Community Feedback on the Proposal for a New Organizational

[brian]

Initially OSM was created to do the job the (then) core team didn’t like to do and to be able to focus on their main task (to code).

I was there - it is my name as one of the three on the legal documents that created OSM - that is simply not factually correct and repeating the myths told at the JWC LT summit about the founding of joomla

[wilsonge]

Our code should be our focus. If we don’t have that to offer the world we can just shut this organisation down. I think we all agree on it. But to make it successful - ie used by many we need to get our message out there, attract more community members to volunteer, etc. So the idea is to have an organisation that is supporting our code so we don’t have to focus on the organisation and structure but focus on getting things happen without hassle.

So something that I kind of realised tonight is that actually we're diluting much further the coding influence on the project as a result of these changes. If you compare the 7 departments by their definitions in the google doc against where they are currently located PLT has 1 (production), CLT has 5 (marketing + comms, events, local communities programs and operations), and obviously 'current' OSM has legal. On this basis the production or coding side has 1/3 of the influence before these changes and only 1/7th after (I mean this is broad terms - technically when we vote I know it's based on number of leadership so CLT have more than 1/3 and OSM and PLT less than 1/3).

Should production side should get an extra vote or something on the OSM body to try and balance things up? Because I don't feel desperately unhappy with the division of responsibilities within these 7 bodies - it seems very roughly equal - just not so happy with seemingly reduced influence of the coders

Kind Regards,
George

[MarijkeS]

Quick answer to you George about balancing votes for the board.

I did think a lot about this. In the team we discussed it long and thoroughly and it was one of the last issues we had to decide upon.
I tried to have it balanced the best way I could think of. For me any ideas about the right balance are welcome. I certainly do not pretend that this would be the only way. I agree with you that we should have our balance right and production is an important part who's influence should not be reduced.

[MarijkeS]

I believe this is going to be very confusing. I for one am confused. Yes, the outside world will see JUGs as "Local Communities" - in fact, I would venture to guess that most JUGs think of themselves as Local Joomla Communities. Perhaps you might change that Department name to better fit what you are defining it as (maybe internationalisation or translation teams or something - I'm not even entirely clear on what you mean for this department to do. Perhaps I lack insight and/or knowledge).

No offense, but I think my view on the outside world seen from the European continent differs slightly from your view on the outside world. Many local communities were founded years ago, as in that time the project did only provide information in the English language. The need for local communities will have been most for non-English users, finding it just a bit more comfortable finding sources, documentation, information in their own language. So my view, and I bet the view of most European and perhaps also a lot of other non-English countries, will not be that of a local community being the same as a local JUG. Most local communities have teams involved too for translations, documentation, news, forum etc. etc.

I like to think that JUGs are more than just "Events." Perhaps I am incorrect in this perception. I do hope these labels/departments don't limit what a team can do. I believe that JUGs are one of the most important aspects of the community because they are the face of Joomla around the world.

Jenn

I think each team can 'Think Bigger' to just use a quote we heard before
It's fairly up to the teams where labels/departments limit or not their scope.
In fact, you just gave the answer I hoped for, it is more then events. It is interacting on an international way to learn from each other. I can agree that JUGs are a very important aspect of the community all over the world. In the Dutch local community I can confirm that having so many successful JUGs is base of the success of the entire local community. Sharing successes and/or how to overcome issues in a local community is part of the local community department. Sharing successes/knowledge about JUGs would happen in the JUG area, where a JUG will have the first associations with meetings, which are events. But if the JUG team is experiencing really huge issues with being in that department, it can always be reconsidered.

[jgress-]

I bet the view of most European and perhaps also a lot of other non-English countries, will not be that of a local community being the same as a local JUG.

interesting. i didn't realise this. probably because indeed i'm from an english country. i guess only english countries might be confused then.

if the JUG team is experiencing really huge issues with being in that department, it can always be reconsidered

we can talk about it at our next meeting.

it will be interesting to see how this actually works out in reality. even though you've explained it, i still find myself pondering with a scrunched forehead. but i'll go with it and just keep working.

thanks for all the work answering, Marijke.
jenn

[deleted user]

Overall long term goals and values for the organization will guide all the organization. For example if one of the values would be “simplify” all teams could define what could be a good action for them to take to make it happen. For example “simplify” for the CMS Development team could be make the Admin Template more UX friendly. For the Organization Team it could be simplify the process to join a team.

Each team can produce their own roadmap in the new structure. They are the ones that best know what goals they have and create the roadmap to achieve them. Where collaboration is needed across teams, the department coordinators can help to establish combined roadmaps. The department coordination team can also bring their departments goals and roadmap to the board where it will be represented by the department coordination team leader.

