Hi there,
Jona here, Fedora Ambassador from Albania. I saw it fit to write to the mailing list after being looped in one of the meetings FAmSCo had yesterday on 9th March.
I try to regularly check the logs of the meetings which feel important to me, so the last FAmSCo meeting was no exception here. Somewhere down the line in the meeting, around 15:43 in the log [1] a discussion around the definition of "community" in Albania and Greece sparked, specifically initiated by Robert Scheck, which on behalf of the community I represent, we find troubling:
- "Sorry, but you can not treat Albania as a real community so far. We had the same "community" in Greece some years ago - and after 2 years, most of them went away...to Mozilla."
- "a community is something that exists for really a lot of years and is healthy"
Although initially a surprising statement, I went on to read further clarification, however there was no resolution found, with the suggestion coming up that this should be taken to the mailing list, which I am doing so hereby.
So, since there has been a discussion taking place where Albania's contributions (and so also my contributions) have been mentioned without me being present, I would hate to keep silent about this. As someone who led grassroots efforts to start up the Fedora community in Albania, dedicating more time to the Fedora project than anything else in my free time, seeing comments like these from a fellow Fedora Ambassador (let alone mentor) is insulting to the hundreds of hours of work put in by fellow community members in Albania, including myself. Seeing myself in this position, I also doubt that any contributor from Greece feels comfortable in a similar fashion with these comments.
I didn't want this topic to sink in the meeting logs, so I brought it up here in the mailing list to gather your general feedback and thoughts on this matter (and to avoid this in the future ideally).
I am deeply concerned with comments like this out of nowhere, and think that there are others sharing my concerns.
On behalf of the Albanian Fedora community. Jona Azizaj
[1] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2016-03-09/famsco.2016-03...
2016-03-10 10:30 GMT+01:00 Jona Azizaj jonaazizaj@gmail.com:
Hi there,
Jona here, Fedora Ambassador from Albania. I saw it fit to write to the mailing list after being looped in one of the meetings FAmSCo had yesterday on 9th March.
I try to regularly check the logs of the meetings which feel important to me, so the last FAmSCo meeting was no exception here. Somewhere down the line in the meeting, around 15:43 in the log [1] a discussion around the definition of "community" in Albania and Greece sparked, specifically initiated by Robert Scheck, which on behalf of the community I represent, we find troubling:
- "Sorry, but you can not treat Albania as a real community so far. We
had the same "community" in Greece some years ago - and after 2 years, most of them went away...to Mozilla."
- "a community is something that exists for really a lot of years and
is healthy"
Although initially a surprising statement, I went on to read further clarification, however there was no resolution found, with the suggestion coming up that this should be taken to the mailing list, which I am doing so hereby.
So, since there has been a discussion taking place where Albania's contributions (and so also my contributions) have been mentioned without me being present, I would hate to keep silent about this. As someone who led grassroots efforts to start up the Fedora community in Albania, dedicating more time to the Fedora project than anything else in my free time, seeing comments like these from a fellow Fedora Ambassador (let alone mentor) is insulting to the hundreds of hours of work put in by fellow community members in Albania, including myself. Seeing myself in this position, I also doubt that any contributor from Greece feels comfortable in a similar fashion with these comments.
I didn't want this topic to sink in the meeting logs, so I brought it up here in the mailing list to gather your general feedback and thoughts on this matter (and to avoid this in the future ideally).
I am deeply concerned with comments like this out of nowhere, and think that there are others sharing my concerns.
On behalf of the Albanian Fedora community. Jona Azizaj
[1] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2016-03-09/famsco.2016-03...
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Hi Jona, I followed this meeting yesterday and also saw the comment regarding your community. Before adding my personal thoughts, let me add e few informations. Robert is a "long term" contributor in EMEA and probably is one of the most correct persons I know within in the community. Every ambassador who got mentored by him gets a very good overview about what it means to be a good contributor. Nobody, and I did not understand his statement like that, wants to judge the work of other people, of other countries or cultures. We are all contributors, and we all do Fedora stuff in our spare time. Nobody gets forced to do anything, and that means you won't be never classified as first or second class contributors.
Going down the log you will have noticed Remy who wanted to clarify Robert's statement, and I feel all parts clarified quite clearly the unlucky use of the word "real". Me, you, and most of the EMEA contributors are not english native speakers, and also Robert clarified it saying what he meant. His thought was about *long term* contributors, which still is relative IMO. 2 years for me or you could be long term, while for other people could be just the beginning of contributing. And I don't think our greek friends understood it wrong, we know that many of them in the past found it more interesting to contribute to Mozilla, but we have still many Fedora contributors in Greece. Unfortunately the number of contributors goes up and down, I see it in Italy too, the only thing we can do as ambassadors is to involve as many people as we are able to, right?
Please don't understand my reply wrong, Remy already jumped in during the meeting to clarify this unlucky statement (thx Remy). I would just add that writing fast in a meeting, where you can sort of "feel" what people are thinking (maybe because you know them personally), and reading logs is different. We have put many efforts to try to make grow the community in countries like Albania, but also Serbia and many others. I also mentored people of those countries and we all want to have many many strong communities. So please continue in what you are doing, we all appreciate your hard work as we appreciate it of any other Fedora contributor.
Just my two cents to the topic, thanks for bringing it up to avoid misunderstandings in the future. Looking forward to see you soon in a Fedora event.
Kind regards
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
On 03/10/2016 04:30 AM, Jona Azizaj wrote:
Hi there,
Jona here, Fedora Ambassador from Albania. I saw it fit to write to
the mailing list after being looped in one of the meetings FAmSCo had yesterday on 9th March.
