An open letter to Alan Pope

[Samuel Thurston]

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 10:11 PM, Mike Basinger
<mike.basinger at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Apr 19, 2011, at 7:43 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>
>> Dear Mr Pope and the rest of the Ubuntu Community Council,
>>
>> Alan, you have displayed your true colors today.  After assuring me
>> that this item would be brought up at the next community meeting
>> rather than today's, I decided to disregard the inflammatory rhetoric
>> about your character, and put my trust in you as a representative of
>> the community.
>>
>
> Once again, this was a decision of a quorum for Community Council members not an sole undertaking by Mr. Pope.

Pope posted the item on the agenda. Pope assured those of us who
questioned him on it that he would be a fair and objective presenter.
He also stated that he would be moving the item to 2100 UTC on May
3rd.

I don't begrudge Alan for the votes cast by other CC members.  I
begrudge him for failing to deliver on promises he made to the list.

>
>> That trust was obviously misplaced.
>>
>> I say this because I feel that on top of you misleading me (and
>> others) about the time of the meeting, you also chose to deliberately
>> mischarachterize a number of my statements and selectively present the
>> evidence I so exhaustively prepared, so as to bolster your own opinion
>> that the list should be closed.
>
> As I said in a previous email, the CC can not discuss a topic multiple times just to make it convenient for every time zone. I got up at 5am to discuss to attend the IRC meeting, surely someone from the 350+ member on the list could have attended to advocate for the Sounder community.

I'm not asking for multiple hearings.  I was told the item would be
moved to May 3rd and that is what I set on my calendar.

>
>> I call foul.  I call foul on the entire CC.  Because if you voted to
>> close the list you did so because it was your opinion that it should
>> be shut regardless of community input and evidence to the contrary OR
>> because you neglected to do your duty and investigate the information
>> put forth by Mr. Pope (he was kind enough to link to original messages
>> while quoting out of context, isn't that nice?)
>>
>> Whether it be negligence or malfeasance, I stand disappointed in your service.
>
> I disappointed in the list for never starting a thread to discuss between it members  this problem as perhaps giving the CC other options to consider.  As far I can tell no one start this discussion till after the CC decided to close the list.

This is part of my difficulty right now... should I be upset with Alan
for claiming he would convey this information?  Or with the other CC
members voting to close the list for not bothering to follow the links
he painstakingly embedded in his proposal to see if they actually said
what he thought they were saying?

the start of a HUGE thread where discussion of the condition of the
list takes place:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2011-April/016351.html

In which I post an exhaustive study of a month's worth of list traffic
and conclude that it is *mostly* civil, topical and worthwhile.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2011-April/016375.html

In which I lay out a clear and concise argument against closure of the
list, and alternative proposals should they be deemed necessary.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2011-April/016382.html

In that thread, a large number of people who are readers more
frequently than posters, came out to voice their support of the list.

And a separate thread
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2011-April/016396.html
where 10 or so of the 30-odd regular posters to the list express what
they value about the list... nothing that can't be maintained beyond
moderation.

So.... Where exactly is your disappointment at the lists' responses?
A lot of these linked posts are my own... but look at the thread view
in the archives.  Dozens of people chiming in and offering exactly the
sort of examination and proposal that you're claiming we didn't do.
The reason that you don't know about it is that

1) Alan told us he would present this information to the CC
2) Alan told us the incorrect date for the CC meeting not once but twice.

>
>> Due to this misconduct, and other recent flagrant missteps by the
>> Ubuntu community, I will be looking elsewhere for my Linux needs.  I
>> have no need for a community in which someone so dishonest and
>> underhanded gains a respected and representative status.
>
> That is your decision, and I wish you well in your further OSS/Linux endeavors.
>