Community Feedback on the Proposal for a New Organizational

[Radek Suski]

BTW: One thing that really, really bothers me. Why do we actually discussing it at all if

This Structural Team is made up of three representatives from each of the three leadership teams:
Representatives from OSM: Sarah Watz, Ronni K. Gothard Christiansen, Marijke Stuivenberg
Representatives from PLT: George Wilson, Chris Davenport
Representatives from CLT: Sander Potjer, Alice Grevet, Peter Bui

The current leadership consist (If I am not wrong) of 30 people. I doubt anyone from the "Structural Team" will vote against this proposal (in any form). Which means that almost ⅓ of the current leadership is going to vote for it.

How about transparency and fairness?

I'll rest my case

[brian]

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.

+1 Andrew

[Radek Suski]

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).

Hell yeah. This is what many of us trying to say the whole time. This is exactly the right way to do this!

[phproberto]

I mostly agree with masterchief.

The main issues still remain there:

No real solutions to existing problems

I still wonder why all this change to improve communication + add democracy. Nothing has been tried to fix current structure problems. Why should we believe that not being able to fix communication issues of 3 teams (around 30 people) you are going to create a system that works for 7 teams (XXX people) ?

Nothing prevents you to change the way that the LT members are elected now.

OSM takes the control

Now as member of the PLT/CLT you are not part of OSM. The effective power (financial and legal) is still there but you don't feel part of a corporation. OSM is and should stay as a TOOL to serve the software & the community. As Radek pointed this is for me a step backwards to Mambo.

Transparency & communication

I only see this words used for marketing. We use them but we have demonstrated that we are far away from really understand and do what they mean and require. In fact is annoying for me to see them used.

Fragmentation

Do you really think that this "Civilization" model will make the system easier to manage? I only see more Silos. Too many levels that will only cause conflicts and communication problems.

Summary

Again theory over practice. Again politician way of solving things changing something without having tried to analyze/fix it. It's like someone proposing a new Joomla 4.0 with fully structural change that includes the same problems than Joomla 3.x has. Makes no sense.

As Andrew pointed I don't think Joomla is ready for such change. We should keep working on improving/fixing real things and then maybe that work gives us the confidence to propose a structure change.

[hefesto]

A while a ago I wrote:

Identified problems were not by any means addressed by a structure change

There was a complete refusal to even try to work on fixing the existing structure, REALLY enforcing it and making it work at its best. In other words, it looked like for certain people letting the structure make the same identified mistakes once again was the best way to make it look bad, and therefore propose a complete revamp of it.

The proposal includes a lot of very valid points most of which (80–90%) can be easily incorporated in the current structure, but it’s presented as an “all or nothing” decision.

So I can only +1 this too

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.

For me the "new" proposal is slightly better written, it addresses some of the concerns raised in the last few months and includes more detailed explanations on certain aspects that were not clear at all in previous version (thanks to all who spent their time working on it); but in essence it's still the same that came out of the joint meeting at Jandbeyond 2014. And yet I don't see the need for such a disruptive change.

We're wasting an insane amount of volunteers time and energy and creating suspicions when not confrontation between community members. There are aspects of the project that could have taken great advantage of that time and energy, and even there are areas or projects that got stalled just waiting to see what happens with all this structure mess. We do not have a solid corporation behind us; we're wasting our main asset, our volunteers, buy wasting their time and burning many of them. We need to get this to an end; at least, it looks like now we have a fixed calendar, which is one of the best news in the blog post.

Regards,
Isidro

[wilsonge]

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

That's a direct quote from the blog post at the time about the COC being dissolved - http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leade ... e-coc.html . Note I wasn't involved in leadership at the time so have no clue how accurate this actually was. But it does make me think of https://youtu.be/85fx0LrSMsE?t=2m8s this old clip (TL/DR) everyone remembers things differently - but it's what written down that counts)

Kind Regards,
George

[brian]

everyone remembers things differently - but it's what written down that counts)

thats why I get so irritated when people write things down that are not correct

[porwig]

I want to offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to the members of the Structural Team. I know you all have given a lot of time and effort and thought on this proposal during the past year.