I try to regularly check the logs of the meetings which feel important
to me, so the last FAmSCo meeting was no exception here. Somewhere down the line in the meeting, around 15:43 in the log [1] a discussion around the definition of "community" in Albania and Greece sparked, specifically initiated by Robert Scheck, which on behalf of the community I represent, we find troubling:
- "Sorry, but you can not treat Albania as a real community so far.
We had the same "community" in Greece some years ago - and after 2 years, most of them went away...to Mozilla."
- "a community is something that exists for really a lot of years
and is healthy"
Although initially a surprising statement, I went on to read further
clarification, however there was no resolution found, with the suggestion coming up that this should be taken to the mailing list, which I am doing so hereby.
So, since there has been a discussion taking place where Albania's
contributions (and so also my contributions) have been mentioned without me being present, I would hate to keep silent about this. As someone who led grassroots efforts to start up the Fedora community in Albania, dedicating more time to the Fedora project than anything else in my free time, seeing comments like these from a fellow Fedora Ambassador (let alone mentor) is insulting to the hundreds of hours of work put in by fellow community members in Albania, including myself. Seeing myself in this position, I also doubt that any contributor from Greece feels comfortable in a similar fashion with these comments.
I didn't want this topic to sink in the meeting logs, so I brought it
up here in the mailing list to gather your general feedback and thoughts on this matter (and to avoid this in the future ideally).
I am deeply concerned with comments like this out of nowhere, and
think that there are others sharing my concerns.
On behalf of the Albanian Fedora community. Jona Azizaj
[1]
https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2016-03-09/famsco.2016-03...
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o... Jona,
Please rest assured it was meant more a statement that the community is not as mature as others, not in any way a knock on your efforts.
Many projects and efforts sadly last merely as long as the initial starter(s) are able / willing to stay involved --this is more the logic of that comment, although it came out much more harsh.
Hope this clarifies it more and eases your concerns.
Regards,
Hey Corey,
On March 10, 2016 at 1:30 PM Corey Sheldon sheldon.corey@gmail.com wrote:
Jona, Please rest assured it was meant more a statement that the community is
not as mature as others, not in any way a knock on your efforts.
You're not being serious now, right? The Albanian Fedora community is as mature as the others.
Let me tell you something, everyone: The Albanian community is currently one of the most (if not the most) active Fedora communities in EMEA. They have been doing a lot of contributions, organizing events and they are growing very fast. They have been doing a great job and it has been my pleasure helping them to succeed. We need to find more talented and passionate people like these to join our project.
Hope this clarifies it more and eases your concerns.
Personally, and no offense, I think that your comment just made things worse.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
Am 14.03.2016 um 16:29 schrieb Giannis Konstantinidis:
Let me tell you something, everyone: The Albanian community is currently one of the most (if not the most) active Fedora communities in EMEA.
i have not followed this discussion and will not further jump into it - with this statement i think you go overboard yourself by marginalize the work of the other communities as long as there are no proper metrics what the most active Fedora Community in EMEA means
Initially trying to solve it like in the ancient times "look at this bad person" via the ambassador list is just bringing bad karma and will build up conflict! Not a sign of good leadership to heat up the discussion even further!
I saw some other strange discussion about famsco leadership - yes i know it is someone elses fault, always - this is all focusing inwards and not helping the project in any way to propel.
When i resigned from all leadership roles in Fedora in 2011 (because i wanted to focus outwards by teaching the Fedora Security Lab and collaborating with other FOSS projects) i left some legacies which i hoped could act as a catalyst, so Ambassadors act as outreach, but also as Project-internal Mentors. To give this a new name might be a good idea - even i suggest to resolve the Ambassador Group and call them something else.
http://kitall.blogspot.in/2011/02/ambassador-group-role-for-2011.html
To give this a new name might be a good idea - even i suggest to resolve the Ambassador Group and call them something else.
And btw. we had at least some metrics - not perfect but this is the minimum i would expect from the successors!
http://kitall.blogspot.in/2010/11/my-famsco-duties-end.html?q=famsco
Please stop fighting and picking, or otherwise i will find time to come back and run for whatever the next installation of FAmSCo, FOSCo or else is called ;)
Reach out to me if you want my advice!
Start having fun again!!!
Joerg
Am 14.03.2016 um 21:07 schrieb Joerg Simon:
Am 14.03.2016 um 16:29 schrieb Giannis Konstantinidis:
Let me tell you something, everyone: The Albanian community is currently one of the most (if not the most) active Fedora communities in EMEA.
i have not followed this discussion and will not further jump into it - with this statement i think you go overboard yourself by marginalize the work of the other communities as long as there are no proper metrics what the most active Fedora Community in EMEA means
Initially trying to solve it like in the ancient times "look at this bad person" via the ambassador list is just bringing bad karma and will build up conflict! Not a sign of good leadership to heat up the discussion even further!
I saw some other strange discussion about famsco leadership - yes i know it is someone elses fault, always - this is all focusing inwards and not helping the project in any way to propel.
When i resigned from all leadership roles in Fedora in 2011 (because i wanted to focus outwards by teaching the Fedora Security Lab and collaborating with other FOSS projects) i left some legacies which i hoped could act as a catalyst, so Ambassadors act as outreach, but also as Project-internal Mentors. To give this a new name might be a good idea - even i suggest to resolve the Ambassador Group and call them something else.
http://kitall.blogspot.in/2011/02/ambassador-group-role-for-2011.html
To give this a new name might be a good idea - even i suggest to resolve the Ambassador Group and call them something else.
And btw. we had at least some metrics - not perfect but this is the minimum i would expect from the successors!
http://kitall.blogspot.in/2010/11/my-famsco-duties-end.html?q=famsco
Please stop fighting and picking, or otherwise i will find time to come back and run for whatever the next installation of FAmSCo, FOSCo or else is called ;)
^^ personally I will wait for the "...otherwise ...."
