Sin é – You win some you lose some
Posted in Personal, Ubuntu on 02/04/2010 12:03 pm by Laura CzajkowskiSin é You win some and you lose some.
On the planet we’re all Ubuntu members, at least I’m pretty sure that’s the case. We voted the CC into term by selecting them and voting based on our impressions and knowledge of them +/-, 1 or 2 you get my idea. So I fully respect their opinion, many have been around a long time, others are new and bring to it new ideas and a new view point to things.
Change is good in any organisation or group. You cannot function with the same people the whole time, the exception being possibly Mark Shuttleworth there on the team. However, even Mark shows the community that chage is good as he announced earlier this year than Jane Silber would be taking on the role of Canonical CEO. It can become stagnant and deadlock sometimes happens. Yes I also see the benefit for a decent length of a term. It takes time to get used to others opinions and gain from their experience and contribute back.
Recently enough I was appointed to the LoCo Council. It’s a learning curve for me, so I still run a lot of things past the others in the team as it’s good to sound ideas off them. The re-approval process is something I’m really enjoying at present as it gives me a chance to see how other LoCo teams do things, and meet more people. Everyone does things so differently, somethings work and somethings don’t. It’s how we learn from these that make us progress and offer solutions back to the community that really help.
At UDS Lucid the Ubuntu Women team asked for the CC’s assistance in selecting a leader for us. It was documented well, advertised and explained - questions were answered and dealt with. It was posted to the list, it was voiced on IRC.
Amber was selected and I think the CC had a tough decision, it’s not your every day request, but again we chose these people so we should trust them and their experience and knowledge of the Ubuntu Community. So thanks CC, I’m rather happy with ye!
As I said at the beginning, Sin é you win some you lose some. I applied for the EMEA Regional Board memberships and Jonathan Carter (see I can spell your name right!) – was successfully chosen. So kudos to him! So I have no qualms with the CC and not being selected, you cannot win them all.
02/04/2010 at 12:15 PM
Imho it’s not so much about winning or losing, but for what it’s worth I would’ve been completely fine with ‘losing’ to you on that position. Next time the EMEA council seeks another council member I hope you apply again! Working with you is always a pleasure and I believe strongly that you’ll make it very far in the Ubuntu community!
02/04/2010 at 12:27 PM
The thought crossed my mind that stepping down in favour of a woman was Mark’s way of showing the community that the careless remarks he made recently about “girls” were just clumsy and not sexist. I suppose it would be a massive overreaction if that were the only reason, but I still can’t help wondering if it was one of the triggers?
02/04/2010 at 12:36 PM
I’m guessing this is a direct response to Melissa’s recent post regarding the lack of transparency in the CC election process (http://www.geekosophical.net/?p=397, “In Process we Trust”. It’s not clear from your post whether you’re just sticking the knife in, or have a valid counter claim to Melissa’s accusations surrounding the process, but since Jono came off pretty badly in his responses in Melissa’s blog, I wondered if you had some counter evidence, requested a few times by Melissa in that posting and the subsequent comments?
I’ve been following planet posting for only around a year, but I’ve never come across such vitriol surrounding the community election process before. From a publicity point of view, it would be better to either clear the air over the issues raised, or bury the hatchet and move on.
This post sounds more like “stirring the hornet’s nest” to me.
02/04/2010 at 12:40 PM
@jonathan it’s more of a saying than anything, and just my thoughts on the community.
@marqueue Hadn’t really thought of it that way. I guess you could. But I’d like to think the best canidate is chosen regardless of gender.
@scaine it’s not in direct response it’s my thoughts based on my going for a position getting it and not getting the other. It’s my blog I didn’t link to others as these are my view points and I don’t want to turn this into a pissing contest.
02/04/2010 at 1:36 PM
I really wanted to highlight the need for more women in decision making roles in the Ubuntu community. This is not from a feminist position: I’m male. It’s more like: when you have enough women in leadership roles, then men don’t have to be as sensitive about what they say.
I certainly didn’t mean to pass any serious comment on the selection process. Firstly because I have no working knowledge of it and secondly because I actually trust this community, despite all its disagreements, I always feel people are trying to do the right thing and I think that’s worth remembering.
02/04/2010 at 2:21 PM
@Scaine: once again, the UW process was not an election by any means. It was an appointment by fiat by the CC, despite objections raised by UW members.
And Laura, I think it’s disingenuous to say that “At UDS Lucid the Ubuntu Women team asked for the CC’s assistance in selecting a leader for us.. That was not the UW team. That was a few members (and mostly non-involved folks, from what I understand!) of the UW team. Please don’t think that that decision speaks for all of us, because it sure as heck doesn’t speak for me.
02/04/2010 at 2:28 PM
@Leigh I really don’t want this post on how I fell about the whole thing turned into some kind of disagreement. It was just how I fell about things concerning myself.
re UDS there were a good chunk of us there, I also think Lyz and Maco are pretty involved in the team, I also hope people think I’m involved I do try and help.
