New roles in the Ubuntu IRC team

[Melissa Draper]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Juha Siltala <topyli at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 03:10, Melissa Draper <melissa at meldraweb.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 5:25 AM, Elizabeth Krumbach <lyz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 7:07 AM, Juha Siltala <topyli at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>> > Hi Chris,
>>> >
>>> > On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 15:43,  <chris at cjo20.net> wrote:
>>> >> It seems that the list of duties is basically a list of things that the
>>> >> IRCC should be doing themselves already. If they are saying 'we do not
>>> >> have enough time to be doing the things we should be doing', then there
>>> >> either needs to be
>>> >
>>> > That is why this proposal exists, to fix the above. Delegation is
>>> > appropriate when work is overwhelming the current workforce.
>>>
>>> I think this is worth repeating. There is currently a lot of work on
>>> the shoulders of all board and council members within the Ubuntu
>>> project and lack of delegation is a problem. Councils should be
>>> responsible for making sure things get done, NOT doing all the work
>>> themselves - in fact, I think something is wrong if the Council
>>> members are doing everything.
>>
>> This is true. However this is not the situation. The IRCC isn't doing
>> everything.
>>
>> Rather, it isn't doing anything. Or when it does do things, it does
>> them wrong by not listening at all or outright dismissing with
>> internal comments such as "but this should shut people up, erm, I mean
>> satisfy people ;)".
>
> I find this a bit insulting. Some IRCC members are doing a lot of
> work, and I'd appreciate it if their work were not dismissed through
> vague insinuations. You're a member of the Council and can help if you
> wish, or you can undermine its work as above.

I find it insulting and demotivating to see fellow councilors make
remarks such as that which I quoted verbatim. I understand it is going
to be upsetting to you to hear me criticize such remarks, though I
trust you too are unimpressed by them.

I am indeed a member of the council and I am trying to get a
responsive and functional council influence in place. It is why I
nominated for the position. It's really hard to do this when my
critiques of proposals are dismissed as unhelpful outright almost
entirely because they are (surprisingly enough) critical, or proposals
are quickly mentioned in the IRCC channel and rushed out for public
discussion in the space of an hour or so while I'm asleep, or even
worse schemed on at length out of my view and not presented to me
fully to make accurate judgement of. I find it demotivating that when
I make suggestions and give time for responses, entire weeks pass
without any content in the IRCC channel or mailing list.

It's also demotivating when I discuss things with the regular ops, and
prompt them to raise the discussed suggestion with the IRCC as a whole
for discussion as a whole, that their act of raising the issue is
pointed to at a later time as "proof" that I do nothing and should be
more like them. It's a fair bit of work to do this, too, as it
happens.

I furthermore find it demotivating when I can't ever speak of or seek
resolution of these issues outside the confines of the IRCC
channel/list for abject fear that it's just going to be shot down as
"bickering", or in the cases where less vague issues are raised
"personal attacks".

>> People are naturally teaming up on interest/focus areas. This is
>> *organic*. There's already natural appointing of
>> champions/spokespeople on an issue-by-issue basis.
>>
>> There's nothing wrong with focus teams.
>>
>> What is achieved by appointing particular people to particular areas
>> rather than letting (and encouraging) these teams form and designate
>> spokespeople on an as-needed basis or by actioning to particular
>> people in a meeting?
>
> There is of course nothing stopping the "champions" being
> self-selected like that. We can't "appoint" anyone against their will
> anyway. The process through which we find and recognize these people
> has not been touched in this discussion so far at all, we haven't
> gotten past the point of deciding whether or not they're needed in the
> first place.

I'm going out on a limb here and suggesting since it's a naturally
occurring phenomenon and *already* happen organically that there is
indeed a need for them and we shouldn't go stomping all over this.

This merely brings me back to my repeated question of what is the
actual expected outcome of making these roles formal and by nature of
formality, less organic?

The only answer I seem to have gotten is along the lines of "something
for the sake of something" and I'm not even remotely a fan of that
reasoning.