Gerold
On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 09:11:28PM +0100, Gerold wrote:
Please stop fighting and picking, or otherwise i will find time to come back and run for whatever the next installation of FAmSCo, FOSCo or else is called ;)
personally I will wait for the "...otherwise ...."
Yeah that's not much of a threat — are you trying to _encourage_ more fighting? :)
On 03/14/2016 10:07 PM, Joerg Simon wrote:
Am 14.03.2016 um 16:29 schrieb Giannis Konstantinidis:
Let me tell you something, everyone: The Albanian community is currently one of the most (if not the most) active Fedora communities in EMEA.
i have not followed this discussion and will not further jump into it - with this statement i think you go overboard yourself by marginalize the work of the other communities as long as there are no proper metrics what the most active Fedora Community in EMEA means
The lack of proper metrics is yet another reason why we should avoid words like "real" when we refer to communities we don't have any idea how they work.
Initially trying to solve it like in the ancient times "look at this bad person" via the ambassador list is just bringing bad karma and will build up conflict! Not a sign of good leadership to heat up the discussion even further!
I see someone speaking bad (and based on wrong information) about communities and people volunteering contributing to the project. Pointing the wrong doing doesn't build up conflict. Acting like nothing happened de-motivates contributors, and that would not be a good sign of leadership.
~nikos
Hey Joerg,
On March 14, 2016 at 10:07 PM Joerg Simon <jsimon@fedoraproject.org>
wrote:
i have not followed this discussion and will not further jump into it - with this statement i think you go overboard yourself by marginalize the work of the other communities as long as there are no proper metrics what the most active Fedora Community in EMEA means
It was not my intention to put other communities behind, I must have said it in a wrong way and I'm sorry about that. What I was trying to say is that their community is extremely active and that everyone should value that. We need to encourage them to keep growing.
Comments like "this community might not exist in the next two years" or that "this community is not as mature as the others" are not going to help in any way. They will demotivate them.
It's true that there are no actual metrics, but one can at least try to measure the activities of a community by # of events organized and by # of contributions towards the project. What I said about their activity is based on these facts.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
Hi,
I remember times, where a FOSS contributor could say his opinion, but now we are in the era of "diversity managers" and "CoC" and everybody has to be afraid that somebody, like Jona can comes and point the finger at one and crying - there bad boy. And everybody doesnt read the log file to find out what happend, no everybody cries also "bad boy"
What I see here is that some try to make more out of something, what is just bad formulated but on the end the truth.
What I also saw in the starting mail was things interpreted in, which was never said or meant from Robert. Things like he would not honor the contributions of the albanians, thats not true.
So there is made of nothing something and thats the problem here.
Jona, I expect from you an excuse. A normal human being, grown up and mature should know that the first thing to do is talking with Robert, but you preferred to throw dirt at him. Its like the bible says, the one without sins may throw the first stone. So think about yourself are you without sins? Completely without failure I dont think so.
br gnokii
2016-03-15 5:02 GMT+07:00 Giannis Konstantinidis giannis@konstantinidis.cc :
Hey Joerg,
On March 14, 2016 at 10:07 PM Joerg Simon jsimon@fedoraproject.org wrote:
i have not followed this discussion and will not further jump into it - with this statement i think you go overboard yourself by marginalize the work of the other communities as long as there are no proper metrics what the most active Fedora Community in EMEA means
It was not my intention to put other communities behind, I must have said it in a wrong way and I'm sorry about that. What I was trying to say is that their community is extremely active and that everyone should value that. We need to encourage them to keep growing.
Comments like "this community might not exist in the next two years" or that "this community is not as mature as the others" are not going to help in any way. They will demotivate them.
It's true that there are no actual metrics, but one can at least try to measure the activities of a community by # of events organized and by # of contributions towards the project. What I said about their activity is based on these facts.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Hello Jona,
On Thu, 10 Mar 2016, Jona Azizaj wrote:
I try to regularly check the logs of the meetings which feel important to me, so the last FAmSCo meeting was no exception here. Somewhere down the line in the meeting, around 15:43 in the log [1] a discussion around the definition of "community" in Albania and Greece sparked, specifically initiated by Robert Scheck, which on behalf of the community I represent, we find troubling:
- "Sorry, but you can not treat Albania as a real community so far. We
had the same "community" in Greece some years ago - and after 2 years, most of them went away...to Mozilla."
- "a community is something that exists for really a lot of years and is
healthy"
Although initially a surprising statement, I went on to read further clarification, however there was no resolution found, with the suggestion coming up that this should be taken to the mailing list, which I am doing so hereby.
So, since there has been a discussion taking place where Albania's contributions (and so also my contributions) have been mentioned without me being present, I would hate to keep silent about this. As someone who led grassroots efforts to start up the Fedora community in Albania, dedicating more time to the Fedora project than anything else in my free time, seeing comments like these from a fellow Fedora Ambassador (let alone mentor) is insulting to the hundreds of hours of work put in by fellow community members in Albania, including myself. Seeing myself in this position, I also doubt that any contributor from Greece feels comfortable in a similar fashion with these comments.
I didn't want this topic to sink in the meeting logs, so I brought it up here in the mailing list to gather your general feedback and thoughts on this matter (and to avoid this in the future ideally).
I am deeply concerned with comments like this out of nowhere, and think that there are others sharing my concerns.
thank you very much for picking this up. I wanted to do this anyway, I also was in touch yesterday with Remy during the meeting in /query shortly.
First of all: My word "real" wasn't perfectly choosen, I am sorry for this.
