that work as a reasonable compromise, or do I need to revisit both
Diplomacy 101 and Logic 101?


Fine by me. As I said in my first reply, I will try to be more careful in the future :) It is true, that I forgot to iterate the possible benefits and also the fact that access to raw data from the survey will be given to the community.

Jarkko

;)

Randall (Randy) Arnold
Forum Nokia Champion
blog: http://tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com
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irc: Texrat @ irc.freenode.net
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****************************
 Jarkko Moilanen (phone: +358 46 640 8339)
 M.Soc.Sc. (Political Science)
 PhD Student, Information studies, University of Tampere
 Blog: Extreme activities in cyberspace - http://extreme.ajatukseni.net/
 -------------------------
 Founder of Hackerspace 5w, Finland, Tampere - 5w.fi
****************************

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