This proposal adds a lot more detail than others from previous years. I wish the process had gone differently, but I believe you all did a good and thorough job with the task you were asked to take on at the JaB14 leadership summit. I am encouraged that it seems there is now more support for structure changes among the project's leaders than in previous years.

My feedback is that I have mixed feelings about this proposal. I think it will help in some areas:

• Bring more democracy to the process of choosing team leaders
• Bring more democracy to the process of choosing project leaders
• States a commitment to establishing long-term goals
• States a commitment to establishing project-wide processes

But I also think it may bring new friction and complexity in other areas:

• Not a truly open election process
• Too many elections (2x per year for 1 year terms, plus the potential for more whenever someone steps aside)
• No effective check/balance mechanism on leadership
• Potential to create more silos
• Reduced prominence in leadership for coding/development
• Seven new department coordination teams adds a new layer to the structure
• No definition for how Ombudsman is chosen or removed. This new role also seems to have a disconnect/mismatch between their responsibility (a lot) and their authority (a little).
• Possibility of less productivity due to higher turnover in leadership
• Doesn't make it easier for workers to become leaders as stated

To me, the key questions to consider for those in leadership who will be voting on the final proposal are:

• Will implementing this proposal bring enough potential benefits that it will be worth the certain significant new friction it will create?
• Will implementing this proposal lead to more evolution and improvements, or will it lead to more frustration and stagnation?
• Instead of considering only one option for change, would it be better to explore more ideas and approaches (including empowering community members to get involved), and also to consider potentially reaching out to external experts such as universities to consider their ideas and guidance?

Thank you for asking for feedback from the community on this important issue.

[NathanHawks]

I wasn't going to be the first person to say it, but phproberto took care of that for me:

OSM takes the control

Now as member of the PLT/CLT you are not part of OSM. The effective power (financial and legal) is still there but you don't feel part of a corporation. OSM is and should stay as a TOOL to serve the software & the community. As Radek pointed this is for me a step backwards to Mambo.

Emphasis mine.


Indeed. Joomla was created because of the community's reaction to a restructuring nobody understood or wanted, involving a corporation that wanted to be a bigpants decider instead of just another basket of inefficient volunteers.

I don't see any way to defuse this core problem without ejecting the corporation part: you are taking Joomla away from the many and giving it to a small official few, in such a way where there is no undo if it turns out to have been the worst mistake ever.

My take: Just don't do that. Just don't give thousands of peoples' volunteer effort to a corporation. It doesn't matter whether the reality is benign. It didn't matter what Miro actually wanted to accomplish when the entire community freaked out over it back then. "OSM is forming a corporation and seizing control of Joomla." If that statement is true, it's a massive image problem and a massive potentially-real, unfixable road to total project theft no matter what the mitigating details are, IMO.

Let's seriously not repeat history.

The transfer of rights to a closed corporation is my only problem. If you need a legal and management body, why not work with the FSF?

Hooray GNU/Joomla and a permanent guarantee that the project will be fully protected?

A corporation is a prime target for usurpation and having its people replaced with greedy barons. Reminds me of the story of how Dungeons & Dragons was stolen from its creators after to too much trust in too few people during difficult times.

Edit: One other note. I worry that the people who make business-y decisions think too much of themselves. We just got the dev team back to breathing air that's 100% sourced from reality, vis the abortive and unrealistic LTS/STS plan (which I blame for causing rush-to-shelf-cycle pressures and shoddy early-3.X releases). I worry that this entire exercise is a fantasy being had by people who mistakenly believe there is value in leading at a time when there is this much work to be done. Just like the fantasy that prior, patently-arbitrary, marketing-style cycles could be upheld by a volunteer coder base. In other words I see a lot of potential for negative value here, beyond the concerns above, having to do with outright useless, outright interference being imposed on the people who actually do things around here.

[infograf768]

Roberto, Michael and Andrew have, better than I, expressed their concerns about this not so new proposal (emphasis by me).
I will therefore only express my concern about the way this "Local Communities" department is presented.