Please let me try to clarify my strange sounding statement: When comparing a community with a baby, there is a point where a lot of help is needed; even the baby can breath for its own, but needs to be feeded. After some years, the baby has grown to a child and is able to eat on its own. From my point of view, mostly by looking back over the years, a "young community" has IMHO still after 2 years the risk to fall down (even I do not hope that at all). I might be wrong here, but most of the activity in Albania started in 2014, thus it's from my point of view a "young community".
Further on, if you compare a community with a democracy, a country is able to declare itself as democracy at any time, but it is a "real democracy" if after the first period of governance really democratic minded elections are happing. Turning that back to the community means for me, that a community has simply ups and downs (no matter where they are from). But the important point is, that during or after a "down" a "up" needs to come again (maybe not the same strength immediately like before, but an "up") to proof that there still is a community (even it might be a weak one).
Related to that I see the point that most regional communities are started with something I would call a "hype", where everybody is over-enthusiastic but the most hard point is to turn the enthusiasm from the beginning into something permanently and lasting. Even such a "hype" is great and helps at the beginning, if it doesn't get something more permanent (but maybe a bit more settled like in the beginning), it doesn't help on the long term and bears from my point of view the risk that the "community" could disappear again. Views might be different indeed, but longevity starts from my mind not after a year, but maybe after 3-4 years once regular events have come up multiple times and not everything upcoming is totally new to the people.
Something else which has influence for a community is, that life of people participating in that community are changing - which is normal. Some end their studies, other get a family or become parents, a new job, whatever. While this might have no influence it all, it practically usually has a lot of impact (from what I e.g. figured out on my own). But, what happens if an ambassador, thus a part of a community steps down or is less active than before for whatever reason? Another contributor maybe steps up (or a group of), but maybe nobody steps up. Last of it bears a risk that a community slowly dies.
So like a baby is envolving over the time, I see a community evolving as well, but especially in the beginning I'm seeing the turnover from a "hype" in the very first beginning to a healthy long-time existing community that can also deal with important people leaving and others joining.
Given I mentioned Greece as well: I'm not absolutely sure without digging through old mails, but around 2008-2010, there was really a lot of activity in Greece regarding Fedora; I'm tempted to say maybe even more than now. Very sad thing is that there was a "down" after that, because quite a lot of the Fedora ambassadors went to Mozilla (I don't want to blame Mozilla here for anything) and a fair part to openSUSE. And if I'm not completely wrong for what I looked up and noticed, most of the currently active Greek ambassadors started after that "down". Again, while leaving and joining is part of the community life, it was sad at that time to see that Mozilla was more attractive or fascinating or whatever for contributing. It's important to learn from the past - I would like to avoid such a thing for the future.
Finally, I am not sure if I was clearly able to express what I really mean, but I hope you get at least an idea of what my thoughts are and also what I fear about. Maybe I should have written something like this during the IRC meeting:
Albania has a young community and thus we should try to ensure a longevity to avoid a sad situation like we saw in Greece a few years ago, where after a very active "short up" a heavy "down" followed, because a lot of Fedora contributors switched to another community project.
I apologize for my bad wording during the IRC meeting and I am sorry for insulting you - this was definately not my intention. I hope, I was able to clarify the "real" hereby a bit - and I will try to avoid using that word in such a context in the future...
Greetings, Robert
Hello everyone,
Jona, thanks for taking the time and courage to speak about this "incident". I was chairing that FAmSCo meeting, I was briefly part of the discussion but I chose not to continue as it was getting off-topic.
One of our four foundations is Friends. We have to make sure that every single contributor feels welcome and that all kinds of contributions are valued and appreciated.
On March 10, 2016 at 2:37 PM Robert Scheck <robert@fedoraproject.org>
wrote:
thank you very much for picking this up. I wanted to do this anyway, I
also was in touch yesterday with Remy during the meeting in /query shortly.
First of all: My word "real" wasn't perfectly choosen, I am sorry for
this.
Robert, I do believe that you didn't want to upset the Albanian community in any way. Still, I do not agree with your reasoning.
From mypoint of view, mostly by looking back over the years, a "young
community" has IMHO still after 2 years the risk to fall down (even I do not hope that at all). I might be wrong here, but most of the activity in Albania started in 2014, thus it's from my point of view a "young community".
Yes, there is the risk you mention, but we don't have to think like that. As mentors and as part of this project's leadership we have to inspire, encourage and enable contributors across the regions in order to grow their communities and succeed.
If they fail to do so, it's partly our fault as well.
Given I mentioned Greece as well: I'm not absolutely sure without digging through old mails, but around 2008-2010, there was really a lot of
activity in Greece regarding Fedora; I'm tempted to say maybe even more than now. Very sad thing is that there was a "down" after that, because quite a lot of the Fedora ambassadors went to Mozilla (I don't want to blame Mozilla here for anything) and a fair part to openSUSE. And if I'm not completely wrong for what I looked up and noticed, most of the currently active Greek ambassadors started after that "down". Again, while leaving and joining is part of the community life, it was sad at that time to see that Mozilla was more attractive or fascinating or whatever for contributing. It's important to learn from the past - I would like to avoid such a thing for the future.
Quite a lot went to Mozilla? I can count only three people, which are still part of the Fedora community as well.
Also, why do you think this happened?
A fair part to openSUSE? That's not true at all. Please, get your facts straight.
The Greek Fedora community has 17 contributors currently. Two of them are currently part of the Fedora leadership. During the last FOSSCOMM, a large Greek foss-related conference which took place a few months ago, nine of them showed up for the booth; and there were several more that wanted to come but they couldn't. We don't have that many events in Greece, but this doesn't mean we're dead.
If you don't have facts, please don't speak about the Greek community again.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
Il 14/mar/2016 04:23 PM, "Giannis Konstantinidis" giannis@konstantinidis.cc ha scritto:
Hello everyone,
Jona, thanks for taking the time and courage to speak about this
"incident". I was chairing that FAmSCo meeting, I was briefly part of the discussion but I chose not to continue as it was getting off-topic.
