Re: foundation application..
2015-02-22 14:08 GMT+01:00 Magdalen Berns m.be...@thismagpie.com: Again, a brilliant question. On the face of it this seems to be purely about reducing paper work for the membership committee (i.e. fewer applications means less work for them). However there are clearly some implications which affect our democratic processes. The question of whether we have a justifiable reason to take steps like this to deny this group of people a vote or not on the basis we worry they might not use it, is an important one because that does not objectively make sense. Clearly, the extra paper work shouldn't be a factor in decisions like this. The Membership Committee actions are unequivocally oriented to the benefit of the GNOME Foundation. I've been chairing the Committee since five years now and this is honestly the first time ever someone arises a controversial point on the policy and procedures we follow when processing new or renewal applications. The following thread started by Sriram with the pure scope of enhancing the membership application experience it diverged into a crescendum of accusations to the Membership Committee which clearly state the fact you are missing the point of being a GNOME Foundation Member. From your point of view being a Foundation member strictly relates to having made a non-trivial amount of contributions (which is totally correct as per Bylaws) but there's one more action the applicant should perform in order for the application to be processed. This action juridically speaking is an act of will. The person by browsing [1] and filling in all the fields acknowledge its intent to apply for Foundation Membership. Applying for membership is not an obligation of any kind and you aren't required to submit an application if you don't have a real interest in doing so. The following announcement [2] (which seems to have caused so much confusion between interns) is misleading in many ways and seems to suggest interns they should apply - not because they believe in the GNOME Foundation and the values it pursues - but for the mere reason to keep a blog aggregated to Planet GNOME. If I was an intern myself reading such an announcement and without having a knowledge of what Foundation membership is about I could definitely started seeing the membership itself as a way for my blog to stay aggregated on Planet GNOME. There's no single reference of what Foundation membership is about, what the duties are and what we are trying to accomplish in terms of building a membership base made of people who really believe in our mission, participate to the community discussions, vote on the yearly elections. Many interns probably applied for Membership after reading that announcement having in mind the fact having keeping their public visibility through their blog was only possible if they requested membership. This totally goes against what Foundation membership is about. Our mission - as the Membership Committee - is to make sure a strong and consistent membership base is created in terms of contributors who want to step forward and join the Foundation because they believe doing so can definitely strengthen their relationship with the project and bring it to the next level. As stated on my previous e-mail [3] we've seen a lot of interns dropping their contributions to zero right after the internship ended so while they contributed in a non-trivial way to the Foundation why would they even decide to apply afterwards? they are NOT obliged to apply for membership and they probably wouldn't apply if they knew that being a member is not only receiving a bunch of benefits but also being an active part of the community participating to discussions and voting at every year's elections. The rationale behind an extended period for interns isn't there because we don't believe interns have contributed enough or because of their gender (yeah, you even managed to accuse the Committee to apply blanket rules depending on the gender of the applicant [4]) but just to find out whether there was a strong and real interest in joining the GNOME Foundation going beyond having a blog aggregated on Planet GNOME. While this thread (not how it started but how it diverged) is full of accusations I don't recall hearing a single intern reaching out the Committee complaining about her application being rejected. Not a single case out of hundreds I personally processed since 2009. We value our members and we always make sure to use our discretionary power to further the goals of the GNOME Foundation, this in many ways: 1. by introducing Emeritus [5] 2. by supporting former members who have decreased the number of contributions to re-apply and be accepted trying to encourage them keeping up their valuable contributions over the project without leaving We aren't scared about having more paper work in place and we never neglected to call for help in case we needed it. [6] [7] The Membership Committee - as I see it - is here to
Re: foundation application..
