Re: [PSF-Community] on perl programmers

2016-05-30 Thread Carl Karsten
Meta classes are tricky.  so is meta discussion.  and whatever this is.

I think it is fine to post opinions when one "felt I could not let these
particular comments go by."

I may or may not agree with the opinion, but I do like hearing what people
think, and being reminded about undesirable behaviour isn't the end of the
world.




On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 11:08 AM, Ola Sitarska  wrote:

> I had the same exact feelings when reading that comments here. Thanks for
> speaking up Erik!
>
> On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Erik Romijn  wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I don’t mean to derail the discussion on board transparency, but I
>> felt I could not let these particular comments go by:
>>
>> >> I bet even Perl programmers have good intentions!
>> >
>> > They are good at hiding it.
>>
>> In my opinion, these comments are disrespectful and not inclusive.
>>
>> I know how it seems fun to poke at other languages. I personally
>> have written Perl code in the past, and strongly dislike it. However,
>> that doesn’t mean Perl programmers have any less worth. If we make
>> it seem as if the Python community considers Perl programmers lesser
>> people/programmers, we are making our community unwelcome to people
>> that have made different technology choices, or even are unable to
>> make different choices.
>>
>> I assume that these comments were meant as non-malicious jokes. But
>> that made it especially important for me to draw attention to the
>> effects they can have. So that we can help our community be
>> inclusive to everyone :)
>>
>> Erik
>> ___
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>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/psf-community
>>
>
>
> ___
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>


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[PSF-Community] board candidates: tell me about transparency

2016-05-29 Thread Carl Karsten
"The psf-board-public mailing list, which is used for board discussions
which are not legally or otherwise sensitive, allowing them to be shared
with the wider PSF membership."
- https://wiki.python.org/psf/Info%20for%20new%20PSF%20members

That does not seem accurate, and I consider it a problem.

The only traffic this list gets is Diana's post of the meeting minutes
(Thank you Diana) with these exceptions I found:

1 post form a board member, no reply.  Not sure that qualifies as a
discussion.
https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-board-public/2015-October/001110.html

On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 7:22 AM, M.-A. Lemburg  wrote:
> IMO, Van's version is ... (follow the link if you want to know the rest)
https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-board-public/2015-August/thread.html

This shows me that MAL is taking an active role in shaping the results.   I
may not really agree with his position, but I know what it is, and if I
strongly disagreed I would like to think someone would want to hear about
it.  And or if I disagree with enough of his ideas, maybe I won't vote for
him.

May June and July have a little activity too:
https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-board-public/2015-July/thread.html

It looks like most of the traffic is from non board members.

Is this why the board stopped using it for board discussions?

Why are non board members allowed to post to the board list?


Steve,

I am trying to elect board members and want to know how they feel about
something I care about.  If you want to have a discussion, start a new
thread.



On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 12:04 PM, Steve Holden  wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Carl Karsten 
wrote:
>>
>> > I also used to wonder what was being discussed behind closed doors.
>>
>> We shouldn't have to wonder. If it really is that boring, fine, but it
should be up to me to decide how I spend my time.
>>
>> The posted minutes are just a summary and results of the discussions and
votes.  They don't tell me what was seen as pros and cons and how they were
weighted.
>>
> For Heaven's sake. We elect a board to look after these issues. You can't
expect to second-guess every deliberation. If you want to do that, stand
for the board.
>
>> I have no idea what the individual board members think. Even when there
is a unanimous vote, I still don't know why they voted that way.
>>
> Because that's what they thought would be in the Foundation's best
interests.
>
> [...]
>
> Steve Holden




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Re: [PSF-Community] board candidates: tell me about transparency

2016-05-29 Thread Carl Karsten
> I also used to wonder what was being discussed behind closed doors.

We shouldn't have to wonder. If it really is that boring, fine, but it
should be up to me to decide how I spend my time.

The posted minutes are just a summary and results of the discussions and
votes.  They don't tell me what was seen as pros and cons and how they were
weighted.

I have no idea what the individual board members think. Even when there is
a unanimous vote, I still don't know why they voted that way.

I have no idea what the board or any of the members thinks their roll is
regarding PyCon US, something I care deeply about.   I have had to have
face to face conversations to hear some a surprising opinion as to it's
direction.  That person is not running this year, so we don't need to worry
about if that makes any sense or we should vote him out.

But it was a very short conversation and we didn't have time to talk about
it.  If I could read the archives, I wouldn't need to talk about it, nor
would I be surprised.  I may disagree, that's fine.   Being surprised, I
have a problem with that.




On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 12:54 AM, Diana Clarke 
wrote:

> Before I was on the board, I also used to wonder what was being
> discussed behind closed doors. Spoiler alert: it's far less exciting
> than you might expect. As Tim Peters once put it: "Exciting as
> watching rocks sleep? Yup, but essential - the glory of serving on the
> Board isn't for everyone ;-)".
>
> Having now served on the board, I can confirm that the meeting minutes
> published every few weeks pretty accurately reflect our actionable
> discussions. These twice monthly meetings are an hour long which
> doesn't leave much time for real discussion. For the most part, these
> meetings are just used to cast votes on the resolutions you see listed
> in the meeting minutes. Most of the actual discussion happens prior to
> the meetings on the PSF board mailing list.
>
> https://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/
> https://www.python.org/psf/records/board/resolutions/
>
> Even so, the vast majority of email on the PSF board mailing list just
> revolves around grant requests for regional conferences, workshops,
> etc. The new Grants Working Group is starting to take on more and more
> of those requests which will hopefully free up the board for more
> strategic work. That said, I suspect people think the PSF board is
> more hands-on than it actually is. For the most part, the Python
> community sits on the shoulders of individual volunteers with no
> official PSF titles (and the PSF staff, of course). The PSF board has
> very little to do with PyCon US or PyPI, for example.
>
> Baby just woke up, so quickly now (and please excuse any typos). In an
> effort to address some of the past concerns around transparency &
> communication, the PSF:
>
>   - promptly publishes meeting minutes & resolutions online
>   - retired the old private psf-members mailing list and created this
> new public mailing list
>   - opened up pretty much all of the historically private PSF wiki content
>   - sends twice monthly emails to this list with grant summaries,
> meeting minute links, etc
>   - has two bloggers broadcast community success stories, PSF news, etc
>
> I hope that helps clarify the kinds of discussions the PSF board has
> during the meetings and on the board mailing list, as well as the
> current efforts around transparency. There's always room for
> improvement, so do let the board know if you have any fresh ideas on
> this front. Bonus points for having the time to help implement them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --diana
>
> On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 10:15 AM, Carl Karsten 
> wrote:
> > All of the people nominated for the PSF board are good people who will do
> > good things.  If things were running smooth, I wouldn't really care who
> gets
> > elected.
> >
> > But once again, we see people asking questions due to lack of
> transparency.
> >
> > So once again, I ask:  What will you do about it?
> >
> > --
> > Carl K
> >
> >
> > ___
> > PSF-Community mailing list
> > PSF-Community@python.org
> > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/psf-community
> >
>



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[PSF-Community] board candidates: tell me about transparency

2016-05-28 Thread Carl Karsten
All of the people nominated for the PSF board are good people who will do
good things.  If things were running smooth, I wouldn't really care who
gets elected.

But once again, we see people asking questions due to lack of transparency.

So once again, I ask:  What will you do about it?

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