Membership Request: Michelangelo van Dam

[Michelangelo van Dam]

Dear list,


During TEK in Chicago last week, Paul Jones suggested me to request a membership to this group since I represent a large PHP community as president of PHPBenelux user group and involved with many professional development agencies and communities. Even though I cannot match the level of Cal Evans (nobody can match his status), I do believe I can cast a voice for many PHP professionals on an international level (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg for starters).

I've been following this group as silent listener, but I think time is to step up a notch and become a voice for PHP developers who are not (directly) tied to a particular framework or organization.

Best regards,

Michelangelo

[Evert Pot]

Hey Michelangelo,

I know you a little bit, so I know we'd have a good guy on our hands who listens before speaking, and ask questions before giving an opinion.

but.. out of principal I would probably vote -1. I strongly feel that you should be a voice for the community first before being a vote. In your specific case I happen to know you, but there have been many before that.
Although they have the internet credentials (after some googling), it's very hard to determine the value of their contribution if their first message(s) on the mailing list is a membership request.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PHP Standards Working Group" group.
> To post to this group, send email to php-st...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to php-standard...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/php-standards?hl=en.
>

[Hari K T]

Hey DragonBe ,

Yes you are popular in that name Michelangelo :-) .

I feel Evert Pot  is also not wrong.

But there is an interesting project Michelangelo can represent.

Why didn't you mentioned about

https://github.com/DragonBe/teamphp

Not making this as a communication thread , I am signing off :-) .

Hari K T
M: +91-9388758821 | W: http://harikt.com/blog

[Cal Evans]

+1

I've known Mike for 6-7 years now. I've watched from over here in the US as he has helped build the European PHP community and even spent a year over there seeing the impact of his work first-hand.

I agree with Paul when he recommended Mike.

I know Mike to be an honest man, a trustworthy man, but most of all a man who works tirelessly for the PHP community.

I do not think we need many community representatives on this group. Given the nature of the group, it doesn't make sense. That having been said, I ask that you strongly consider Mike as a candidate for membership.

I feel so strongly about the value that Mike will add to this group that I will make this offer. If you are concerned about having too many community leaders involved in the group, I will gladly give up my voting rights if they are handed to Mike. I believe in the mission of this group and am proud to be a member but I'm not too proud to recognize when there are people better than me to do the job.

I vote +1 on Michelangelo van Dam's membership request.

=C=

--
Read this book before you hire a 

developer to build your website.

Avoiding a Goat Rodeo

[Evert Pot]

Well that's a strong argument :)

I also have no doubt about what Michelangelo can contribute.
I kind of put him as an example, he is indeed one of the best known PHP developer in the Benelux area.
I feel in general there is a ton of value in people with the appropriate background to contribute. I actually don't feel that strong about having 1 community seat, or the project you represent, but much more about what's being brought to the table.

Aside from how well we know people to be good, or who we vouch for; I don't think it's a really big stretch to also ask to engage in the process before getting voting rights.

This, in my mind, will only strengthen the applicants position. Not just in the case of Michelangelo, but also future and past applicants that claim a similar spot.

So I have no doubt Michelangelo can help us, but I'd like to give everybody the same treatment.

/end of rant

[Paul M. Jones]

Hi all,

I agree with Cal on all points, except the part about Cal leaving. I vote +1 for Michelangelo (and -1 on Cal giving up his seat).

-- pmj

[Handrus Nogueira]

I'm not a voting member, but I would add to the voice that having Michelangelo on the group would be great. Anyway he must be representing a community or a project. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

So far I can only see members from projects with strong communities built around them, it would be nice to finally have someone that is influential in communities, not necessarily built out of a framework/project.

Anyway, I believe there must be a clarification on what he will be representing before any votes. 

So my question in general (and I believe many others have the same doubts)

  1 - Can Michelangelo represent PHPBenelux or does he have to represent a project?