I don't recall there being a discussion surrounding project goals for 2014 or 2015. Implicitly those goals have come from the goals defined by each of the three leadership teams during the budgeting process for the last two years. There does not appear to be a set of unified overall project goals right now but there are at least goals at team levels for the most part.

I think for this to be successful, there does need to be a unified goal planning process, separately from existing processes in which each team makes focuses for different aspects of the project. What I see here is there may be a few overall goals for the project but ultimately the goal planning process remains at a lower level in the structure and potentially disconnected from one another.

This question is hypothetical to some level. Though the Framework can be seen as a new project, it is not another brand and it is doubtful if the people working on it want it to be another brand or rather want to maintain the connection with Joomla. So it is hard for this structure team to answer such a question where things are not clear on the project itself. We will be sure that when it would come to such a situation, this will be discussed thoroughly with all the people involved first.

There is a lot of hypothetical thinking in that, but it is also based on real discussion points that occurred (and even suggested by many to be followed up on which didn't happen for one reason or another). I'd like to ensure that whatever structure is chosen enables potential future growth should a day come where there are multiple unique brands or projects operating under the OSM banner. As presented, there isn't a clear role how such an event would occur. But again, there is a large amount of 'what if' in this point.

Somewhere the oversight needs to have an end, we can’t possibly have endlessly oversight over an overseeing body, at some point we need to have trust.

Whether it be through earned trust or a checks and balances protocol, I do think it's important that everyone keeps everyone else in check. Though probably not a very good example, the United States Congress has a system of checks and balances so that each of the three branches plays a role in ensuring everything stays "right" and "fair" (terms defined very loosely given the group I'm referring to). I don't think there is a need for a formal procedure, but there should be a way for the OSM Board to raise a concern about these teams should the need arise.

Joomla!s brand and strategic communication is right now worked on by the marketing team together with an external marketing firm. The outcome of this collaboration would guide the presence online for the future. There’s also a brand manual that will support how we use the brand. The marketing team would be responsible for the web presence. The operation department teams for the different sites would be responsible for managing the sites.

Though this point admittedly goes beyond the scope of discussion here, I do see a valid concern to be addressed with existing leadership teams and/or a revised leadership structure. I'll leave it at that so as to not mix unrelated thoughts in needlessly.

In the complaint procedure we have taken into account who will be able to vote on which role and prevent a conflict of interest when complaints are made. A Team Contributor can not vote, so there will be no conflict of interest. A Team Member however votes for a Team Leader, therefore the Team Leader will not be able to remove a Team Member all by him/her self but needs to contact the department coordination team about a complaint (remember that the team member also is appointed by the department coordination team, and a Team Member can not directly vote on the department coordinators). A superior could depend on a vote of the person the complaint is reported about. A parallel Team Member can be voting on the role of a person the complaint is about. Their objectivity is in question therefore. Example, a Team Member takes a complaint to a department coordinator about a Team Leader. This department coordinator is elected by the Team Leaders of that department. This could influence the objectivity of the department coordinator. To prevent this conflict of interest, complaints about a Team Leader are therefore handled by the entire relevant department coordination team, together with the Team Members of the relevant team. It will also prevent that the department coordinator can get rid of a Team Leader which he/she expects to vote against him/her. The same procedure is provided for complaints on a department coordinator, where the department coordination team leader is considered a board director and rules are provided in the bylaws. On all occasions complaints are not handled by one person, but by a group. A ⅔ vote is required to finally be able to remove a person from a role that is voted on.

In many ways, this seems somewhat backward to me. In organizations I've been affiliated with, at no time has a complaint procedure included airing the grievances with a large team; rather the procedure has always called for the most direct approach possible given the circumstances involving as few individuals as necessary. Typically this means going to a peer or superior of the person in question or an unbiased third party to act as a messenger or mediator for the situation. I don't think it may be in the best interest of a team or department if complaints about a Team Leader are being discussed openly amongst all Team Members and Contributors.

[sarahwatz]

Thank you for all your feedback so far. This is really valuable. I would really like to see us not just using this forum as a Q & A forum.

I would encourage us to also take this opportunity to discuss. As long as we treat each other with respect and have in mind that we have different views on how we should build our organization. We should all try to be curious on how others see it and if we suspect that we don't understand what the other persons are trying to say we should not jump into conclusion instead we should ask "Did I understand you correctly that ...." and give the person the possibility to explain and elaborate more so we have the opportunity to understand. I would like us not to get into passionated discussions that in the end was not fruitful or an energy waste. And also bear in mind that we don't have the opportunity to give instant responses to each other due to the fact that we all are volunteers and don't have the possibility to be online responding to posts in real time.

Why not take the opportunity to celebrate things in the proposal that would be great improvements and feel free to give examples on how you would see this proposal implemented for the benefits of Joomla. If you feel that it would not be an improvement please explain why you see it that way. Give your own suggestions how to improve it. Personally I need your insights.