Ronni describes a structure based on countries, Marijke on languages (and sometimes on countries/languages).

This is a basic decision to take, before even proposing such a new "department". It changes the whole nature of it.
Until now, we always have based Mambo and Joomla on languages and not countries for translations.

Whatever the decision taken, the way that department itself will be composed (its members) has important consequences on the voting power inside of it and therefore the election to an upper structure (in this proposal: OSM).

Let's say it is organised by languages and that each language makes a team. (The demonstration also works if organised by countries).

The description given by Marijke makes no sense to me:

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.

Will a language/team represented by a unique translator/interlocutor ( we have a few) have the same voting power as a language/team with one or many local communities (organised each around a different site)?

Within a language/team, will a single individual have the same voting power as an entire community? For example a single French or Italian person versus all joomla.fr or joomla.it ?

Let me also remind to all the issues we had when we created the Translation Teams (in Mambo times and at Joomla start, although we may still have some issues today...) when one group wanted to be the "official" language site vs another one and not wanting to collaborate (Dutch and Greek at the time).

These considerations make me think that although it is a good idea to create a place (or structure with communication channels) where people dealing with languages in Joomla (core translations, JCM, JED, joomla.com, local JUGs, etc.) can meet and collaborate, it is not a good idea to make it a "department" on the same level as Production Team for example.

[Jenny]

Is there any progress on sharing the foundational documents that form the basis of the change - Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures and Conflict of Interest Policies? Also a more fully formed explanation of the Ombudsman, how they are selected, if it is an individual or a team, and the policies that govern their process would also be helpful.

[ChiaraAliotta]

I want to thank the Structure Team to put together this proposal.
There are many good points arise here and I am sure some of them will be taken in consideration.

I hope this new structure will coordinate in a better way the different teams, giving also the possibility to each small team to take their own decisions/autonomy. I think this document is a good base to start with and I do appreciate all the effort put on adding some feedback I have also suggested.

[masterchief]

Just another observation regarding "No accountability and reporting". I believe http://volunteers.joomla.org/reports hits that nail on the head by several orders of magnitude. The only thing missing is the ability for me to add that stream to my feed reader

[agrevet]

Is there any progress on sharing the foundational documents that form the basis of the change - Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures and Conflict of Interest Policies? Also a more fully formed explanation of the Ombudsman, how they are selected, if it is an individual or a team, and the policies that govern their process would also be helpful.

Jen - about the grievance procedures: I agree that’s really important, and that’s why these elements were added, but so far the team has decided that hammering out the detail of this part is not fundamental to the proposal. The Joomla project functions today without any global process in place. If adopted, the proposal will continue to undergo further definition. We have been looking at examples of how other organizations manage their code of conduct and grievance issues. If you have some suggestions of examples that you think are good, we’d be happy to hear them.

The proposal suggest a corporate business like structure. Joomla now has some kind of hippy structure and I really like that. What we really need is more trust and safety for people working in teams. A corporate structure implements a system of control, un-trust and fear. Needless to say that this is never going to work in a 100% volunteers based organisation.

One of the things this proposal aims to provide, is a model that can be explained, marketed and widely accepted, in terms that make sense around the world. It may sound more corporate, but explaining the hippie culture to a big client or business isn’t easy. We can’t even explain it to ourselves. Joomla is capable of becoming more popular as a choice for big businesses and organizations. We have tried very hard to find the best labels possible for the different teams and roles. Again, suggestions are welcome. Joomla remains a 100% volunteer organization. Removing the barriers between the leadership teams should improve trust (separated leadership teams definitely leads to mistrust), and the structure we are explaining gives more autonomy to the teams, and better representation of all volunteers at the top of leadership.

I, like many others, have been part of the project for ten years. In that time, I've felt and been part of the Joomla project/community. Not one second in those ten years, I felt that I was part of OSM.

When Joomla leadership is called OSM, the Joomla brand name will be weakened. For every person in leadership speaking about Joomla around the world, they will often speak about Joomla but with an OSM badge.

