[UbuntuWomen] Further Discussion on Process and Communication

[Amber Graner]

Hi all -

Since my appointment as the Ubuntu Women Project Leader on January 15,
2010 there have been and still are several questions, concerns,
comments, and discussions that are ongoing in reference to the process
by which this appointment was made.

I wanted to address as many of these as possible and invite discussion.


***It is my understanding that everyone is in agreement that it should
have been communicated better***. Not that I am saying you can't
comment on that. But it is my hope that comments will be along the
lines of here are the suggested areas and time lines.  This will make
sure the process for the election after UDS-M will be in place and the
procedures for the Project goals for each cycle are documented as
well. From the discussion to date these are the places that all
information should be listed so that in the event team members can not
make the UW IRC meetings members will still be able to be part of the
discussion.

1. Mailing List
2. Forum
3. IRC
4. Social Media Groups  - such as FB
5. UW LP TEAM

It is also my understand that the team should gather information from
all meetings, look at our roadmap, and see what goals still need to
met within the team, and in the community.   1 (one) month prior to
UDS outline those objectives for the Blueprints for UDS, so that the
team is aware of the items that will on the agenda at UDS.  That is
not to say more objectives can't come out of UDS as immediately
following UDS the information will go to the the above listed areas
for communication.

Also in our last IRC Meeting
(http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Meetings/20100121) it was determined
that the "offical" Ubuntu Women Project Team list, would come from
Launchpad.  This allows us to know who to send out voting information
to for items such as the IRC Channel Poll and with elections currently
on the schedule for after UDS-M, we still have time to refine who
votes and if a different list is needed, should anyone object to the
use of the Launchpad list.


So let's look over how we got to  UDS.

In 2009, in the Ubuntu Women IRC Team Meetings discussions about the
team "existing" (it exists now what), the image of the team (among
team members and within the community), and how does the team move
forward to be a visible and influential part of the Ubuntu community.
http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Meetings/20090301  The meetings prior to
uds in 2009 averaged only about 9 people. After UDS attendance
tripled. - progress. :-)

In efforts to address the above goals, those who attended UDS Karmic,
had the opportunity to add an ad hoc session on Ubuntu Women to the
schedule. The planners for UDS-L felt it would be beneficial to
continue having UW sessions at UDS to help bring visibility of the
Ubuntu Women Project within the ubuntu community.

Whenever teams go to UDS they use blueprints for mapping out what they
want to accomplish during a particular cycle and since Ubuntu Women
was part of the scheduled sessions we needed a blueprint.  I asked Lyz
if she wanted to create it or should I, and she said for me to go
ahead.  I subscribed the Ubuntu Women Mailing list to the Blueprint so
that any changes made would show up on the mailing list.  The 1st
appearance of the Blueprint for UDS-L showed up on Nov. 4 2009.
https://lists.uand
buntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2009-November/002186.html

The blueprint is titled "Next Steps for the Ubuntu Women Project"
The summary of the UDS Blueprint is as follows:
"In an effort to provide continued support, encouragement, and
education, around women in open source, more specifically the ubuntu
project and the community we would like to discuss how to have
positive forward progress. Look at the goals and see how we as a
community can best meet the challenges of getting more women involved
in the Ubuntu Project and by extension the greater open source
community in a way that is inclusive, progressive, positive, fun, and
welcoming to all."

The Blueprint appeared 3 times on the mailing list prior to UDS and 6
times afterward.  There was no comment on these.

Once we returned from UDS, my first email to the list was that there
was lot of information from UDS that needed to be shared with the team
and I was working on an email to disseminate the
information.https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2009-November/002242.html
. The follow-up email to the mailing list subject line: Ubuntu Women -
Meeting Poll and Goals from UDS - included all links and topics from
UDS, mentioned the process for the interim leader position and getting
the governance process set up. In this email it outlines that the
process for leadership is for the Lucid cycle only.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2009-November/002242.htmle
The comments on this thread were about the doodlepoll, not any of the
content from UDS.

The December 9th meeting can be found here:
http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Meetings/20091209.  This meeting is where
the process of appointment was discussed and those at the meeting
agreed to go forward with this process.

I hope this addresses at least some of the concerns of those who did
not have the opportunity to attend the meetings in Ubuntu Women IRC
meetings in 2009, or see the blueprints prior to UDS it was never the
intent to keep anyone in the dark on these matters and if came across
as such it was a mistake, not malicious intent.

Going forward, -  input is wanted, needed, expected from team members
when things hit the mailing list (ie like blueprints).


Thanks

Amber

-- 
Amber Graner//akgraner//
http://amber.redvoodoo.org/
http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu


Just me Amber.

There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but
only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.
Linus Torvalds