To explain how I see it I wrote an open letter to the Joomla Community back in October of 2014 which I have now revised to reflect the current state of the proposal. http://www.sarahwatz.se/index.php/blog/ ... munity-rev

With warmth,
Sarah

Sarah Watz
President, Open Source Matters, Inc.
http://opensourcematters.org/

[rdeutz]

I have one quick question because I am not 100% sure how the voting will be counted at the end.

The blog post states:

To have a quorum and to pass a counting vote it need at least 2/3rds of the total potential votes to pass a vote. To pass the proposal for a new structure & methodology a majority of 2/3rds of the given votes are needed.

If we say we have at the time of the voting 29 members in the LT, does that mean

a) it needs 20 YES votes to be accepted

or

b) it needs 20 people who vote and then 14 YES votes be accepted

[brian]

It would be pretty disappointing if anything less than 100% of the leadership voted.

[nikosdion]

I have already analysed in great detail and arguments from my business consultancy background why the restructuring proposal is all wrong back in November. I even have an alternative proposal, again coming from the same business consultancy background. As you can read in the comments beneath it there are several instances of RonniWalling, i.e. blocks of text which reiterate the same crap, not addressing any concerns and generally acting as if nothing is wrong.

SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG. YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY. I chose Joomla! over WordPress and Drupal a decade ago because it was the only FOSS project without a dictator, benevolent or otherwise. I see that this is no longer the case. The same people wrote the proposal which gives them excessive power and are now called to vote for it. If you had an honest bone in your body you should have DISQUALIFIED yourselves from the vote. Is it ever possible that you'd vote against yourself?

I am immediately unsubscribing myself from this topic. Do not bother to reply to me. I am not interested in yet another RonniWalling and blatant waste of my time.

[Jenny]

Q&A is an important part of this feedback process. Could someone direct me to where we can ask questions about the proposal if this forum thread is not the appropriate place?

Thank you for all your feedback so far. This is really valuable. I would really like to see us not just using this forum as a Q & A forum.

[MarijkeS]

An update on the available translations:

The Preface and Executive Summary are now available in:
French by Nicolas Ogier
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d_N ... sp=sharing

Dutch by Marijke Stuivenberg & Martijn Maandag
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BzV ... sp=sharing

Español by Anibal Sanchez
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Dx ... sp=sharing

Portuguese by Diogo Jesus
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/125m ... sp=sharing

Italian by Donato Matturro & Cristina Magni
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nzL ... sp=sharing

Links are also added to the document.

A huge thank you goes to the translators.

[MarijkeS]

Q&A is an important part of this feedback process. Could someone direct me to where we can ask questions about the proposal if this forum thread is not the appropriate place?

Thank you for all your feedback so far. This is really valuable. I would really like to see us not just using this forum as a Q & A forum.

Jennifer,
The message says 'not just'. Questions are of course welcome, but discussions about details, alternative ideas about them are also welcome.

[brian]

Marijke - please dont misunderstand me on the local community thing - I honestly believe we both have the same aims - greater integration and involvement of the non-english communities and I am absolutely not denying or devaluing the need for that. I just fundamentally believe that creating a new department for them is separating them even further. So it doesnt go towards solving the issues it just re-enforces and formalises it.

Non-english speaking communities often feel detached from the global community - we should be addressing that at the root of the issue by working to remove barriers throughout the project and not by pushing them aside into a separate group.

If we are to take JCM as an example they have done an amazing job at creating a truly international and multilingual place within Joomla. Content is NOT just translated from english it is a two way process. Content is coming from all languages and translated to many languages. I just dont see how a communities department would have been able to achieve that. It has to come from inside the working groups themselves.

Leadership should be setting the example and working to ensure that all groups are open to all and I believe massive progress has been made on that in the last few years. Of course things can be improved and I hope that they will be but I just dont agree that this communities department is the way to do it. It just increases the marginalisation and separation

[Jenny]

One thing I would like clarification on is the Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures and Conflict of Interest Policies. As these are integral to the structure change process these should be defined and available for comment before the structure change as proposed is voted on to be accepted. These are the items that every single contributor has to be notified of and agree to abide by and are universal throughout the structure as the building blocks to promote a healthy and balanced community. Without these policies being defined as part of this change, in my opinion it is putting the cart before the horse. Policy and procedure should be defined first, and then the structure best suited to support policy and procedure should be put in place.

I also believe that the proposed "voting" on any given "item" that comes before any "defined group" is lacking in one area. To paraphrase because it is basically the same but shows different words in each scenario, but provides for the same basic process:

Required is a two-thirds vote of (various terms are placed here depending on scenario) of those present, provided there is a quorum of not less than a majority present at the meeting at which such action is taken.