We are calling the unified leadership team “Open Source Matters, Inc.”, because today that is the name of the group legally responsible for the Joomla name. When I was on OSM there were discussions about possibly changing the name to something more specifically Joomla. The name could be changed. It’s something to think about.

[vdrover]

I really appreciate the time and effort the Structure team put into this document. Any change will be met with resistance, and with so many leaders in the Joomla community, it's expected and desirable to debate in a constructive and open way.

That "Leadership" that we are blessed with in our community is exactly why I like the proposal. It brings the leaders from the various parts of the project and puts them all together so they no longer work against one another.

As a community member, I can also say that I am glad to see leadership from the structure team. Joomla's leadership often gets fairly criticized for not leading. The structure issue is a great departure from that, and if the structure change is approved, I think it will faciliate more leadership and better coordination in the project.

[rdeutz]

The proposal suggest a corporate business like structure. Joomla now has some kind of hippy structure and I really like that. What we really need is more trust and safety for people working in teams. A corporate structure implements a system of control, un-trust and fear. Needless to say that this is never going to work in a 100% volunteers based organisation.

One of the things this proposal aims to provide, is a model that can be explained, marketed and widely accepted, in terms that make sense around the world. It may sound more corporate, but explaining the hippie culture to a big client or business isn’t easy. We can’t even explain it to ourselves.

Who said the structure we have can’t be explained?

Today: We have 3 leadership team for various aspects of the project, one for finances and organisation, one for site management, forum and community support and one for all around coding and development.

Other Structure: We have one coordination team with 7 departments for various aspects of the project to facilitate the leaders in many teams sorted under the department coordinators.

And further more, where is the need to explain the structure of the project to a client? A client will know if the tool I suggest can do the job.

Removing the barriers between the leadership teams should improve trust (separated leadership teams definitely leads to mistrust),

You are comparing apples with oranges. Separated leadership teams doesn’t mean that they are barriers between them and this is not automatically coupled with mistrust. You can have mistrust within a small, larger or between teams and you can have trust in all of them also. They key is understanding what are THE others are doing. So communication and information is the key.

That "Leadership" that we are blessed with in our community is exactly why I like the proposal. It brings the leaders from the various parts of the project and puts them all together so they no longer work against one another.

I have two questions Victor.

1) How you came to the conclusion that the current leadership is working against each other?
2) And when that is the case, how do you think the other structure will make sure that this will not happened again.

[Jenny]

Is there any progress on sharing the foundational documents that form the basis of the change - Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures and Conflict of Interest Policies? Also a more fully formed explanation of the Ombudsman, how they are selected, if it is an individual or a team, and the policies that govern their process would also be helpful.

Jen - about the grievance procedures: I agree that’s really important, and that’s why these elements were added, but so far the team has decided that hammering out the detail of this part is not fundamental to the proposal. The Joomla project functions today without any global process in place. If adopted, the proposal will continue to undergo further definition. We have been looking at examples of how other organizations manage their code of conduct and grievance issues. If you have some suggestions of examples that you think are good, we’d be happy to hear them.

These policy elements are fundamental to the process. They form the basis of governance procedure that every single person at every single level of participation has to agree to, to be able to participate. If they weren't important and fundamental they wouldn't have been mentioned repeatedly at almost every single level of governance. It doesn't make sense in my opinion to be creating a structure and then institute policy to fit the structure. You create a unified policy of practices that support a healthy community and then create the structure that best supports policy and procedure.

[mandville]

ok. i sat on my hands long enough.
i can not believe that after Nth years of having a COC and such rules as "i dont like you, your sacked, no complaints" that it appears the grievance procedure is an afterthought!!!! even the ombudsman position was considered a moot point in the new structure chat on slack. the suggestion there seemed to be follow the standard procedure. post it in public or shut up . despicable
if they are fundamental to the process why are they only now being considered? has the community members are petulant children mentality suddenly changed.
where do i complain about the apparent land grabbing of unneeded rooms in slack and now glip? if it costs the project money per user then why are they allowed to be created?
under the new scheme it still seems you will be sacking some of the current knowledgeable teams and replace them by people who want badges. i don't think many will stay around to assist the new teams during transition. where is the glossy consultation brochure?