This post is about how I felt things had gone for me. I really do not want this turned into a some kind of ambush on peoples thoughts from their stand points.
02/04/2010 at 3:33 PM
@Laura: 3 people is still not the whole team, nor was there any consultation done to ensure that what was brought up at UDS /did/ reflect the larger team.
Note that I didn’t take issue with any of your feelings on this. I took issue with what you stated as fact. UW as a team did not ask the CC to appoint a leader without a number of objections. That’s a fact.
02/04/2010 at 4:02 PM
There was to name but a few myself amber maco, dinda, lyz, and others there who don’t use IRC.
If folks really felt this way, they should have said this on the mailing list/forums/IRC and written to the CC.
This commeting on the post really is not what I wanted this post to be to be honest. It was about the process on a number of things, I mentioned the -women bit as one area.
02/04/2010 at 4:48 PM
I was confident that the Ubuntu Women team was behind the process as well, it was discussed at meetings that it was a temporary measure until we had a voting team, everyone seemed excited about the move forward.
This is why I assured the rest of the CC that we had requested this.
(sorry for cluttering your blog with this further, Laura!)
02/04/2010 at 5:37 PM
Hi,
As the founder of Ubuntu-Women, I have tried hard to avoid self-anointing as the leader and the team functioned without a leader since the last 4 years (iirc from jan2006-dec2009) only because of the support and contributions of all the women who pitched in their time in the last 4 years.
I support Ambers work and enthusiasm but its slightly unfair to say the “UW team” wanted to elect a leader as not everyone attended UDS as it was held in USA. That does not a team make, since it was not discussed on the mailing list _before_ and the (so-called) election process was announced on the list and on various blogs after UDS where some attendees decided that “UW needs a leader”. Since the current appointment has been for one cycle, lets see what happens in future.
I am not sure if comments on your blog are moderated and if this comment will see the light of day, as I had commented about this on Melissa’s blog but strangely my comment was never approved by her and neither did she bother to answer on IRC. *shrug*
ciao
02/04/2010 at 5:52 PM
@vid yup I moderate comments for spam, if it appears here it’s not spam, plus I don’t usually get these many comments on a post.
I really didn’t want this post turning into an UW post to be frank so getting a bit annoyed. Re UDS, yes it was in USA, but there was a lot of remote participation. I’ve looked at any log I kept of comments of it on IRC and mailing lists and tried to work the forums to show me any comments where it was said NO do not go ahead with this. So I think we can just try it and see how it goes.
sorry if this appears snappy, this really was not a post on -women it was a post on how I felt my interactions and the process of dealing with with the CC went. Thanks for taking the time to comment though.
02/04/2010 at 6:13 PM
I don’t actually recall asking the CC to appoint a leader. The meetings at UDS were a bit more like:
10 Jono makes a suggestion we’ve never heard before
20 On very short notice we try to think if we have a reason to object
30 We nod along with what he said since we lacked time to think it all through
40 GOTO 10
Objections weren’t raised until these decisions were announced and all the people who hadn’t attended UDS heard about them and made counterarguments that we hadn’t had time to think about while there.
In hindsight, I think for next time we need to remember to hash out an agenda and get input from everyone on the team that’s interested *before* UDS rather than just winging it.
02/04/2010 at 6:27 PM
@Laura, sorry, it looks like your post was just a question of bad-timing, at least in my head, as I’d just read Melissa’s post and it resonated.
I’m certainly not going to comment on the politics surrounding UW or the CC only been following planet for about a year and I’m although I’m often on ubuntuforums and occasionaly bug report, I’m hardly much of a contributor!
Didn’t mean to ruin your day, or your post. Congratualtions, by the way!
Neil.
02/04/2010 at 7:50 PM
@maco clearly we were at different UDS, jono may have spoken in the first session, but he said himself he wanted others to drive it. in fact we joked and called him the secretary as he was the one who took all the notes and updated the gobby document.
@neil thank you. lots of posts on the planet easy to get confused.
02/04/2010 at 11:21 PM
To return to the subject of the post, yes, some you win, some you lose. Accepting defeat with grace is the first step on the road to winning next time. Of course if the woman concerned doesn’t want to continue the struggle and instead wants to leave the crazy world of backstabbing power hungry people behind her she is free to do that too. I still won’t watch Fox News, but I hope she will be happy with her new career.
02/05/2010 at 5:33 PM
Leigh / Mackenzie: the CC was entirely unaware of any possible objection to the request that we appoint a leader of the Ubuntu Women project. Until Melissa’s post some time after the event, we believed that it was uncontroversial and went along with it as a request made on behalf of the team. I subscribe to the UW mailing list and didn’t see any objection from any team member, even after I myself questioned the process. So it’s categorically incorrect that say that the appointment was “by fiat by the CC, despite objections raised by UW members”. I think the CC was entitled to assume that the proposal had been approved by the team.
02/06/2010 at 2:43 AM
Laura – I appreciate your posts – keep rambling, raving, and ranting about all the cool things in your life.
I wasn’t going to comment but…
maco, um sorry – not the way I recall the sessions. :-/