Dear Voting Representatives, My name is Paul M. Jones; I am one of the founders of this group. Along with Nate Abele, I am the longest continuously-serving Voting Representative in the FIG, and by some measures the most productive person here. My seven years of commitment and dedication to the productive ends of this group, along with the technical ability and professional endurance to achieve those ends, is unquestioned. I was the primary driving force behind PSR-1, PSR-2, and PSR-4; their wide adoption has contributed greatly to the legitimacy the FIG currently enjoys. I am recorded as the coordinator or sponsor on other PSRs as well. I assisted in creating some of the bylaws that are intended to guide the members of this group, including a prominent role in writing the voting rules themselves. I helped to vote in a number of the current FIG members, and sponsored the membership of Graham Daniels.
Some people in this group and in the wider community would like to revoke my status as a Voting Representative. Here is a summary of the complaint against me, as written by Larry Garfield: > The net result [of Paul Jones' behavior on the FIG list] is people being > driven away from FIG, including leading members of the PHP Community. ... > > Such behavior contributes to a toxic and hostile atmosphere in and around > FIG, discourages participation, and generally contributes to a flippant and > contemptuous attitude towards FIG in the community at large. -- <https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/php-fig/w38tCU4mdgU/ww0kKM0vAAAJ> Given the concentration on "community" in Larry's summary, the resulting conversations around the complaint have been informative. Specifically, the comments on this thread and on Reddit (which by any measure is a place where "the community at large" speaks out) demonstrate quite a divide in "the PHP Community" to which the complaint appeals. -- <https://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/4piv4i/phpfig_drama_continues_as_the_group_publicly/?limit=500> On the one hand, there are the initial 20 complainants (some of them Voting Representatives and others community members). Collaborating with the secretaries as an aid and a shield, they prepared and honed their action against me over the course of a month or more. They were thereafter joined by other commenters here on this thread (I number them between 5 and 9) and on Reddit (I counted 6 that are at least roughly in agreement with the complaint) over the past two weeks. Call it from 31 to 35 in favor my removal. On the other hand, with no advance notice of the action against me, a mix of current and former Voting Representatives (along with other prestigious members of the wider community) spoke up either to refute the points in the complaint or to rebuke the very act of the complaint. On this thread, the "opposed" number about 20, and on Reddit they number roughly 15, for a total of around 35 opposed to my removal. If you take those numbers as even a remotely representative sample, they show that the community is thoroughly divided regarding the complaint. About half feel it is well-founded, and the other half for various reasons feel it is not. To be clear, only some of those "opposed" have spoken specifically in defense of me personally. Others have spoken on principle against the nature of the complaint or the proposed punishment. Some of them believe that, by the fact of entertaining my removal on the basis of the evidence given, the FIG brings disrepute on itself. They feel that the very nature of the complaint, and its pursuit, contributes to "a toxic and hostile atmosphere" and "discourages participation." What this should tell you is that there is no such thing as a single, unified, marching-in-lockstep community. When you hear a claim that my continued membership in this group "discourages participation, and generally contributes to a flippant and contemptuous attitude towards FIG in the community at large", you should consider it (at best) as a fundamental misunderstanding of what "the community at large" is like. For good or bad, there is a significant part of "the community at large" that disagrees with the complaint in some fashion. As such, you can see that the complaint appeals to only one portion of "the PHP Community" -- perhaps a portion with which the complainants themselves identify. But there is another substantial portion, maybe as much as half, to whom the complaint does not appeal. This, along with the comments of those who see little-to-nothing objectionable revealed by the evidence raised against me, should give you reason enough to vote *against* my removal. Finally, as to the punishment sought, the complainants apparently wish to "request a replacement Voting Representative" for the Aura project. (Because there is a ready replacement, the Aura project itself is not a candidate for being expelled.) As far as I can tell, this punishment does not provide a remedy for the various elements of the complaint. It neither removes my voice from the mailing list, nor does it remove the influence of Aura from the group. I am left to imagine, then, that there is some other purpose toward which this punishment is designed. Maybe it is intended only to be symbolic, or perhaps it is a stepping-stone toward some other undisclosed end. The complainants should specify how removing me as a Voting Representative will salve their woes. If they do not, or if their purpose is not to your liking, then you should consider voting *against* my removal. With that, I leave the fate of my status as a Voting Representative in your hands. Regardless of the result, I thank you for your time and attention. -- Paul M. Jones http://paul-m-jones.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PHP Framework Interoperability Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/php-fig/EE4BF5A6-D435-468D-A45E-4CA9CFB376C9%40gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