What is our definition of quorum (the minimum number of members of an assembly or society that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid)? Does the "not less than a majority present" imply that only 51% of team or group has to be present for the quorum standard to be met to make the meeting and vote valid?

[MarijkeS]

Hi Brian,

From my side, I’m confident we don’t need much discussion on having the same aims. And I hope you trust me to be open and much appreciate your opinion, as in my opinion, you are a person that can understand both parties - the international project side and the local community side.

I do share your concerns absolutely, I can perfectly understand them, they make sense to me. It is the last thing I want to put local communities aside and isolate them as a separate group.

I agree that there has been progress made in the last few years, the JCM is a good example, the docs another one and marketing is also a good example of how we as a project improve on internationalization. Just to name a few places, there are more (I don’t leave them out intentionally here).

The thing that happens now is, we create all small groups scattered all over the project. And it is not that I mind them to be scattered, I do encourage them to be integrated into the teams where the actual job is done. What I do mind is that I see these groups are not connected everywhere, which would be very helpful to overcome issues on a local level.

I also see (in chats, yes hidden for public much to my regrets) discussions happening on why local communities, organizations, JUGs etc. drop their efforts to get registered. They do report it is to hard, rules don’t make sense to their country/language and many other remarks that could be very helpful for the project to (re)consider. I’m not saying it totally doesn’t happen right now, I do think efforts are being made. But I think there is to much that stays behind hidden walls or closed doors that could be very constructive to discuss and find solutions for.

Yes, I want to open those closed doors and tear down those hidden walls very much. I agree leadership should be setting the example, but I also think these scattered groups should be more open to get connected to each other. It sounds very generalizing now, there are a number that are doing really well, but we also know that there are a number that can improve.

Personally I try my best to encourage them to do so, but here’s my problem:
What place do i point them to, to join and team up, discuss and overcome issues on a local level. Wouldn’t one clear place to form a stronger appearance which also encourages non-English people more to get involved be helpful? From where they also have a direct voice in the organizational board? Those are in fact my reasons to believe this might be worth to increase involvement of non-English and encourage collaboration on a local level. The way it is now, we don’t encourage collaboration on a local level and do nothing about issues that we see (just acknowledge them perhaps). And yes, for me it will always have a heavy emphasis on the remark that this department is not meant to put them aside or to isolate them. I would even go as far as wishing that, say in about 5 years, the need for this department would totally vanish.

[brian]

I see exactly what you are saying - especially the stuff about groups having issues getting registered - as i have heard that too much on my travels around the joomla world. I am still missing though what this department will do.

Even with everything you have stated it doesnt sound much more than a team not a complete department. Perhaps you can expand on what teams this department would have. It does sound to me as if it is just a team that has been bumped up to department level to showcase its importance.


(BTW from what Ronni wrote earlier it appeared that he was describing something completely different and it was more of a way for JUGs to have a vote in the central organisation - although I will be honest and say if Ronni did mean that then that makes zero sense at all and actually creates real democracy issues. )

[sarahwatz]

Thank you Paul for your insights and constructive feedback.
I look forward to read the next post :-)

With warmth,
Sarah

Hi Sarah,

I appreciate that the Structural Team listened to that point from the Working Group feedback phase, but I don't think forming 7 new department coordination teams in a new layer for the organization structure is a good solution, especially if part of the overall goal for this initiative is to become a more agile organization.

As an aside, I don't agree with how the current graphic for the proposed structure displays the 7 new department coordination teams at the same level as all the individual teams. Based on my understanding of their role, I think the 7 new department coordination teams should be displayed on a separate level just below the board, and with lines of communication that connect vertically both up and down, as well as horizontally left and right.

My suggestion on this point is to first reduce/consolidate the number of departments, and then elect two department coordinators from each department to the new board, and finally eliminate the 7 new department coordination teams. That will address the issues of reducing the workload and providing backups, and it will also give a better solution for staggered terms at the board level and also for simplifying/streamlining communications.

I think that adding even up to 7 more individuals to the board would be better than adding 7 new teams to a new layer of the organization structure.

I think it would be even better to separate the board from the Unified Leadership Team, as was shared in two alternate proposals during the Working Group feedback phase. I understand the reasons that have given from the Structural Team for combining everyone into one team on OSM, but I do not agree with those reasons - in my mind that approach doesn't offer a mechanism for truly effective checks/balances, which I think is important. I will share more about that along with other ideas in another post. :-)

Thanks,

paul

----------------
Sarah Watz
President, Open Source Matters, Inc.
http://opensourcematters.org/

[tresan]

Brian: I didnt mention JUGs at all - so not sure where you got that impression.

Over the last 5+ years ive been talking to you many times about briding local to global - i see this 7th department as the ideal way for each local community (as in country not JUG) to have a place to fit in naturally and then each country has 1 representative (team leader) that is in the coordination team for the department and then they elect 1 department coordinator who serves on the board as the representative for the 7th department.

