Re: [Debconf-team] [Protest] Changes should come from within the team and not from above
On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 11:01:33PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
>
> On IRC, you said earlier today that "there is a very strong opinion
> that coordination did not work during this year". Can you please
> elaborate? What did not work, and who voiced this "very strong
> opinion?"
>
What did not work was the structure we had set, and that's what we are
trying to change: (coord lead + shadow + each team leads + other people not
really involved in this years conference) didn't really function as a team.
And IMHO this was no one's fault, the structure that was not good. Each team
lead was only focusing in his/her own job, they didn't really choose to be
in the coordination team. And specially when the shadow stepped out, the
whole trouble was at the lead's hands (which happened to be Marga) and we
understand it was too much for a single person, specially when this person
is not doing DC coordination as a full time job, which is never the case.
Can you make the exercise of thinking of this whole discussion in the light
of DC15 pre-setup? We are proposing that the coordination team would be
composed by Marga, Chairs and some people from past years, maybe Vorlon or
Patty? You seem to be defending that maybe Marga (local lead) should not
participate in DC15 coordination? Only Vorlon/Patty and team leads? Would it
make sense at all?
The problem was that when we set this up last year we already had Marga in
mind, and she was going to coordinate DC15, perfect. But we didn't really think
of how it would have to change from year to year.
What we are proposing is that each year we give space for the new locateam to
coordinate along with the previous years coordination. That would be a good way
to transfer experience, knowledge and responsibilities. And this team doesn't
even need to have a lead, since there is no decision-making in its
responsibilities. But this discussion can happen once we have the team formed.
> Whatever it means to lead a coordination team, Marga did a splendid
> job. She coordinated our work and the cooperation with other teams.
> She covered all of the tasks specified in your wiki team
> description. She managed, despite the difficulties arising from the
> unclear differentiation between coordination of DebConf and the
> local team. Please, ask anyone who was regularly involved, and I am
> pretty sure that they'll all chime in. Without Marga, DC15 would not
> have happened.
>
Please, we don't need this kind of flame. Let's not make it personal, we
are trying to be pragmatic and solve the problem while you keep shaping it
as if it was Marga versus Chairs, which is not true. We have said several
times that we were thinking of her as part of coordination all the time,
but not alone anymore. We defend that DC16 people need to be there, the
same way as Marga needed to be there for DC15 to happen.
> Let's accept that the word "possibly" in Tassia's mail was an
> accident and your intention was never to de-seat Marga by way of
> a list e-mail. Wouldn't it have been better to let her announce the
> changes to her team?
>
The word "possibly" was removed from the wiki as soon as I realized that
this caused bad feelings. Our intention was to say that having someone from
past years was not mandatory. Remember that this structure is meant to
survive along the years, this is not about dc15 nor DC16, this is not about
Marga, this is about DebConf orga structure.
If you check the wiki now, what we have is: "Composed by key local organizers,
the DebConf Chairs, and members of past years coordination."
Can we agree on *that*?
And I repeat, the content on the wiki is a proposal of change, as we can read in
bold on top of the page as well as in the first email I sent. Moreover, it is a
wiki, it can be changed in one click. I really don't understand why you insist
that the Chairs are imposing something top-down, when we never said this is the
final structure. I wrote directly on the wiki cause I was not expecting such a
reaction, since it all came out from DC15 meetings. My bad.
What I propose now is that we wait a bit for more people to engage in the
discussion, cause they already have a huge backlog to read when they arrive
from their break.
Last but not least... a message full of love for each one of you:
Breath. Let it go. Accept your peers' errors. Accept your own errors. Forgive what
went wrong in the past and look ahead. Remember that we all want the same thing:
success in future DebConfs. Remember that we just had a very successful DebConf!
Remember that we do it for something bigger than us: the Debian Project.
We just need to learn how to work together ;-)
Have a nice weekend.
Tassia.
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