Nadav Har'El wrote:
On Fri, Dec 02, 2005, Dotan wrote about "Re: An out of the box solution?":
Dotan, what you're saying doesn't make much sense. First, Hamakor's mailing
list is just one tool it uses to keep members connected.
I'm talking of breaking the limited members circle and get more people
..
There are also
snail-mail letters, there are physical assemblies, conferences (like August
Penguin), not to mention members who meet in various occasions, and so on.
That remains in the limited members circle.
From not making sense, you've now gone to talking tautology.
A tautology is a statement which is true, but one that is obviously true,
will be true in any case, and cannot be disputed.
Let me rephrase what I thought was obvious - the _current_ members circle.
Hope that loosen the tautology.
In this case, Hamakor is always going to be a "limited circle of members".
Even if we have 10,000 members, our membership will still be a "limited"
to 10,000 people, and you'll complain that if we did x and y, we could
have had 100,000. If we moved to Forums, to Smoke Signals, to Semaphores
or to Ham Radio discussions, you'll still say that these means of
communication "limits" the discussion to people who want to use them.
Hamakor members also frequent Web-forums and other venues for discussions,
which were not necessarily created as an official Hamakor medium (as you
know, Rashut Hadoar also wasn't created by Hamakor, but we use it for our
purposes ;-)).
They (hamakor members) are there as individuals and most forums readers
All Hamakor members are individuals. Please stop thinking that one day a
board will come that will turn us into the Borg, an army of robots that
form together the Amuta. The Amuta will always be composed of individuals
who have separate lives, separate wishes, separate preferences, and their
own way to contribute to free software. (By the way, this philosophy is
the idea for the Hamakor logo I designed - see
http://nadav.harel.org.il/homepage/hamakor-logo/ )
Wow, you've gone pretty far from the debate of "Hamakor discussions not
getting to forums readers".
I'll rephrase it here too "As individuals none of hamakors members
publish the discussions on web forums."
The Amuta exists to help these individuals when they need help: collect
more money than one person can afford, run servers that the community is
missing, give a stronger voice when one is needed (say in the media, in
the government, etc.) and so on. But the Amuta doesn't need to replace
everything that these people are already doing! If everyone is using, say,
sourceforge for their free-software projects and everyone already likes it,
there is no compelling reason why the Amuta needs to create an Israeli
version of it for its members. Similarly, if everyone is already using
whatsup, linmagazine, tapuz, and who knows what forum system to discuss
free software, there is no compelling reason why the Amuta needs to create
another forum system! There's no harm if it does, but it needs a dedicated
person to install, configure, and manage. Are you volunteering to do it?
If you're not volunteering, do you know anyone who wants to volunteer to do it?
If you answered "no" on both questions, why do you continue to bring this
issue up??
Say "yes this is acceptable" and I might bother to make the effort.
The first attamp ended despite Uri's good will to do what you are now
asking me to do.
And by the way I remind that I once wrote in this discussion
"I'll have to think about it but currently I'm not a member and watching
closely
for the last few months I tend not to and I prefer to slowly disconnect my
relations with Hamakor and concentrate on doing."
in replay to Alons inquary "Are you running for board?"
You may now ask "then why do you care" and my only explanation will be "it's a
habit"
are kept out of the circle as they are not updated/informed by all the
means you detailed above and untill recently they didn't have any option
to follow Hamakor discussions and ever since theres an option they were
not informed about it (partly because I wasn't asked to inform them)
I've been members of several Amutot before and none of them had method for
electronic communication. Announcements were sent by post, and members
occasionally met one another (not in an organized way, but as friends) and
could discuss whatever they want face to face. I think you're talking
Hamakor's "discussions" mailing list for granted; It is already far more
than many other Amutut have. Saying that this *extra* means of discussion
"limits" the membership is ridiculous, in my opinion.
By fact it limits, what you're saying is that others are more limiting.
In this case I suggest not to take those others as the model.
I can say for the few Amutot I am and was a member of that they have
weekly meetings to discuss the amuta activity. Yes, weekly meeting not a
yearly meeting, so the electronic discussion are easier to participate
but it's not far more extensive then others discussions.
Ram (as an example for the audiance currently left aside) can hold his
will to contribute but he offers it. Holding him back, by any mean, and
asking him to use mail is like asking a right handed to write with his
left one (you may also add in this particular case Shlomi's mail which
detail that "Alon eventually told me to let him write the site..." and
when you read, emphesise the "eventualy".
I can't believe what I'm reading...
Please do ;)
We have a group of over 200 people who
all communicate by email, and suddenly comes the Graf Potozki who thinks
he's the Amuta's saviour, and only if he helped the Amuta, all its woes
would be solved - but he will only help in his own terms. And his terms
include asking all the people to contact him in his chosen way, because
he couldn't be bothered to use the communication method they already chose.
You are not in sync, sorry.
In regard to the website he contacted them by the means they called and
offered his help.
He didn't participate in the rest of the discussions about W2L (which I
think is a lost to all involved).
You may look at it as if he choose to do and not to talk in a language
he doesn't like but you are choosing a twisted view of things.
Again, mr. Potozki doesn't need to use our mailing list. He can also talk
face-to face with anybody in the Amuta and ask this person to relay his
thoughts; He can also write in, say, linmagazine and somebody will relay
his thoughts (like you did with the W2L problems). He can call anyone
(including board members). He can send private email. He can send a letter.
Basically *he can do* anything he chooses. He just can't expect everyone
else to do what he wants. As Alon said, he is not your slave. And nobody
else is a slave either.
Hamakor does extensive use of mailing lists. This mailing lists are not
accessible by most forums readers. There is a solution which can sync
forums and mailing list. At least one Israeli site implemented it and it
looks very good (at least as an opening stage if you want to adopt a
sceptic view).
Technically theres a solution and the only thing to stop it is a decission.
You're barging to an open door. Linmagazine already has a copy of Hamakor's
mailing list, and if it stopped working, a simple mail to Uri Sharf can
fix it. Oh, and I asked before and I'll ask again: Perhaps you want to
volunteer to run a forum on Hamakor's server? or do the synchronization
between the mailing list and forum servers? Hmm, do I hear a "no" or
"I don't have time" or "It's not my job" or "I don't know how to do it"
or "but I elected the board to do this for me"? That's what I thought...
Hey, we're all free software people here. In the free software world,
*doing* is everything. Complaining means nothing (and achieves nothing).
If you can't do these things yourself, but think that *you* have the power
to motivate *others* to do them, why don't you consider running for board
in the next elections, and see if you can really motivate people? Or do
you only like to complain?
You may find my answer above.
Trying to proof I'm only making noise is nothing more then pathetic.
BTW - no, I don't have time, it's not my job and I don't know how to do
it but the rest you may keep to yourself and despite all that I might
have done the effort if I knew it has support.
My current stand about the amuta is quoted above and you may deduce from
it whatever you want (and in this post you demonstarted you are capable
of deducing pretty far fetch ideas).
Dotan
