[maemo-community] maemo.org paid contributors (was Re: Monthly Sprint Proposal)

[From: Qole]

I just want to apologize for my poor wording. I do not intend to "police"
and "boss" anyone.

And nobody is in my "crosshairs".

But I have been extremely unclear as to what my role as a Councilor is, in
relation to the paid maemo.org team, the community, and Nokia. Where does
everyone sit here? As I've asked before, what are my responsibilities?

Quim has made it clear that there is definitely some expectation that the
Council, as representatives of the Community, has some responsibility to
assess the performance of the maemo.org team, especially since the final
hiring (and contract renewal) decision seems to rest at least partly on us.

I am taking my role as Councilor very seriously, but I need to know exactly
what that means before I can do a good job at it. I can't do a good job if I
don't really know what a "good job" looks like. Thanks to Jaffa's work on
the wiki page, that is getting clearer, and this thread is making things
clearer still. (I think Jaffa could probably update our page with some of
the things in this thread)

Jeremiah, I think you need to realize that the community and the Council
needs you to do a bit more reporting, with more detail and precision, than
perhaps is "usual", for the simple reason that your position really is
unprecedented. We mostly know what a webmaster is supposed to do. Webmasters
have been around for a few years, and there's lots of them out there.

But what does a debmaster do? Well, since there haven't been any debmasters
before (that I know of), we are relying on four things:
(1) our own expectations: what do we think you should do?
(2) your job description: what were you hired to do?
(3) your past activities: what have you been doing so far?
(4) your future goals: what are you (and the community) planning for you to
do in the future?

The problem I had at first, and I think this is the source of the
frustration you sensed in me, is that I was relying on (1) too much, if not
entirely; I had a set of preconceived ideas about what you were going to do,
and when I perceived that you didn't seem to be doing some of the things I
wanted you to do, I became somewhat disappointed. But I've since realized
that this was an unfair assessment, since, of all the things in my list, (1)
is the least useful measurement.

In fact, I would say that (1) is not only useless, but quite dangerous. It
should be eliminated as quickly as possible, to be replaced by the other
three things. So I've set about trying to get some of the other three things
into place. Items (3) and (4) are the subject of this thread, and it seems
that you and Tim are working on (2) right now, too.

I sincerely believe that getting good reporting, processes and documentation
into place here will benefit everyone, and reduce the chances of things
"getting ugly" in the future. I want lots of transparency, and I really want
good will.

I'm really sorry if I have caused any loss of good will here; that was not
my intent and it isn't useful in building community or developing a working
relationship.

As an addendum: Looking at the way people are quoting my hastily chosen
words, everyone seems to have access to the logs of the maemo-meeting
channel for that meeting. Where are they to be found? Can someone provide a
link?

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 6:10 AM, Tim <tim at samoff.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Jeremiah: I understand where you are coming from, but...
>
>  > ext Jeremiah Foster wrote:
>  > This is exactly what is happening now. When Alan writes
>  > "I'm still unclear about the council's role in "policing" the paid
>  > maemo.org team.
>
> I hope I'm not assuming too much by saying that Alan just asking a
> question here. As a new member of a Council who is only just beginning
> its second term of existence, he is honestly unclear about some of the
> processes... Which, as a Council member, I am too. These are the things
> that we've been elected to work out, as Alan is attempting to do -- in
> an open, community-oriented discussion.
>
>  > The current council is ignoring this and looking for ways to "police"
>  > and "boss" before the roles are defined.
>
> I disagree. In fact, I've asked you (twice now) to send a statement of
> your own roles/responsibilities to the community for review and
> discussion. I still haven't seen it.
>
> I'm not saying that I think you are doing poorly -- from what I've seen,
> I think you are doing a great job -- but what Alan is doing is what I
> have asked you to do. (Two way street?)
>
> --
> http://tim.samoff.com
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> maemo-community at maemo.org
> https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-community
>
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