[brian]

FYI glip is not costing anything

[masterchief]

io.js seems to have been a good thing for Node. #justsaying

[ot2sen]

First of all I would like to thank the Structural Team for their impressive work made on bringing this proposal to the table.

I have read it multiple times and taken my time to digest the proposal as a whole.
Read it this evening again, and I do find it well defined in its purpose and its solutions.

As a community we are not here to just question the work made by others, when it doesn´t suit our personal "best choise" image we may have in our heads.
We also are obligated to support our fellow team members in their efforts, and to listen to what is actually in the Words, more than to modify the words to allow us to disagree with the solution proposed.

Admitted, I did that initially, to myself. The exact thought was "oh no, they are bringing back the old core team"

I was part of that, and also part of those proposing and putting the current structure in action. We did our best then, it wasn´t perfect, but it was needed. We were in a critical state of everyone burning out in 2009. The current structure with some fresh blood did give new life to more things.

It has never been perfect, because we didn´t solve the central problem then. We can solve it now, but it is not in the lines of text of the proposal. And then again, it may actually be hidden in between the lines - that solution that solves the issues that occur in any structure.

What is this problem he is talking about? Leadership culture.
Or the lack of a leadership culture that values; differences (of all kinds), initiative, innovation, friendlyness, openness and trust.
That was what we didnt solve in 2009. I hope the proposal today infact do lead the way to solve this.
Culture is key to a healthy organisation and community.

Our history of leadership and organisational has always been with a core of control. If we can replace control with a healthy culture, we are on our way to a more sustainable org. and community.

I truly believe the Structural Team did find some of the bricks to make this happen.
They suggest a joint leadership with a focus on leading and being visionary. Bravo.
People are concerned about OSM taking over - I am not. Whatever the new board is named it is an actual leadership of the project as a whole. Not just busy volunteers getting another badge. Actual leaders, put there by the community.

That last sentence is important - by the community - listen people, they are opening up for a direct say. We as a community ask for that, demanded it, shouted for it, for years. It is there in the proposal. Good stuff.

And they do take accountability serious, at the same time as they remember the social side of things and consider to look after those taking a lead position. That is rather important too. Backup on any position.

I see some are concerned on the important 7th area 'Local communities'. I would be concerned if the global non British part of the community didn´t have a focus area.
Naming probably can be adjusted, it could be Globalisation or anything that fits the bill. I see it as an important hub for the World to step inside the official joomla.org sites. Good to see the Structural Team understood that joomla is about all together, and opens a door to everyone. Kudos.

All in all, it is not perfect, but is a gigantic step ahead and opening some closed doors that are ready to be opened after 10 years of trying.

Well done team - I give you a strong Yes

[Tessa Mero]

As a current OSM member, I’d like to comment on this, now that I’m up to date on reading this thread.

First off, I’m glad people are thanking the structural team. They have put so many long hours into putting together the structural change proposal and proceeding with the planned timeline and have been very organized with this.

I do feel we NEED a structural change because it will put an organization to our structure and make it so we have 100% transparency throughout all the groups, with a hierarchy level. We are growing and expanding into sub teams pretty rapidly.

Now, the exact proposal that we have, should that be accepted? With 1/3 of the votes already getting a yes and a lot of things that still seem unclear, such as “the voting process”, “workload of the coordinator”, and “OSM” officers being “On Top” of the hierarchy, that really defeats the whole purpose of how we are as a community.

Doesn’t this look obviously unfair?

Now, let’s take a look at Andrew’s response on page 2.

We NEED to keep in high consideration of our structural proposal. We NEED to obviously put more work into it and not just jump and vote on it. The amount of questions that are still being asked have been GREAT questions and also proves that more time is needed. It’s so obvious, right?

