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sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] Hamish, please note.

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  • From: Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>
  • To: Hamish Greig <hgreig AT bigpond.net.au>
  • Cc: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Hamish, please note.
  • Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 11:30:03 -0700

On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 05:23:52PM +1000, Hamish Greig wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 16:11, Seth Alan Woolley wrote:
> > Hamish,
> >
> > What do you want to gain? What would you like us to gain? Let's not
> > talk of removal, destruction and anger just yet. As much as you gave us
> > in the past, you need to give us some reasonable leg to stand on before
> > we excommunicate somebody. He's on the z-rejected grimoire now.
> > There's absolutely nothing critical in there to mess up, and most of the
> > serverish people won't even feel the need to download the z-rejected
> > grimoire. I know I only have z-rejected on one box, my devel box that
> > uses perforce.
>
> I am sincerely asking for my name and details to be removed from
> files being distributed by a group of people whose ideals and ethics
> differ considerably from mine.

If I get the go-ahead, I can do this. Frankly, I didn't know what
sandalle's response would be, and I expected your request to be granted.

> Schabell is not the point of all of this, he and I are not on opposing
> sides
> of some debate.

You were making it out to be as if he's to blame. That you continued to
attack his merit when you merely wanted your details removed doesn't
seem sincere. I asked what could be done to resolve the situation, and
the answer was nothing. Now you come back and make a strange request
that is frankly impossible as far as I know given the nature of our
source repository. Would you want just the HISTORY files affected, what
about mailing lists? I don't know if there's an easy way to remove your
name from emails sent to the mailing list -- and what about people who
replied mentioning their names, do we edit those emails? These are all
"files being distributed". The wiki keeps a record of past edits -- do
we edit the wiki history?

Whatever we do in this regard, you won't erase our memories. You can't
erase all signs.

> There is no decision to support either him or me to be made,
> and the idea is silly. The decision of whether anyone should be exiled
> from
> the project is not being asked by me. I know nothing of any recent
> decisions
> or who is maintaining what sections and there is no personal animosity at
> play here, nor do I refute any good actions achieved by anyone in the past
> or
> present. I am well aware of everything achieved by relatively few people
> since the split from sorcerer, and am grateful to all of them for all the
> good work.
> It is just unfortunate that Schabell is such a convenient example to use.
> Not for all the mistakes I previously mentioned, not for the lack of
> leadership, not for getting in over his head and creating instability in a
> core product, but for refusing to be accountable for anything, for being
> unable to learn from mistakes and for not being honest about problems and
> commitments in an "open" environment.

No animosity? Animosity is characterized by punitive action according
to the American Heritage Dictionary. You want us to punish him so as to
have him held "accountable". The other characterization of animosity is
resentment. It's clear that you resent it by your wanting us to remove
your name from anything associated with not only him but with us.

Your actions demonstrate: "Animosity often triggers bitter resentment or
punitive action" It's acting and quacking like animosity from my view.
Skinnerist Behaviorism would conclude you are in fact feeling animosity.

> Yes smgl is run by volunteers and all efforts are appreciated, but that
> "volunteer work" doesn't mean substandard work should be accepted or that
> the
> progress should be "one step forwards, two steps backwards" or that people
> should consider volunteering for jobs they have no intention/ability to
> perform properly. Standards are needed.

If it is your contention that it has gone one step forward, two steps
back, the facts are quite different from my view. If we would be better
without Eric due to lost opportunity cost, that's quite different from
one step forward, two back that you throw around. People also aren't
volunteering for jobs they have no intention to perform properly. When
there is no other person for the role, it is better to have somebody
with little time contributing little than to have nobody there.
Standards are used. They are listed in the guru manuals and the APIs
now. As far as standards are applied to how much work people commit, the
vast majority of contributors have under a hundred commits and most have
under ten. True, with active developers with a title, it is a different
story, but we rarely have bum commits, and especially now, they are
protected by our improved QA processes. We welcome contributions from
all people. The merit of their contributions decide whether or not they
are accepted, and after a while, they gain direct access. Combined with
the changelist emails, the quality of the commits are pretty easy to
check. Your issue that the leader wasn't tracking these processes is
noteworthy, however it's fixed. Problems that are now fixed are
problems you are going to hold against us? What do you think we are,
perfect and don't make any mistakes?

Do you think nobody listened to you? Did we need to chime back in and
say how correct you are? Is the actual improvement not good enough? Do
we mill about problems instead of fixing them? You can't fix problems
through public humiliation; you do it through calm reasoning in as safe
an environment as possible.

> I wanted to take some action to implement them in the short term but due to
> lack of support I ended up leaving instead.

You were supported. Nobody came out and lauded it because we were busy
working on the problem. Andrew is an excellent example of this. Yes,
Eric didn't treat you fairly after what you did, but you have to
understand his perspective. You tried to humiliate him in public. I
know you can't do that first. It doesn't work. I work with lobbyists
all the time, and you don't get anywhere by insulting those in power,
even if you are right. You reason with them first. When they won't
listen to reason, you change tactics, but you don't abandon reason, you
work with those around them and use reason. If you go out on the attack
before you've made sincere efforts within the system, you may get what
you want once, but only once. Nobody will do anything for you
afterwards for fear that they will be next. In the beginning, you did
everything I would have done had I experienced what you experienced, but
now you've just taken things a little bit too far and to heart.
Hopefully as a friend of both you and Eric, I'm helping you both get
what you want.

> I should have safeguarded myself
> then before I left, but I didn't think it would be necessary because I
> understood when I left that the new leadership would make people
> accountable
> and that the other problems had been recognised, would be discussed and
> eventually solved.
>
> The point is the same problems that happened before are still happening.

Are they? To the extent that it affects stable branches? Is there
something I missed? The QA processes are much improved from my vantage
point.

> If you do agree that the same problems are still cropping up then please
> remove my name and details.
>
> If you don't agree then I have an answer to my request. And now I have
> explained it, I won't need worry my request was misunderstood.

From what I take from this is that: if there are still problems, then we
should take your name out. Let's assume for the moment that
problem-free development is possible; what's a problem you found
recently that's as bad as Eric's tenure, in your eyes?

Seth

--
Seth Alan Woolley [seth at positivism.org], SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
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