In my work in the Governance Working Group i proposed a concept based on JUG's voting for a board of regional JUG leaders that then had the right to vote for members of the global organizational board - this was not a proposal that got general support as it was considered by some to be too "extreme" and only people who contributed should be included in terms of the right to vote.

That is why i see this proposal as a compromise between all the different opinions - there is local representation but on the same time the meritbased model is predominant as the majority of the voters are those who actively contribute.

That way you have one ambassador (or congressman if you will) whos elected on that background and with that representative role on the board to make sure the angle and interests of the local communities are heard and brought up.

I have never seen any other proposals, ideas or anything else that in any way near to that gets close to offering the same bridge between local and global - and i think thats positive.

Nicholas: to be honest i think your post is below you - in your blog post we had a real debate on opinions, ideas and concepts until the point where you started namecalling - trying to bully people you disagree with is just not ok and i would think you would be beyond that level of communication - i know your a intelligent, warm and nice person in real life so why resolve to that level online.

In general: Not having the same opinion is OK - we are all from different parts of the world, with different backgrounds, opinions, ideas, lifes, views etc. - the future structures of our community and project should be the middleground for all of those and offer a compromise of how we can see a better sustainable structure for our community and project. The important thing is to respect and accept people may have a different opinion without slandering them on twitter or resport to namecalling.

[brian]

Ronni - from what you are saying you have, as I guessed, a differing view of what this 7th department is and what its role is as others have explained here already.

[tresan]

As neither me nor Marijke is natively English speaking something might be lost in translation (as they say) could you please highlight where you see those differences?

If there is something unclear we should absolutely highlight that now and make sure its crystal clear.

Coming from a small (really small) country myself its a matter i am quite engaged in so woulndt want something to be misunderstood on that point

[brian]

Its easy Ronni - read what Marijke wrote. read what you wrote. you are both talking about completely different things.

[tresan]

I think Marijke is ping ponging primarily with you on the general and historical issues on briding local to global - i dont see her writing anything that counters what i write (atleast not as i understand it)

The 7th department would have:

1 team per country with 1 elected team leader from the members of the team
1 coordination team (leadership team in the department)
1 Department Coordinator serving on the board as the board member for the 7th department - elected by the team leaders of the 7th department whos sitting in the coordination team.

So its made up like any other department with the difference that each country has a team here and membership of that team is based on country residence not on a role like teams in the other 6 departments.

The Graphics for the overview of the departments and structure also shows this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B50hmD ... sp=sharing

[MarijkeS]

The idea of the proposed local community department would contain teams per language (and I could see some divided in language/country or region where it applies) and not per organization group (JUG, JD organization). JUGs, JD organizations, or even in the event that a language has more local communities, they will be forming one team based on the language where the organizational groups will be seen as subteams).

Example: The Dutch Team could contain, 3 local communities, 15 JUGs, a JD organization (or perhaps even 2 if the flemish would like to team up with the Dutch language), a Dutch Translation team (with subteams for core translation, extension translation, news translation, documentation translation (or creation).
So this complete Dutch Team will have one team leader, an assistant team leader, several members and several contributors. Meaning The members can vote for the team leader, the team leader can vote for the department coordinators and the department coordination team leader, who will be a board director. The Dutch Team will have one of the votes that are represented by all languages that have formed a team.

Other teams can be German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, etc. Where it applies a language/country can be taken into account, eg. Portuguese - PT, Portuguese -BR etc.

Brian - You asked what this department will do and why it is not just a team that has been bumped up to department level to showcase its importance.

Each (language) team is encourage more to collaborate and solve their internal issues. You can say, okay but that is what they can do locally, why do we need it to be here in a department. Yes, it happens locally... or not.
Being part of the project will mean, team up and collaborate. In the spirit of this project.
Being aware that there can be different communities in one language/country, it doesn't mean they need to actually be one community, they can still have their own local community, but they are encouraged to collaborate (and not be each others rivals) by putting them in one language team.
I'm not that naive to think, just put them in one team, and their problems will be solved - no, I think initially it will be a lot of work. But keeping things under the table won't help either, making them visible will mean we can start working on them.

Each team can help internally to get people involved in the places they need to be involved in the international project and encourage them to interact. eg. A new JUG team can get help on a local level getting registered, the way to the JUG team is shown and the organizers are encourage to take part in the JUGteam. eg. A translator wants to get involved, the local team can indicate where they need more help, what parts there are in the project to help on translation and what part would fit for the relevant user.
This also now happens locally, far away from the international project where it is not seen. Or the contrary happens, the local community is not connected and more or less gave way upon it that the project will not listen to them and it is not worth to try.