OSM should not be above the Joomla organization, ever. It’s small group that is designed to assist us and not make overall project decisions, but rather guide us with those project decisions. OSM should be at the bare minimum. If we need a good voting power, why can’t we do a joint leadership vote on EVERYTHING? Why is OSM only voting for things such as our own positions? It would make sense to me.

At the moment, we have too many “process documents” and important tasks that need to be done and lacking the participation, but all of a sudden we want to stop and reorganize the whole structure? Is that suppose to solve all our issues now and make everyone participate and work hard? It’s not. If we worked out an overall list of goals to fix the problems we have now, that would be a better use of all our time rather than bringing on so many new ideas and projects without fixing current stuff.

So in summary, let’s take in consideration that there will be a structural change and let’s make comments to improve it in a way where the community will approve of it.

I’m not looking for a response to my comment. I just want people to know what needs to happen. =)

[sarahwatz]

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?

The current leadership consist (If I am not wrong) of 30 people. I doubt anyone from the "Structural Team" will vote against this proposal (in any form). Which means that almost ⅓ of the current leadership is going to vote for it.

It feels like you are trying to make it look like that this initiative has come from a closed group of leaders. This is not the truth. The members of the Structural Team has been chosen to represent the three Leadership Teams in this task to work together to produce a proposal for a new structure and methodology for the organisation. This was decided at the leadership summit at JAB14 and again confirmed at the leadership summit at JWC14. So it makes no sense that the leaders that has contributed to this version of the proposal shouldn’t utilise their vote. Please keep in mind that there has been some turnover as well in the Structural Team during the process.

Just to make it clear. It is not a vote for or against ourselves it’s a vote to accept or not accept the Structure Proposal. The current leaders might or might not be leaders in the new organisation. Anyone in the community is eligible for the positions.

[NathanHawks]

I do feel we NEED a structural change because it will put an organization to our structure and make it so we have 100% transparency throughout all the groups, with a hierarchy level. We are growing and expanding into sub teams pretty rapidly.

...and...

OSM should not be above the Joomla organization, ever. It’s small group that is designed to assist us and not make overall project decisions, but rather guide us with those project decisions. OSM should be at the bare minimum. If we need a good voting power, why can’t we do a joint leadership vote on EVERYTHING? Why is OSM only voting for things such as our own positions? It would make sense to me.

At the moment, we have too many “process documents” and important tasks that need to be done and lacking the participation, but all of a sudden we want to stop and reorganize the whole structure? Is that suppose to solve all our issues now and make everyone participate and work hard? It’s not. If we worked out an overall list of goals to fix the problems we have now, that would be a better use of all our time rather than bringing on so many new ideas and projects without fixing current stuff.

One thing to always keep on the table at times like this: doing the core thing as if it's the only thing that matters, is what drives the existence of everything else. The tail cannot pull the cart, only the dog can pull the cart.

I think you're all suffering legacy baggage. It's a brand new day, and Joomla is a noticeably better project overall than it was last year. The key thing is to attract more volunteers.

Try proceeding from this assumption: every user cares and wants to volunteer -- they need Joomla at top form. Try this assumption too: every day of the year, is a day when someone new will become either curious, or ready, to start helping on any given aspect of the project.

My emphasis here is that if there was a group who ought to be deciding where effort needs to be spent, if there is a project where bling and polish needs to be applied, it is equally in these three things, because they are one:
- updating and improving the docs for new developers, extension developers, template designers, translators, bug hunters, *cough* auditors, infrastructuralistas, etc unto all the types
- channelizing authoritative info-flow between peers by some manner of vote-able streams/feeds. This could be as simple as adding two features to the forum, a Thanks button and post/thread tagging, but I don't actually think risking forum stability is the best implementation. A vote-able knowledge base app would be best.
- communicating with volunteers constantly - daily/weekly/monthly by option via email, and use the forum in more diverse-but-unified ways to funnel people into these direct-collaboration channels, with more finesse and attraction-base messaging.

