Getting reapproved

Melissa Draper melissa at meldraweb.com
Fri May 14 10:50:07 BST 2010


On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 18:06 +1000, Andre Mangan wrote:
> 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.

Well, considering I wasn't contact until some time in 2006, this is not
my silence you speak of. Back then there were 2 contacts.

> 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
> 


-- 
Melissa Draper

w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
p: +61 4 0472 2736




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