Each team will also be encouraged to interconnect with other teams within the department. Team Leaders should have meetings where they can discuss issues they see within the entire project, they can share how they solved issues internally to help other teams that face similar ones. They can list ideas to improve on internationalization.

Teams will have a clear point to report their findings, issues or ideas on improving internationalization. That way they don't stay at the local level but become part of the internationalization level. It won't be one or two translators that try to get the word out, but the department coordinators are the spiders in the web for filtering out these subjects and bring them to the according places they need to be. And connect the according people with each other that can work on the improvement, across department level.

Another advantage of having a local department containing teams per language is to finally have a better oversight of all existing (or not existing!) organizations per language. Imagine a new user finding it with ease on the volunteer portal, being able to point to a language team when someone says he/she wants to help with translation (and not end up giving 10 links to policies and 6 email addresses). Imagine how the project can take advantage of that and easily see where we need to promote and help to get active organizations in the world.

One more thing I like to elaborate on a bit is the chosen name 'Local Community' department.
Obvious Internationalization (whether with an s or a z ) was named as an option. But this would at least for me not be appropriate, as the true meaning of internationalization means adapt to get localized. It would also imply it is about translation, which will be a good part of it, but it is not alone about translation. In a global project, we need internationalization and localization as the two phases that directly can influence each other. Therefore the name Local Community Department fits better as it stands for the part where localization is the subject.

[MarijkeS]

Just to give notice, the question of George about communication between departments, of Robert about the voting procedure, of Jennifer about clarifying the Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures and Conflict of Interest Policies and also on voting procedures are still on my (or the teams) list. I didn't get to them today, sorry for that. Hopefully they can get responded on tomorrow or in the weekend.

And for Michael, thank you for getting back on the answers. I need to read your post more carefully to see if more responding is needed. Try to do so this weekend also.

Thanks all for you patience in this.

[brian]

Marijke thanks for the further clarification. Its now clearer in my mind -maybe there was a lost in translation moment before as it sounds diferent to what was said earlier.

What you are describing may sound ok on paper especially for the more organised Dutch speaking community but for it to work AND be equal between all the language based communities( is English one?) Dont they all need to be simikar. How would this work for the language communities that dont have the same structure if any at all and how are the respective sizes being taken into account.

Finally this is starting to sound as if joomla wants (is trying) to dictate to those language communities how they should be organised and structured. Something that joomla has always said was up to them. It is also assuming that a language community exists for a language and not just several unconnected entities that happen to share the same language. Translators for example often are not part of their local community if it even exists. A joomladay may exist in a country with no jugs. Jugs may exist entirely independent of each other.

The more this seventh department is explained to me the more I go back to my orignal impression that this is not a good thing and doesnt serve the community of joomla.

[MarijkeS]

Marijke thanks for the further clarification. Its now clearer in my mind -maybe there was a lost in translation moment before as it sounds diferent to what was said earlier.

Sorry if my English skills were not sufficient to explain is clearly.

What you are describing may sound ok on paper especially for the more organised Dutch speaking community but for it to work AND be equal between all the language based communities( is English one?) Dont they all need to be simikar. How would this work for the language communities that dont have the same structure if any at all and how are the respective sizes being taken into account.

Yes, English is a language too, so I would even encourage to start a team.
Equality - As every team in each department will not have the same size and the only similarity will be the structure of team leader, team member and contributor role, as explained before. So , no not each team will be constructed of the exact same ingredients. It is simply a team based on language, can have subteams formed as they please or see necessary. Just like other teams in other departments. The example in the previous post is just one example. No matter what size or how many subteams they have or have not, they are equal when it comes to voting for a department coordinator, since each team needs to have a team leader who will be able to cast a vote.

Finally this is starting to sound as if joomla wants (is trying) to dictate to those language communities how they should be organised and structured. Something that joomla has always said was up to them. It is also assuming that a language community exists for a language and not just several unconnected entities that happen to share the same language. Translators for example often are not part of their local community if it even exists. A joomladay may exist in a country with no jugs. Jugs may exist entirely independent of each other.

There is no dictating on how they should be organized. It is not assuming anything at all. Each (connected or unconnected) entity can keep it's identity as they have right now. The team is meant to be a place to have some collaboration, to encourage it, to help growth en to encourage new entities to be formed in the language. Perhaps it helps to see it as the way CMS garden is created. Each CMS maintains their identity and has their own structure, but for mutual interests they team up and collaborate to have a stronger exposure and voice.

[brian]

Sorry I'm not convinced on this department at all but thanks for trying

[masterchief]

My 2c

General comment - in the main document, do not ever use dot-points. Always use some nomenclature, even if it's a), i), whatever.