Again, a brilliant question. On the face of it this seems to be purely about reducing paper work for the membership committee (i.e. fewer applications means less work for them). However there are clearly some implications which affect our democratic processes. The question of whether we have a justifiable reason to take steps like this to deny this group of people a vote or not on the basis we worry they might not use it, is an important one because that does not objectively make sense. Clearly, the extra paper work shouldn't be a factor in decisions like this. The Membership Committee actions are unequivocally oriented to the benefit of the GNOME Foundation. I've been chairing the Committee since five years now and this is honestly the first time ever someone arises a controversial point on the policy and procedures we follow when processing new or renewal applications. The following thread started by Sriram with the pure scope of enhancing the membership application experience it diverged into a crescendum of accusations to the Membership Committee which clearly state the fact you are missing the point of being a GNOME Foundation Member. If you scroll back you'll see that several people who either supported the decision or seemed to remain neutral about it, stated it was the membership committee's decision. Those critical of the decision were not actually the ones who accused the membership committee of taking it. The reality is some of us had no idea where the decision had come from until it came out on this thread, because it does not seem to have been publicly stated anywhere before it was made or leading up to now either. Once the news had come out on this thread, that the decision was the membership committee's idea then this naturally meant that those critical of the decision, in turn had to be critical of the membership committee for taking it. Ultimately, it's the decision that's the problem (but more the way it's been communicated and carried out, from my perspective to be honest). Besides all that though, let's get this into perspective a bit: Nobody's actually talking about overthrowing the membership committee or anything like it, here. It's possible to value the work of others and still fundamentally disagree on something like this. Members are not obliged to grant absolute, unconditional, unquestioning support and agreement to all decisions, (including the ones we don't know out about until after they are made) and it does not seem reasonable that should be seen as controversial, or anything else other than what it actually is: a bunch of perfectly valid questions and concerns. From your point of view being a Foundation member strictly relates to having made a non-trivial amount of contributions (which is totally correct as per Bylaws) but there's one more action the applicant should perform in order for the application to be processed. This action juridically speaking is an act of will. The person by browsing [1] and filling in all the fields acknowledge its intent to apply for Foundation Membership. Applying for membership is not an obligation of any kind and you aren't required to submit an application if you don't have a real interest in doing so. The following announcement [2] (which seems to have caused so much confusion between interns) is misleading in many ways and seems to suggest interns they should apply - not because they believe in the GNOME Foundation and the values it pursues - but for the mere reason to keep a blog aggregated to Planet GNOME. If I was an intern myself reading such an announcement and without having a knowledge of what Foundation membership is about I could definitely started seeing the membership itself as a way for my blog to stay aggregated on Planet GNOME. This seems like an unlikely scenario. As far as I am aware, nobody actually sifts through planet feeds removing the feeds of interns. Besides, isn't our whole vibe meant to be about assuming good intentions? ;-). There's no single reference of what Foundation membership is about, what the duties are and what we are trying to accomplish in terms of building a membership base made of people who really believe in our mission, participate to the community discussions, vote on the yearly elections. Well, there are the foundation webpages. In this case though, the application process could be sufficient in weeding this sort of thing out, couldn't it? It's not totally clear why making a blanket rule would make this any easier, anyway but that's been said. One thing which has not really been mentioned in all of this (possibly because it doesn't apply to all the interns, just the summer ones) is the point that, many of the interns get invited to GUADEC and find out what foundation membership is about through their experience there. Do you not think it might send out a confused message to interns for us to go round inviting them along to GUADEC,
Re: foundation application..
On Mon, 2015-02-23 at 21:15 +, Magdalen Berns wrote: [...] Further to that, on looking at some of the recent membership data gathered so far with specific regard to the interns, I have to say, it does seem like a few interns have been significantly undervaluing their own contributions by waiting much longer to apply than seems appropriate for active contributors to be doing with some seeming to have waited as long as two years actually, which is of course, absolutely ridiculous. Why would you think this is ridiculous, or has anything to do with undervaluing ones contributions ? To be perfectly frank, granting commit access to GNOME revision control repositories is already a huge token of trust, it normally takes at least some months (reasonable number anywhere between 3 to 6 months after the initial encounter ?) before a project maintainer can vouch for someone to be a committer in full confidence. I had commit access and my own shell account before considering becoming a foundation member - not being a foundation member was not a 'bad thing', it's not like I had no right to discuss the direction of the project on d-d-l with many other contributors and maintainers, before becoming a foundation member. You are not a 'less valuable' contributor for not being a foundation member. Becoming a foundation member was just where I drew the line between being a project contributer and maintainer, and decided that I wanted to have some kind of a say in how the foundation itself was run (and even this is IMO still of much lesser importance than having a voice in the direction and development of the projects housed in the GNOME umbrella, for which, again, a foundation membership is not required). In any case, you may think that 2 years is a long time, I certainly think that 2 months is an extremely short time - my personal view on the thing is that the foundation should be comprised of those who actually really give a damn, I find it hard to conceive how the MC could possibly judge the commitment of such a short term contributor. Best, -Tristan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