One of our four foundations is Friends. We have to make sure that every
single contributor feels welcome and that all kinds of contributions are valued and appreciated.
On March 10, 2016 at 2:37 PM Robert Scheck robert@fedoraproject.org
wrote:
thank you very much for picking this up. I wanted to do this anyway, I
also
was in touch yesterday with Remy during the meeting in /query shortly.
First of all: My word "real" wasn't perfectly choosen, I am sorry for
this.
Robert, I do believe that you didn't want to upset the Albanian community
in any way. Still, I do not agree with your reasoning.
From mypoint of view, mostly by looking back over the years, a "young
community"
has IMHO still after 2 years the risk to fall down (even I do not hope
that
at all). I might be wrong here, but most of the activity in Albania
started
in 2014, thus it's from my point of view a "young community".
Yes, there is the risk you mention, but we don't have to think like that.
As mentors and as part of this project's leadership we have to inspire, encourage and enable contributors across the regions in order to grow their communities and succeed.
If they fail to do so, it's partly our fault as well.
Given I mentioned Greece as well: I'm not absolutely sure without digging through old mails, but around 2008-2010, there was really a lot of
activity
in Greece regarding Fedora; I'm tempted to say maybe even more than now. Very sad thing is that there was a "down" after that, because quite a lot of the Fedora ambassadors went to Mozilla (I don't want to blame Mozilla here for anything) and a fair part to openSUSE. And if I'm not completely wrong for what I looked up and noticed, most of the currently active
Greek
ambassadors started after that "down". Again, while leaving and joining
is
part of the community life, it was sad at that time to see that Mozilla
was
more attractive or fascinating or whatever for contributing. It's
important
to learn from the past - I would like to avoid such a thing for the
future.
Quite a lot went to Mozilla? I can count only three people, which are
still part of the Fedora community as well.
Also, why do you think this happened?
A fair part to openSUSE? That's not true at all. Please, get your facts
straight.
The Greek Fedora community has 17 contributors currently. Two of them are
currently part of the Fedora leadership. During the last FOSSCOMM, a large Greek foss-related conference which took place a few months ago, nine of them showed up for the booth; and there were several more that wanted to come but they couldn't. We don't have that many events in Greece, but this doesn't mean we're dead.
If you don't have facts, please don't speak about the Greek community
again.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Giannis I think you are pointing fingers where there is no need. Robert clarified pretty well during the meeting, and also in his nice answer here, what he meant and it is nothing you are trying to understand. Why are you throwing oil in the fire when the discussion already took a clarifying direction? Sorry I just don't get it and I explained my thoughts already in a previous post. Treating a long term contributor who always has been more than correct like you did now is not what I call friends. Please rethink about that and let's get back to business as Jörg said. Thanks.
Robert
Hey Robert,
On March 15, 2016 at 9:07 AM Robert Mayr robyduck@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Giannis I think you are pointing fingers where there is no need.
I have never pointed fingers at anyone. I'm not judging anyone here.
Robert clarified pretty well during the meeting, and also in his nice
answer here, what he meant and it is nothing you are trying to understand.
I do not agree with these kind of views regarding the communities, simple as that. I have already explained myself in previous replies to this thread.
Treating a long term contributor who always has been more than correct
like you did now is not what I call friends.
Excuse me, but more than correct based on what? On his arguments regarding the Greek community, which were totally invalid?
Also, I think you're confusing not being nice to someone vs. publicly expressing a disagreement. Here is definitely the second case. I don't mind who did that or whatever, I respect Robert as I would respect any other contributor in this community. I just don't agree with him. Right now there is a community of people out there that feels demotivated and not included. All I care about is identifying this unfortunate issue and making sure it does not happen again in the future. And subsequently to keep providing all means of support to that community so that they can keep growing.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
2016-03-15 15:36 GMT+01:00 Giannis Konstantinidis <giannis@konstantinidis.cc
:
Hey Robert,
On March 15, 2016 at 9:07 AM Robert Mayr robyduck@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Giannis I think you are pointing fingers where there is no need.
I have never pointed fingers at anyone. I'm not judging anyone here.
Robert clarified pretty well during the meeting, and also in his nice answer here, what he meant and it is nothing you are trying to understand.
I do not agree with these kind of views regarding the communities, simple as that. I have already explained myself in previous replies to this thread.
Treating a long term contributor who always has been more than correct like you did now is not what I call friends.
Excuse me, but more than correct based on what? On his arguments regarding the Greek community, which were totally invalid?
Also, I think you're confusing not being nice to someone vs. publicly expressing a disagreement. Here is definitely the second case. I don't mind who did that or whatever, I respect Robert as I would respect any other contributor in this community. I just don't agree with him. Right now there is a community of people out there that feels demotivated and not included. All I care about is identifying this unfortunate issue and making sure it does not happen again in the future. And subsequently to keep providing all means of support to that community so that they can keep growing.
Take care! -Giannis
-- Giannis Konstantinidis
giannis@konstantinidis.cc http://konstantinidis.cc giannisk on irc.freenode.net
Disagreeing is pretty ok, but this can be done much better and less offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it like I understand your post, and that's exactly the point. I'm also sure Robert didn't want to offense anybody here. Ah, and I'm saying one of the most correct because I know him and anybody can look at his history. That's all, let's not waste more time on this and use the efforts to have some fun again. Cheers.