1.1 PLT and CLT came from the Community Oversight Committee. OSM has always been there.

1.1.1 I think the directory services (JED et al) should be explicitly spelled out in the areas covered by the CLT.

1.1.3 The use of the team "weak" sounds like a translation problem. I would use the term "lightweight".

1.2 These are not structure problems - they are how leaders lead problems. While I agree with most of the restructure macro details (the number of departments for example), the restructure itself is not going to solve those preexisting problems. They are baggage that will be taken into the new structure. The only way to fix that is to change the way the leaders execute their roles.

For example, there is nothing about this restructure document that is going to magically make contributors more motivated. If anything, the burden of the number of rules to follow is a huge demotivating factor.

3.1.3.3 & 3.1.3.4 I think it's good to acknowledge that leadership roles need to be shared. However, I don't think you need the overhead of knowing who is the leader and who is the assistant leader. I'd suggest combining this into just "Team Leaders" where this is a number greater than or equal to 1 but preferably 2.

3.1.3.5 I don't advise going to the trouble of defining sub-teams. Just keep the teams "flat" otherwise it's just going to be a distraction when people are worrying whether they are a team or a sub-team. If a team need sub-teams - split the team.

3.1.5 While possibly necessary, I'm not convinced you need to mandate it as a team (sounds more like something that should be recommended if the leadership team of the department can't handle the role). If this was code, I'd say just leave the Team class abstract and don't provide a concrete implementation for department coordination (use composition!).

3.1.7.1 Every what you call "team member" (leader, and so forth) should get a vote - always.

3.1.8 As with the Board of OSM, [s]contributors[/s] team members should nominate and vote for the advisory board positions. The operation and reporting of this board needs to be very transparent.

3.1.9 Who handles, for example, complaints from JED listers?

3.2.1.1-7 Can I write a unit test for what a department does by listing the teams that are under it? No. In other words, don't list the teams, list the roles and expectations for the department. 3.2.1 needs to be completely re-worked. Each department needs a solid role or job description.

4.2 Teams seems to be far too heavy. I would keep teams very organic and allow anyone to propose them and just be able to gather like-minded people together without requiring to jump through hoop upon hoop. Any team made up of just contributors should be allowed unless they are not operating (easy to automate winnowing the team list). When you want to have team members, that triggers the requirement to get approval from the department. Keep is simple for people who just want to play around with crazy ideas.

4.3 Following on from 4.2, this section seems completely over engineered. Why not just make "contributors" self-managed. They are non-voting so who cares if they are on the mailing list. If they are being a nuisance then I would suggest that the rules for being a nuisance should apply to everyone equally, regardless of role or stature.

4.4 In contrast, teams with members are where the serious sustainability of the project comes from. Members within teams would have voting rights required for other procedures in the document to operate.

4.8 and missing section for Advisory Board - make it the same as for the Board of Directors.

4.9 I think it's important to provide a specific section for JED (or similar resource sites) complaints because of the potential impacts on people's livelihood. I also think there should be an SLA on such complaints.

5.1 Overall my impression is that the new structure is going to waste more time because there are more motions to go through to get things done. It's definitely not FUN to have to apply to just contribute to a team.

5.1.1 In all honesty I think you've swapped 2 silos for 7 silos. While 7 departments make sense, the changes required to make the current 2 departments (PLT and CLT) work better are identical for 7 or 70. If you don't identify and change all the bad habits in the process, nothing will be gained (and I'm not really seeing much meat at all in the document in this respect).

5.1.2 Like the section before it, I'm starting to get worried that you don't really know what problem you are trying to solve. From what I've seen, what the Volunteer Portal has done has fixed most of the operational problems with WG's. It's brilliant - don't break it.

5.2 You don't really answer how it's actually going to help in any detail.

5.3 While most of the document is prescriptive, this section seems to be a discussion. I don't think it works in line with the rest of the document. Some of the things are already well practiced (well, at least that was my experience in the PLT). Some of the things are good ideas. Others a "good luck" with that.

Overall comment: While I think there's some logical basis for organising the PLT and CLT into 7 departments, I think you are trying to solve too many problems at once. I'm not against OSM being at the head of the project proper, but neither do I think it's absolutely necessary and there are, quite frankly, simpler options available. To use a software example, this is not a Joomla 1.0 to 1.5 via a legacy layer - it's a full, painful migration from 1.5 to 1.6 (which in hindsight was a mistake that I wish I could undo).

If I were you guys, I'd spend the next year *just* working on the volunteer portal and getting the working groups/teams (whatever you want to call them) purring like a well tuned engine. If you can't get communication happening now, this restructure is not going to magically fix that - in fact it will probably make it worse.

Do the bare minimum to fix the OSM membership stuff, but don't try to fix that by reengineering the structure of the whole project. Maybe that will come later - maybe it won't (if you a lucky).

I have complete faith that you can solve 90% of the perceived problems you think you have within the current PLT and CLT structure, and reducing the board of OSM to the bare minimum required by law.