In short it's about getting all these leaders into the [* spam *] roots level, away from the corporate marketing projects, doing the things that make more work happen, instead of bunkering down for corporate art projects. I agree the structure proposal has been a worthy work, if it's leading to such forthright thinking as quoted above. I've had interactions with several people I could commend by name who seem to be out there ready to not only shake digital hands, but risk time with volunteers who seem to want to do more. That array of interactions needs to be as potent and frictionless as possible.

Were I to sum all this up, I think that instead of the ornate figurehead being the next revamp project, it is the wiki that needs not one, but two TLC overhauls, next. One to step-up the regularity with which its content is brought into updated reality (including with respect to volunteering opportunities and the how-to's thereof, with an eye toward alternate forms of engaging the information in these key volunteering categories); the other to promote the material, and work with docs-team newcomers to make sure their new fire actually gets harnessed.

Sorry, I guess I'm just tl;dr-incompatible. I said lead by working, not by voting on segmented colors and shapes (See, now it sounds like I'm just being a jerk.)

[zanderp]

Many thanks to all that read the proposal and shared their feedback!

There will always be areas of disagreement, but I do have hope we can find a good consensus. So I'm glad to see constructive and detailed input. Your feedback certainly helps the Structural Team to further refine the proposal and make things more clear where needed, thanks for pointing out those areas.

The team will have a meeting on Wednesday, April 15 to discuss the feedback provided so far.

Please feel welcome to continue sharing your feedback, this will be possible until April 21. You can find the complete timeline in the blogpost http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leade ... ology.html

[deleted user]

Sarah, the issue Nic and Radek highlighted doesn't concern who the leaders will be in the structure, but the fact that the structural team is also part of the body that is voting for the proposal. It is presumed they will all vote yes. As there is a conflict of interest on their part, it would be better if the members of that team were excluded from the voting process because of it.

[masterchief]

Sub-committees/teams/departments voting in favour of their own proposals is not familiar to me as being a conflict of interest.

[NathanHawks]

The point is that a body voting on whether it should give itself [something it wants... money, power, etc], will always get that pay raise. Being allowed to vote on giving yourself more power is basically the ultimate example of a conflict of interest. Partiality is not "at question" in that case, but rather impossible..

I'm not familiar with any book of acknowledged conflicts of interest, however such a book would automatically entail a conflict of interest for its editors, because any shady activities by those editors, would naturally be omitted, in that book...

I don't see how the community is expected to gain confidence in this procedure or its results, given a process such that, after the community states its opinion until the 21st, a select group will do what it thinks is best, and won't ask for an opinion of how well it did implementing the first round of feedback, before going to a vote. That's the difference between accountability, and attempting to project an image of accountability. One round of edits, on a thing like this, only surrounds a bad smell with another bad smell.

This isn't about anyone accusing anyone else. I don't know or care how trustworthy the people currently selected for any given positions, are. The structure and its impact over time, is what matters here. These following two arrangements, are totally different from each other in all the important ways:

- Real transparency and real community accountability
- "...and doing this will give the appearance that this process is transparent and is arising from community input..."

The latter of those need not be happening because it's a plot, in order to be happening. I don't care whether it's a plot today because once the transfer occurs, after the structures come to exist and have become the status quo, people or plans can change. You don't tell people you're lying on the campaign trail, while on the campaign trail, nor do you remind people that you're incapable of controlling the long term effects of a plan, while you are trying to sell that plan.

I don't care that nobody's acknowledging my messages -- I'm the guy who made the history video glorifying the Mambo exit drama, and who now, laughably, thinks he's going to get into the JRD despite being such a constant gadfly. Whatever. I feel this needs to be said by someone who is often accused by others of having said a thing better than they could have said it.

In non-commercial open source projects where there is no progress but volunteer-fueled progress, despite the fact that devs and other workhorse volunteers are the hardest to elicit detailed, considered, non-tech feedback from, you have to look at acquiring and applying that feedback as an interative process. This is a system and you are talking to people whose heads are iteratively-designed systems, which they have built (are building) in order to interact with, and build, iteratively-designed systems.