On March 15, 2016 5:22:53 PM GMT+02:00, Robert Mayr robyduck@fedoraproject.org wrote:
2016-03-15 15:36 GMT+01:00 Giannis Konstantinidis <giannis@konstantinidis.cc
Disagreeing is pretty ok, but this can be done much better and less offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it like I understand your post, and that's exactly the point. I'm also sure Robert didn't want to offense anybody here. Ah, and I'm saying one of the most correct because I know him and anybody can look at his history. That's all, let's not waste more time on this and use the efforts to have some fun again.
I'm really surprised of the reaction of some people here. Our foundation is about being Friends. It's not about being Friends, unless you are a long time contributor and have a free pass insulting volunteers and local communities.
Let's indeed focus in important things, like empowering local communities. Instead of letting our personal relations cloud our judgement.
~nikos
Hi there again. Addressing some of the comments mentioned above:
I remember times, where a FOSS contributor could say his opinion, but now
we are in the era of "diversity managers" and "CoC" and everybody has to be afraid that somebody, like Jona can comes and point the finger at one and crying - there bad boy. And everybody doesnt read the log file to find out what happend, no everybody cries also "bad boy".<<
That's not a good note to start a response and probably not a good start for resolving this conversation. It's also funny you mention CoC when comments like "crying, pointing fingers and the bad guy" is bordering on a personal attack coloured with subjective views of yours, which do not really add to the discussion and makes me personally relieved that there is a Code of Conduct. I'm not able to fathom how new contributors would feel when faced with such comments, especially those who haven't contributed to an open source project before. At Fedora we encourage to assume Best Intentions with fellow community members, but the way you worded your message does not leave much space for it.
Also, while you argument of expressing opinions is valid, it works both ways, so please allow me to express my opinion on the situation as well (which reflects other Albanian contributors who are not able to join the discussion here due to not being Ambassadors).
A normal human being, grown up and mature <<
This is again getting personal and I am not going to comment on your statement as long as you keep using that language.
but you preferred to throw dirt at him. <<
"Throwing dirt" is also a quite courageous expression which I doubt was the case here.
Its like the bible says, the one without sins may throw the first stone.
So think about yourself are you without sins? Completely without failure I dont think so.<<
This is quite out of context here and unfortunately again based on assumptions.
To put this into perspective, I deeply appreciate Robert's work and there was no intentions to make this personal (and I still fail to see where this looked personal) apart discussing a community matter which affects more than 2 people. I am sorry if anything derived into a personal notion, which was not the intention here. Robert will also be part of OSCAL'16, the third edition of the regional open source conference the Albanian community is organizing, so there would be no reason to "throw dirt" when we welcome a fellow speaker in an event we organize.
----
Regarding the points Robert Mayr mentioned:
We are not talking about the way phrases might have been worded, which is completely understandable, but as long as there are comments like gnokii's:
make more out of something, what is just bad formulated but on the end
THE TRUTH.<< it's not so clear anymore that it's just a case of bad wording (please correct me if there was another meaning in that statement).
This is not at all a matter on a personal basis, rather than concerns voiced from a community, so I do not see it as a viable alternative to "continue with the work" when a community is feeling uncomfortable with the situation. Latter is also clearly indicated in the CoC:
"It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one." - which unfortunately might be the case if this discussion is not resolved. I'm sorry if the starting email suggested that Robert does not appreciate the Albanian community's contribution (or any community for that case), as my further points were meant in a general manner, not directed at Robert. Which exact part did suggest otherwise? I also think that while Giannis might have used too colourful words, he is one of the most updated contributors when it comes to the EMEA region and complimenting one community doesn't necessarily mean to marginalize others.
Also, "getting back to business" might work for those who know what the "business" is about. But in rather new communities where handholding is needed sometimes, it's not the sole priority (although I'd prefer doing that, if it would be up to me).
Different communities have different needs and processes to reach the impact they plan, don't you think?
Cheers, Jona
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 4:35 PM, Nikos Roussos comzeradd@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On March 15, 2016 5:22:53 PM GMT+02:00, Robert Mayr < robyduck@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
2016-03-15 15:36 GMT+01:00 Giannis Konstantinidis <giannis@konstantinidis.cc
Disagreeing is pretty ok, but this can be done much better and less offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it like I understand your post, and that's exactly the point. I'm also sure Robert didn't want to offense anybody here. Ah, and I'm saying one of the most correct because I know him and anybody can look at his history. That's all, let's not waste more time on this and use the efforts to have some fun again.
I'm really surprised of the reaction of some people here. Our foundation is about being Friends. It's not about being Friends, unless you are a long time contributor and have a free pass insulting volunteers and local communities.
Let's indeed focus in important things, like empowering local communities. Instead of letting our personal relations cloud our judgement.
~nikos
ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Hello from the "Diversity Managers and Stuff" side.
It's easy to try to point out where people make a mistake, yet, it's difficult to accept that, as long as we keep looking for differences instead similarities, we are part of the problem. Everyone has a point of view, and that matter doesn't mean someone is wrong, so instead pointing out who's wrong or right, I think that we, as a community, need to learn from our mistakes and push forward.
One of the main issues we have is the lack of information about group of contributors that aren't as large, and we do have a lack of information about other issues that might help us understand not only why this groups don't grow as faster as others. Part of the job of the Diversity position is not to create tons of CoC to follow, but to understand why we keep arguing about simply misunderstandings like this one.
Everyone has a valid point, and I would like to take the best of each email and point it out:
* As Jona says, it's insanely hard for a non-english speaker to understand things that haven't been said the right way; it's even harder to listen to comments about something we invest so much time and effort.
* Robert's analogy about the baby is quite correct, a contributors group is like a baby that needs to be helped, needs to learn and sometimes needs to fall to learn how to stand again; however, I would like to point out that every coin has two sides, and that people needs to remember that usually those babies (aka. newborn contributor groups) have a mom or a dad that has to deal with the critiques about how they raise up their babies. Even those long term contributors were in this position before... why do we keep forgetting that?