[Radek Suski]

I wrote an blog post (as many of us did) back in October last year and even if almost 6 moths passed I see many of my (and not my only) questions and hints still has not been addressed.

I remember many people criticised that we are going to reduce the leadership from almost 30-40 people to just 9 (now 11) and some members of the Structure team were trying to explain that the leadership is not really being passed to those 9 (now 11) people and the team is actually "just" a team of coordinators.
At least the current proposal is more honest with us:

One of the main changes in the proposal is to regroup the current three leadership teams: CLT, PLT, and OSM, under one governing board - the Board of Open Source Matters. One team does not take over any other team - all three teams become one team of leaders.

It doesn't however change the danger of the current proposal. I can repeat myself again on it: do we really want to put the entire legal, financial power and responsibility into hand of only 11 people?

Just a few other questions that could come up to people's mind while reading this proposal

1.1 Current Structure
Today, the Joomla project is lead by three separate leadership teams: the Community Leadership Team (CLT), the Production Leadership Team (PLT) and the board of Open Source Matters (OSM). These three teams evolved from one core team about six years ago. Although the teams have led the project successfully during that time, to this day there is no formal definition of the leadership structure as a cohesive body with a process for governing the project.

If these teams were so successful, why are we going to change it fundamentally?

1.1.3 The Board of Directors (OSM)
The founders of Joomla placed the legal entity Open Source Matters (called OSM) separate from the other Joomla Leadership Teams. The intent was to make OSM as weak as possible and as small as possible. As a part of OSM's legal structure the Community Oversight Committee (COC) was formed to provide oversight of OSM. The COC was created as a way to prevent OSM from either intentionally or unintentionally mis-managing the Joomla project's legal and financial matters. Ten years later, as the organization has grown, it no longer makes sense to keep OSM separate from the rest of leadership. The COC dissolved itself in 2013, because the COC members felt that over time, OSM had proven itself to be a competent and trustworthy steward of the Joomla project's legal and financial assets, and there was no longer an important need for the type of oversight they were formed to provide (see post about the dissolution of the COC).

First, I wasn't directly involved in the split from Mambo at that time but (here are some founders so please correct me if I am wrong) but as far I remember the main reason for this decision (small OSM) was exactly to avoid the situation that the entire "power" can be hold by just a few people (Mambo Foundation). For my taste what you are trying to achieve is exactly the same what caused the Joomla! fork.
Secondly: "OSM had proven itself to be a competent and trustworthy"? I would love to know whose opinion this actually is. I am just curious. The COC? We all know that this was not the reason why COC has been dissolved

1.2 Why Do We Want to See a New Structure and Methodology?
Unclear organization and methodology
No accountability and reporting
Inefficient decision making
Not enough trust in individuals and teams
No clear mandate from the community (electorate)
No guidelines for transparency and communication
Not easy to get involved and stay motivated
Leadership spends too much time working and not leading
No clear plan for cross-team coordination
Having a clearly defined leadership structure will raise Joomla’s appeal
Defining a roadmap, long term goals and vision for the Joomla project is difficult under the current structure

There is a pretty accurate list of more or less important issues. Let me go step by step:
- Unclear organization and methodology: I don't think many people would agree. But frankly the proposed structure is even more unclear IMHO
- No accountability and reporting: this is something that is currently changing in many teams. But the new structure won't force people to be more transparent. Let be clear about that
- Not enough trust in individuals and teams: definitely. But this is barely because of the structure. Quite contrary too. Recently many teams and working groups has been practically paralysed because some people in the leadership have, IMHO, too much power. There is not trust in the teams form leadership and there is no trust in the leadership from the community. The main reason for distrust from the community is frankly the fact that some people in the leadership have too much power in their hands. And you seriously think that putting even more power in just a few hands will improve this situation?
- No clear mandate from the community (electorate): definitely. But this is also not a structure issue. Maybe it would be sufficient to start to listen to people. Just a thought
- No guidelines for transparency and communication: then create those. And involve the community. Turning the structure upside down won't change anything. Instead of spending months of work on this proposal we could have already guidelines created by now
- Leadership spends too much time working and not leading: definitely. I wish some people would have the guts to realise that they are not leaders and simply step down. The proposed structure won't change that.
- No clear plan for cross-team coordination: am I wrong or this is exactly the same as "No guidelines for transparency and communication"
- Having a clearly defined leadership structure will raise Joomla’s appeal: this is not a statement but hope.
- Defining a roadmap, long term goals and vision for the Joomla project is difficult under the current structure: no it is not. It is just an excuse to not do what you suppose to do.

I am glad that the team spent a lot of time identifying all our issues. Just please take now the right steps to help the project. Once again, turning one not perfect structure in to another vaguely defined structure won't fix our problems,