Getting reapproved

Andre Mangan andremangan at gmail.com
Fri May 14 09:06:06 BST 2010


Hello Melissa,

I have been a part of this mailing list since 2005.  Back then I was a keen
neophyte and eager to belong.  I wrote to the designated Team Contact to
offer some suggestions on improving some aspects of the organisation as well
as offering my talents.   I never did receive a reply.  I wrote a second
letter and again there was no reply.

No doubt you had reasons for your silence, Melissa but unfortunately your
inaction left a scar.

That is one of the failings of having only one person for contact for the
whole of Australia.  There really should be several.

The concept of meritocracy is a literary fantasy and on par with many
esoteric doctrines designed to establish superiority over the ignorant.
Please abandon this concept.  It has no right to exist and the way it has
been used in the Ubuntu community smacks of autocracy in disguise.

I was quite embarrassed by your letter to the LoCo Council.  To me it seemed
dismissive and untruthful.

Again, in your post below, I read of matters totally foreign to me.   Either
I have not been paying attention or your inventive skills are finely honed.

I live in the country and am familiar with locust plagues, however, crickets
chirping makes me want to contract the crop duster.

I know nothing of setting up 16 committees.  Are you sure that your
calculations are correct?  I majored in statistics and mathematics and
gladly offer my analytical expertise to you.

Somebody here is barking up the wrong tree.

Without prejudice,

Cheers,
Andre



On 14 May 2010 17:18, Melissa Draper <melissa at meldraweb.com> wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Back when we first started pooling information for the reapproval
> process, I mailed the list and called for information and help in the
> documenting process; help to construct the reapproval application wiki
> page.
>
> A few people sent email lists of stuff they'd done, and someone
> suggested we should stop promoting ubuntu and start promoting
> openoffice. Then, crickets chirped.
>
> Except for one thread. A thread that proposed to set up committees in
> each state/territory to oversee committees set up for cities, with a
> national loco on top. By my quick calculation of capitals +
> states/territories + 1, this would have been 16 committees, give or take
> depending on various things, such as whether you consider ACT to be, in
> reality, a significantly different population to Canberra.
>
> 16 committees? No. Just, no.
>
> I expressed my opinion, and the reasoning, several times. Others also
> expressed their dissatisfaction with the proposal. A few people
> persisted with the 16 committee plan and things went downhill from
> there. They did not get the popular support they hoped for.
>
> The lack of popular support for this proposal is where, it appears, the
> conflict "separate group" cited in the LoCo Council's rejection comes in
> to it. A "separate group" that, it would seem, was ultimately triggered
> by the reapproval process itself. The irony of this is not lost on me.
>
> I would like to note here; scraping content from other sites,
> syndicating people's blogs without their permission, and harvesting
> email addresses from the mailing list, is really poor form.
>
> Back when I first called for help for the reapproval, I posted a fairly
> long email stating what the team contact role was, and that I have been
> looking to hand it off for some time now. The absence of actual active
> participants, despite my encouragement of others to run meetings (not
> just call them and wait for me to chair them for you) and events in the
> team is why it had not been passed off. There was not really anyone to
> pass it off to.
>
> That is why I, for the most part, stayed out of the 16 committee thread
> beyond stating my opinion. That is why I did not respond to the list
> immediately after the unapproval announcement a few days ago (mind you,
> I was going to post last night then left my laptop adapter at work and
> couldn't be bothered driving across Sydney at 10pm after an 11hr day to
> fetch it).
>
> I want people to stand up and take some responsibility for the team. I
> want people to make (sensible) suggestions. We never died. We are not
> dead. We're just in a lull. If it takes getting unapproved to get us out
> of it, then c'est la vie.
>
> But it means /you/ have to /do/ stuff; not just talk and then leave it
> up to someone else, or expect it's the contact's responsibility now. It
> means you have to think of things to discuss at the meetings and put
> agenda items on the meeting page; not just wait for someone to organise
> one and expect to turn up and ask unscheduled things. It means you have
> to actually do stuff and not expect to be given privileges for it. It
> means you have to do tangible non-social stuff /before/ you get
> privileges.
>
> And to those who want to carry LUG disagreements in to LoCo territory;
> go [re]familiarise yourself with the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, please.
>
> I want this team reapproved. I want this team to actually do things
> without needing official sanction from a committee (let alone 3 layers
> of them!), lest you become the team that throws members out for
> 'unapproved blogging' (sadly, a true story). It's your team. But I'd
> like people to take some selfless responsibility and not, as various
> emails I've had indicate, expect the contact/s to do it all.
>
> People I would suggest looking to as potential contacts are Jared Norris
> (head_victim) and Daniel Sobey (dns53).
>
> --
> Melissa Draper
>
> w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-au mailing list
> ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
>
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