[UbuntuWomen] Further Discussion on Process and Communication

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Hi Folks,

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 14:44, Amber Graner <akgraner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for putting this up for a discussion.

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

With all due respect, the Nov4 mail[1] sent to the list only
automatically subscribes the list to the blueprint[2] as per LP
settings. The mail never mentioned _explicitly_ that this was put up
for discussion on the list/forums. In all probability since the mails
dont explicitly ask for an opinion/input from members, people were
silent. Announcements are not the same as "hey lets discuss blah,
blah..".

For others reading this, In yesterdays IRC discussion, (as a
consequence of Laura and Melissa's blogging about the process?), the
lack of clarity in the "process" adopted was the moot point. Many UW
members raised the following points (excuse the re-paraphrasing) :

One UWmember raised the the topic of Leader for UW. Before UDS, there
was no discussion on any archived space to identify IF ubuntu-women
needed a leader or not**. The Blue-print only listed a step (    *
Identify a leader:) but the mailing list and forums never received a
"lets discuss" ping. Again it came to light that this discussion was
also done on IRC (which is not logged, hence no archives for folks
unavailable during that timezone). That is, _announcements_ were made
on the list.

Secondly, What process decisions would be taken at UDS? Neither the
BP[2] nor the mails prior to UDS discussed this in detail. You had
mentioned that it was discussed with Jono on IRC, when many objected
that irc was not logged by lieu of which non-present members would be
locked out of the decision making process. People were not given a
chance to opine how they would elect their leader (or if they wanted
one). One member mentioned that the UDS had many non-UW members taking
decisions for the team.

Another point raised by many was "UW meeting @UDS" --  While we were
aware of the UW at UDS meeting, not everyone involved with UW got to
attend it. Members also wanted to know yesterday why the list was not
informed that decisions on behalf of the whole project would be made
there. Apparently asking the CC to appoint the leader for a 6-month
cycle was taken at UDS. That discussions taken about the project were
not discussed in an archived space (m.list, forums, wiki), rather done
on unlogged IRC.

None of these questions were answered satisfactorily on IRC yesterday
but the points everyone agreed on was : Better processes, Better
communication.

Note that the above are just re-phrased points taken from the IRC
discussion logs and if I have missed out on the grievances raised by
any of you yesterday, please speak up.

** [Backgrounder: Since founding UW in Jan 2006, till Dec2009, UW has
functioned sans a leader and I recall Mark's words "be open, be
transparent" which I have tried hard to maintain with a lot of support
from so many women (to many to name here) in the last 4 years.]

[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2009-November/002186.html
[2] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-women.org/+spec/community-ubuntu-women-project

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