Dear Ross,
Firstly, thank you for your questions - and no need whatsoever to forgive
you for asking - the fact that you are finally asking again is vindication
enough, for the time being at least ;-)
Secondly, should say for the record that have just picked up this message,
and am replying having read the additional messages received with regards
this thread since as at the time of writing, including Jean's, Benson's,
Jean's and Noirin's thus far, and much appreciate the efforts at continuing
discussion at this stage.
Thirdly, let me step through each of your questions in turn below, and hope
this helps clarify my vantage point on the matters at hand:
Ross Gardler wrote:
Before addressing your suggestion I first wish to correct a few errors in
your post.
Would suggest that these may not be errors as such, and may rather simply
be matters that we see differently from our respective vantage points.
Arguably, using a language of errors can be off putting for respectful
discussion, if not inadvertently stamp it out completely before it has had a
chance to take root.
The creation of ComDev was not made at the barcamp session you refer to. It
was created prior to that meeting as a result of discussion through the
normal ASF mailing lists and a subsequent Board Resolution.
Creationism versus evolutionary theory is a big debate, and the timing of
the creation of ComDev may be similarly so - another way of considering when
and how a group is, or can be, created is to work on the assumption that it
is already dead unless we keep it alive, moment to moment, conversation to
conversation, list to list.
The decision to roll women@ into ComDev was not agreed (as you put it)
at the barcamp session either. It was a suggestion from the board when the
ComDev resolution was passed.
My placing the term agreed in quotation marks refers to the perceived
working agreement kept appeared to keep the idea of something having been
sufficiently agreed in play - sure, nothing was really agreed and that was
the point being made by the lady sitting beside me - a point of process
rather than content on that particular occasion.
On Oct 28th 2009 I made the women@ list aware of the opportunity to
revitalize the women@ objectives through comdev [1]. Specifically I said
The wo...@a.o list has not really gone anywhere, but maybe this is
another chance to look at the lack of female representation here at the
ASF. This resulted in a few of the original women@ participants joining
the comdev list where rolling women@ into comdev has been discussed on a
few occasions.
As described, it is my recollection that though the BarCamp meeting,
face-to-face, did follow your post to the list, it did not quite achieve
what it said on the tin - again, that self-same matter of process that
remains a constant concern, and long may it do so - this is not the first
and last time such matters will come up in all its different guises, albeit
it may be one of the first times that we are addressing it openly and
publicly on-list - here, then, let's appreciate that as list members change,
social practices can change also, and it can be developmentally
time-critical to be open to ever open to this possibility, if we are not to
get into habits of chucking newbies out with bathwaters.
The actual decision to roll women@ into comdev is the subject of a vote
currently underway on comdev and this list was notified of the vote [2] to
ensure full transparency.
Having duly noted the manner of this notification earlier this weekend, my
concern has been, again, that the process of holding a vote that affects
members of one list at a place off their home list, which therefore requires
them to sign up to another list before even getting a chance to voice
concerns relevant to them, is not good enough, even in this day and age imho
- hence my specifically joining the women@ list this weekend in order to
primarily bring these discussions, at least, back to its home turf.
OK, so that's the history of how we got here. No to look at your concerns.
Freudian slip: No ? :-)
You argue that a better solution would be to leave women@ open merely
suggesting that comdev may be an appropriate alternative. I would counter
that this only serves to split any effort that might emerge. Long history
here at the ASF has shown that splitting communities along artificial lines
results in weaker communities.
The options provided by the autoresponder could be worded to include
explanation of the effort to avoid a split, without assuming that there
may yet be a reason to prefer posting to women@ rather than dev@ from the
outset.
However, given that our communities do not have adequate representation
from women perhaps this is an exceptional case. Please forgive me while I
ask a few basic questions.
Why would someone post to women@ but not to comdev? That is, what does
women@ provide that comdev does not (or vice-versa)?
Don't know yet -