Hitting them with a long business-y document which represents a new regime they will have to operate under, but telling them they only get one iteration to work with it, is a horrible (yes yes, Hyperbole Monday only comes once a week; never minding there are like a billion other days in the week, also for hyperbole) -- really horrible way to pressure a dev, to attend to something they aren't inclined towards.

Adding to that the fact that they are busy actually doing the project at one of its trickiest stages, right now, with one decoupling going imperfectly just behind, another decoupling ahead, the router being rewritten, 4.x concerns looming about as close as they are going to get, new apps to learn in order to continue daily business... during this, they get only a few weeks to design the system that will hang over their head forever? That's a dark cloud before it's even had a chance to form.

This is what I meant when I said that leadership teams in these situations can turn good projects into bad ones, or as I actually said, how a leadership team can become a body of pure interference standing between the doers and what they need to do. Think of how many things you could have been doing instead of reading this long-asterisks post. The proposal has already had good effects in the form of discussion, and could have other great effects down the line. But it could easily have overwhelmingly negative effects -- unforeseen consequences are always as near as the setting of one overzealous, largely arbitrary, all-critical deadline.

I am afraid I am probably not done here, and I apologize to the extent that I may have put words in any core devs' mouths, and I thank anyone who has bothered to take this post seriously.

[dhuelsmann]

Held my tongue as long as I could.

Simplistic example - anyone seen the 2015 finished budget (it's now April 13, 2015) on the OSM website? For that matter anyone seen the 2014 end of year budget to actuals on the OSM website?
Additionally, anyone actually seen a balance sheet since 2013 on the OSM website or a P&L statement in years on OSM's website. Or even the income tax filings for 2013 on OSM's website?

I sure haven't and this is the group that touts transparency!

Speaking of which, are you aware OSM is in the process of voting to extend the Board Of Director's terms because those terms technically expired on April 8th? Of course the conundrum here is that the existing bylaws do not allow for extending the terms once a Director has been elected. The term may be specified before hand but if not then it defaults to one year.

When asked, a board representative didn't appear to be interested in doing the correct thing which would be modifying the bylaws.

Aw gee, think those items should have been revealed to the community as part of OSM's increased transparency initiative? Or is there a transparency initiative?

I don't see one at all and this move to corporate dominance of a volunteer organization just smacks of a power grab for those interested in that sort of thing.

Other's here have voiced their concerns more eloquently than I could and I don't see any effort to accommodate those concerns. Another strike against as far as I am concerned anyway.

[agrevet]

I’d like to address the suggestion some have made that the proposal would in fact turn our current situation of three leadership silos into seven silos.

Today we have three separate leadership teams (PLT, CLT and OSM) at the highest level of the project. One of these teams is guided by a set of by-laws (OSM) and the others are not. Voting rights between the leadership teams are not equal. For example, today only OSM votes on the budget, and things like the LGPL licensing vote from a year ago. Each team has its own way of functioning. There is no single leadership body composed of members from each of the teams. There is no structural transparency on a leadership level.

The proposal seeks to remove the silos by creating one unified leadership body - not three and not seven. One. The seven departments cover the different areas of activity of the entire project. Team members in the departments elect Team Leaders, who, in turn, elect the Department Coordinators (7 total - one for each department). These seven Department Coordinators will sit together on a leadership team at the highest level of the Joomla project - one leadership group having monthly meetings, representing and discussing all areas of the project, overseeing project-wide goals, with an equal vote in what happens, etc.

The task of the Department Coordinators is to facilitate cross-team and cross-department communication where needed. Silos will not exist, thanks to these roles created to be sure that the project runs like a well-oiled machine. If a part of the machine is not running well, the Department Coordinator is there to help resolve it.

And related to this is comments about stepping backwards to Mambo days, and the idea that OSM or one team is grabbing power for itself: this is not a company or a corporation or one greedy team taking control, but a unified leadership team where all departments are equally represented. The officers (President, Treasurer, Secretary) are not above the Department Coordinators, or separate from them, but on the same level and in the same group, working together in one organizational board.