* Kital has also an interesting point when he talks about the ambassadors as a group. If you have read carefully my email, I've reefer to them as "contributors group"... people, lets not forget that Fedora IS the community we are part of. A community is formed by groups of people that share something in common... we, all of us, are that community.
If we could invest just half of the time and effort we put on arguing about who's right or wrong into understanding where we fail and work to make it better... what a different thread this would be.
Anyone who's up to talk a bit more about this survey we are working on, and other implications about the "diversity world of magic", please feel free to join me at the #fedora-diversity channel on IRC
See ya!
2016-03-15 12:03 GMT-04:30 Jona Azizaj jonaazizaj@gmail.com:
Hi there again. Addressing some of the comments mentioned above:
I remember times, where a FOSS contributor could say his opinion, but
now we are in the era of "diversity managers" and "CoC" and everybody has to be afraid that somebody, like Jona can comes and point the finger at one and crying - there bad boy. And everybody doesnt read the log file to find out what happend, no everybody cries also "bad boy".<<
That's not a good note to start a response and probably not a good start for resolving this conversation. It's also funny you mention CoC when comments like "crying, pointing fingers and the bad guy" is bordering on a personal attack coloured with subjective views of yours, which do not really add to the discussion and makes me personally relieved that there is a Code of Conduct. I'm not able to fathom how new contributors would feel when faced with such comments, especially those who haven't contributed to an open source project before. At Fedora we encourage to assume Best Intentions with fellow community members, but the way you worded your message does not leave much space for it.
Also, while you argument of expressing opinions is valid, it works both ways, so please allow me to express my opinion on the situation as well (which reflects other Albanian contributors who are not able to join the discussion here due to not being Ambassadors).
A normal human being, grown up and mature <<
This is again getting personal and I am not going to comment on your statement as long as you keep using that language.
but you preferred to throw dirt at him. <<
"Throwing dirt" is also a quite courageous expression which I doubt was the case here.
Its like the bible says, the one without sins may throw the first stone.
So think about yourself are you without sins? Completely without failure I dont think so.<<
This is quite out of context here and unfortunately again based on assumptions.
To put this into perspective, I deeply appreciate Robert's work and there was no intentions to make this personal (and I still fail to see where this looked personal) apart discussing a community matter which affects more than 2 people. I am sorry if anything derived into a personal notion, which was not the intention here. Robert will also be part of OSCAL'16, the third edition of the regional open source conference the Albanian community is organizing, so there would be no reason to "throw dirt" when we welcome a fellow speaker in an event we organize.
Regarding the points Robert Mayr mentioned:
We are not talking about the way phrases might have been worded, which is completely understandable, but as long as there are comments like gnokii's:
make more out of something, what is just bad formulated but on the end
THE TRUTH.<< it's not so clear anymore that it's just a case of bad wording (please correct me if there was another meaning in that statement).
This is not at all a matter on a personal basis, rather than concerns voiced from a community, so I do not see it as a viable alternative to "continue with the work" when a community is feeling uncomfortable with the situation. Latter is also clearly indicated in the CoC:
"It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one." - which unfortunately might be the case if this discussion is not resolved. I'm sorry if the starting email suggested that Robert does not appreciate the Albanian community's contribution (or any community for that case), as my further points were meant in a general manner, not directed at Robert. Which exact part did suggest otherwise? I also think that while Giannis might have used too colourful words, he is one of the most updated contributors when it comes to the EMEA region and complimenting one community doesn't necessarily mean to marginalize others.
Also, "getting back to business" might work for those who know what the "business" is about. But in rather new communities where handholding is needed sometimes, it's not the sole priority (although I'd prefer doing that, if it would be up to me).
Different communities have different needs and processes to reach the impact they plan, don't you think?
Cheers, Jona
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 4:35 PM, Nikos Roussos < comzeradd@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On March 15, 2016 5:22:53 PM GMT+02:00, Robert Mayr < robyduck@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
2016-03-15 15:36 GMT+01:00 Giannis Konstantinidis <giannis@konstantinidis.cc
Disagreeing is pretty ok, but this can be done much better and less offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it like I understand your post, and that's exactly the point. I'm also sure Robert didn't want to offense anybody here. Ah, and I'm saying one of the most correct because I know him and anybody can look at his history. That's all, let's not waste more time on this and use the efforts to have some fun again.
I'm really surprised of the reaction of some people here. Our foundation is about being Friends. It's not about being Friends, unless you are a long time contributor and have a free pass insulting volunteers and local communities.
Let's indeed focus in important things, like empowering local communities. Instead of letting our personal relations cloud our judgement.
~nikos
ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Hi,
2016-03-15 22:35 GMT+07:00 Nikos Roussos comzeradd@fedoraproject.org:
On March 15, 2016 5:22:53 PM GMT+02:00, Robert Mayr < robyduck@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
2016-03-15 15:36 GMT+01:00 Giannis Konstantinidis <giannis@konstantinidis.cc
Disagreeing is pretty ok, but this can be done much better and less offensive. I'm sure you didn't mean it like I understand your post, and that's exactly the point. I'm also sure Robert didn't want to offense anybody here. Ah, and I'm saying one of the most correct because I know him and anybody can look at his history. That's all, let's not waste more time on this and use the efforts to have some fun again.
I'm really surprised of the reaction of some people here. Our foundation is about being Friends. It's not about being Friends, unless you are a long time contributor and have a free pass insulting volunteers and local communities.
Friends pointing in public then the finger on you if you might have done in their view something wrong? In my eyes you have a very strange definition then for friendship
Let's indeed focus in important things, like empowering local communities.
Instead of letting our personal relations cloud our judgement.
