Re: yay canaries!
Hi, I would add to Quim's list, in case this didn't happen (and I have no idea if it did): Take aside representatives of the unsuccessful bids *before* announcing the decision, and let them know the decision, and why it was made. Cheers, Dave. Quim Gil wrote: > - Don't be partial to any candidate if you are involved in the > decision (Behdad did in this list - which is fine but then it would be > good to stay out of the process). I believe that people participating in the decision have the right to hold a position on the contest, and indeed, have a responsibility to bring up points which may have been vague in the proposals and ask questions. I'd agree that it's inappropriate to voice a preference before the comments period is over, though. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: yay canaries!
Hi Behdad & board, On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 5:11 PM, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Unfortunately it turned out to be so. Needless to say, I did not mean > to offend anyone. And I apologize if I did. I'm sure you had no intention at all of offending but well, you did. Since it was unconscious it is good to discuss and move it to the consciousness. An advice for future years could be: - Don't be partial to any candidate if you are involved in the decision (Behdad did in this list - which is fine but then it would be good to stay out of the process). - Don't expose any candidate publicly, especially not with cheap stereotypes (I'm afraid you did, by tying Tampere and Coruña to popular non-excitement and also by connecting Gran Canaria to sol, playa y fiesta). - Explain the reasons why the winner won, and why the rest didn't. For what I remember your "survey" mentioned mostly beach and price of beer. No mention at all about Coruña or Tampere. - Invite the no-winners to resubmit next year, making clear that we want to have them on board. Do we need to remember how hard has been to get a single candidature in previous years? - Say a clear "Thank You" to all - probably GNOME's Rule Number One. > Each bid > has its own unique strengths, but in the end, we decided that the unique > opportunity of the Gran Canaria bid to reach out to Africa was something > we really want to explore. Like a good brother I'm not criticising the decision, but I recommend you not to put this argument upfront before prior investigation and concrete decisions made on that direction. In fact, this might be a problem as it was in Vilanova: plenty of requests for recommendation letters from African countries from which I count just a couple from Algeria and Morocco as legitimate - and they couldn't get the visa either. This took a lot of time and hassle, including calls and conversations with Spanish embassies in remote countries. At the end most of them were probably fake (and I don't blame them either, at the end borders are full of sad stories) The Canary Islands are one of the main gateways of immigration from Africa to the EU. In this sense is like a European military fortress, no matter zillion priviledged citizens fly there as tourists free as in speech and quite cheap as in beer. Africans with properties and a bank account won't have problems but considering their origins (e.g. South Africa) they will probably fly via Madrid, Paris or London anyway. All the rest will need a lot of help from the organization to get a visa and a flight ticket. Fyi there are direct flights to Gran Canaria from Cape Verde, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and Western Sahara. Working out something with computer science faculties in Casablanca, Marrakesh and Dakar seems like the first thing to try if we really want to play the African card beyond the good intentions. -- Quim Gil /// http://flors.wordpress.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: yay canaries!
On Sun, 2008-07-13 at 12:41 +0200, Andy Wingo wrote: > Hey hackers, Hi everyone. > Yay, we're going to the Canaries next year! That's great! Yep. A formal press release is on the way. > The purpose of this message though is to express disagreement with the > way that the announcement was done (at the GUADEC closing), though. It > was pretty nasty to Tampere, a place I also wanted to go. I think an > apology is in order. Unfortunately it turned out to be so. Needless to say, I did not mean to offend anyone. And I apologize if I did. I believe all three bids were great, and I hope a Finland bid will be submitted again next year. The two boards discussed merits of each bid over a conference call and followed up with a lengthy thread. Each bid has its own unique strengths, but in the end, we decided that the unique opportunity of the Gran Canaria bid to reach out to Africa was something we really want to explore. > Besides that, I can't help but think that it should be we of the GNOME > Foundation who should choose the GUADEC location, not the board. Next > year we should vote on the location. Makes a lot of sense. KDE used to let a membership vote decide the location, but this year they did a non-binding vote because they needed to make the final decision together with us. For next year, we can do something like that. > Cheers, > > Andy Cheers, -- behdad http://behdad.org/ "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: yay canaries!
Hi andy, Andy Wingo wrote: > The purpose of this message though is to express disagreement with the > way that the announcement was done (at the GUADEC closing), though. It > was pretty nasty to Tampere, a place I also wanted to go. I think an > apology is in order. Since I had already left by the conference closing (flight at 5pm), I can't comment on this. I can say that as the leader of a losing bid in the past, it's a hard thing to take at the end of GUADEC, and it definitely left me a little bitter... Perhaps better would be to decide, and notify the bids, before GUADEC and then during the conference announce, without representatives of the bid having to find out just before the closing. Not sure, though - any time you have competition, it's hard for the losers. > Besides that, I can't help but think that it should be we of the GNOME > Foundation who should choose the GUADEC location, not the board. Next > year we should vote on the location. Now that we are co-locating with Akademy, there is even less likelihood this will happen - representatives of the communities really need to be able to discuss, negociate, and arrive at the best compromise on the location. A community vote makes it very hard to have that kind of negociation, which is why the KDE community had a non-binding vote this year. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
yay canaries!
Hey hackers, Yay, we're going to the Canaries next year! That's great! The purpose of this message though is to express disagreement with the way that the announcement was done (at the GUADEC closing), though. It was pretty nasty to Tampere, a place I also wanted to go. I think an apology is in order. Besides that, I can't help but think that it should be we of the GNOME Foundation who should choose the GUADEC location, not the board. Next year we should vote on the location. Cheers, Andy -- http://wingolog.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