~nikos
ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
Hello Giannis, hello Jona,
as I already stated earlier in this thread, I never had the intention to insult or degrade the work and efforts of any volunteer/contributor or of any regional community. Given I gave this impression by choosing bad words, I appologize to all of you for that. I'm also available for a personal chat e.g. on the IRC or some privat e-mail conversation, in case somebody would like to follow up that (Jona mentioned that not all are part of this list).
I actually hope that everybody whom I upset previously accepts my excuse. Be assured that I believe in the Albanian community as well as the Greek one (and any other regional community of course). In case Jona and OSCAL are still looking forward to see me at the event, I'm happy to support the event including the regional community.
As it was mentioned, I am a long term contributor, yes, but from my point of view, this has nothing to do with the mistake I made. It doesn't excuse it at least. And I also do not treat myself as "more correct" or whatever.
Further on, I do not expect any excuse by Jona. Again, I made the mistake.
While I like to see that some may got my point even from my initial sloppy sentences and I appreciate the tries to clarify my words...I think this is difficult because it eases the chance to add interpretations or another bad choosen adjective or similar.
Giannis, regarding your reply to my e-mail, I am happy to go into details once there are metrics otherwise we could go round in circles. I was and I am in touch with people who think about joining Fedora, not everybody has a FAS account at that time and I also receive(d) requests for mentoring from people without a FAS account. Even it sounds strange, not every contributor has a FAS account, because you can actually contribute to Fedora without. I included these people...if it's finally "a lot" or "fair part" might be a definition thing (similar like active FAS account but no activity for time range n). Mentioned requests etc. are usually e-mail communications or IRC chats, thus not necessarily publically verifiable.
Honestly, I kindly however disagree with the "try to measure the activities of a community by # of events organized and by # of contributions towards the project" because this try could be unfair for regions with less human population and/or a larger land area. Trying to measure like this might be even same demotivating for such a regional community and thus does not help from my point of view.
Greetings, Robert
I'm going to top-post here, because I think this is straight forward and important.
When I saw this thread yesterday, I was quite satisfied with Robyduck and Robert's responses, and did not feel the need to chime in. I felt like the issue of "real" being a word that was lost in translation was addressed BOTH during the meeting, AND in this thread. I also felt that it was appropriate for jonatoni to ask about it after reviewing the logs, and did not feel like this was a personal attack on anyone.
I know the spirit of Robert's response was "let's not repeat the mistakes of the past," I was there at the meeting. Giannis' response defending the Greek community was reasonable enough (though we started to get into emotionally charged territory, but that is, as tatica said, what happens when someone is defending their growing community.)
Where things really started going wrong and what is *not* reasonable, is all of a sudden, going into a rant about how the community in question was not "real," even though we had just established that this was not the original intention of Robert's statement.
Fedora does not prefer conflict, and we cannot afford to foster a hostile environment where the loudest most aggressive voices drive out the next generation of contributors.
We can disagree, and we can do so in constructive ways, and I think tatica's response here was genuine and brings out the valid concerns of everyone, and offers a way forward. Thank you tatica for taking the time to respond and support the community.
Onboarding, handholding, and creating a positive environment IS my business, and you jonatoni are doing a great job in the Albanian community of making folks feel welcome and building a local group there. Thank you.
It is important for folks to be passionate about representing their local communities, and I think it is clear after Robert's response here that the spirit of the conversation was originally just about not repeating the mistakes of the past, not about invalidating other local communities. To imply otherwise is counter-productive, and simply not THE TRUTH.
I would suggest that we close this thread at this point, and if there are further issues or concerns around CoC or other policies, that folks feel free to take those up with the Council or Community Working Group.
My inbox is always open, and I hope that this renewed interest in FAmSCo threads helps to drive more ambassador activity and builds stronger bonds between our regions.
Looking Forward, --RemyD.
On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Robert Scheck robert@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Hello Giannis, hello Jona,
as I already stated earlier in this thread, I never had the intention to insult or degrade the work and efforts of any volunteer/contributor or of any regional community. Given I gave this impression by choosing bad words, I appologize to all of you for that. I'm also available for a personal chat e.g. on the IRC or some privat e-mail conversation, in case somebody would like to follow up that (Jona mentioned that not all are part of this list).
I actually hope that everybody whom I upset previously accepts my excuse. Be assured that I believe in the Albanian community as well as the Greek one (and any other regional community of course). In case Jona and OSCAL are still looking forward to see me at the event, I'm happy to support the event including the regional community.
As it was mentioned, I am a long term contributor, yes, but from my point of view, this has nothing to do with the mistake I made. It doesn't excuse it at least. And I also do not treat myself as "more correct" or whatever.
Further on, I do not expect any excuse by Jona. Again, I made the mistake.
While I like to see that some may got my point even from my initial sloppy sentences and I appreciate the tries to clarify my words...I think this is difficult because it eases the chance to add interpretations or another bad choosen adjective or similar.
Giannis, regarding your reply to my e-mail, I am happy to go into details once there are metrics otherwise we could go round in circles. I was and I am in touch with people who think about joining Fedora, not everybody has a FAS account at that time and I also receive(d) requests for mentoring from people without a FAS account. Even it sounds strange, not every contributor has a FAS account, because you can actually contribute to Fedora without. I included these people...if it's finally "a lot" or "fair part" might be a definition thing (similar like active FAS account but no activity for time range n). Mentioned requests etc. are usually e-mail communications or IRC chats, thus not necessarily publically verifiable.
Honestly, I kindly however disagree with the "try to measure the activities of a community by # of events organized and by # of contributions towards the project" because this try could be unfair for regions with less human population and/or a larger land area. Trying to measure like this might be even same demotivating for such a regional community and thus does not help from my point of view.
Greetings, Robert
-- ambassadors mailing list ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.o...
ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org