 (I believe he can by the rules we have today)

2012/6/1 Paul M. Jones <pmjo...@gmail.com>

--
Handrus Stephan Nogueira

[Paul M. Jones]

On Jun 1, 2012, at 11:02 AM, Handrus Nogueira wrote:

> I'm not a voting member, but I would add to the voice that having Michelangelo on the group would be great. Anyway he must be representing a community or a project. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)
>
> So far I can only see members from projects with strong communities built around them, it would be nice to finally have someone that is influential in communities, not necessarily built out of a framework/project.
>
> Anyway, I believe there must be a clarification on what he will be representing before any votes.
>
> So my question in general (and I believe many others have the same doubts)
> 1 - Can Michelangelo represent PHPBenelux or does he have to represent a project?
> (I believe he can by the rules we have today)

This is a great, great question. I'm beginning to think it *might* be wise to allow "User Group Representatives". There's a lot of leaders out there who don't run software projects per se but who do have influence across a broad range of developers.

At the same time, I'm wary of spreading the voting rights too much. It'd be really easy to game that system and say "I lead the PHP User Group of 123 Main Street, My Town, 90210" (where you're the only member).

Thoughts?


-- pmj

[Marco Pivetta]

@Paul that goes a bit to far in my opinion... That way it's turning into a parliament :)
Local user groups don't have a big impact on the PHP world in my personal opinion, or at least I've never heard of anything fantastic coming from a UG. That makes just the chatting and discussion flood increase, and I can just tell that you all went very far at being meta in the last months.

As an Italian, I see parliaments as big rooms where nothing happens and everyone talks :P

Marco Pivetta

http://twitter.com/Ocramius     

http://marco-pivetta.com    

-- pmj

[Paul M. Jones]

On Jun 1, 2012, at 11:14 AM, Marco Pivetta wrote:

> @Paul that goes a bit to far in my opinion... That way it's turning into a parliament :)

Yeah, that was my fear.

> Local user groups don't have a big impact on the PHP world in my personal opinion, or at least I've never heard of anything fantastic coming from a UG. That makes just the chatting and discussion flood increase, and I can just tell that you all went very far at being meta in the last months.
>
> As an Italian, I see parliaments as big rooms where nothing happens and everyone talks :P

I will take the Italian point of view as authoritative, then. Thanks :-)


-- pmj

[Hari K T]

Local user groups don't have a big impact on the PHP world in my personal opinion, or at least I've never heard of anything fantastic coming from a UG. 

I disagree with that :) . If the person who runs the local group, knows what's happening in the PHP world , he can do some impact . I feel so :) .

 

I see parliaments as big rooms where nothing happens and everyone talks :P

This I agree with you .

Also there should be something like,

1 ) The PSR should be followed in atleast next major version ?

Else I will come with some API and I will not go using it if the stuff is not accepted .

I am not sure , forcing someone is a good idead . Else it will be just throwing mails here to there and vice versa like a recursion :-) .

Thanks 

[Cal Evans]

I am -1 on this. 

The focus of the group should remain PROJECT Interoperability. I do see a benefit to having one or two community leaders on the project but I wouldn't go so far as to open it up to all UG leaders. People like Mike hold sway over community members way beyond his local group and honestly, having him on-board would help drive acceptance of the group. 

IMHO, etc.

=C=

-- pmj

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PHP Standards Working Group" group.
To post to this group, send email to php-st...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to php-standard...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/php-standards?hl=en.

[Johannes Schmitt]

Acceptance of this group by community members does not really seem necessary IF the group's focus is just on interoperability between projects.

I believe that this discussion like several discussions in other thread are mainly a result because the goals of this group have not been clearly formulated, yet. If we just focus on interoperability here (which we are not as PSR-2 is a good counter-example), then I do not see a point in having any community representative. If we also want to elaborate good standards for PHP in general (which I personally find a more favorable goal), then yes ofc we should also have community representatives (and probably more than one).

Cheers,
Johannes

[Cal Evans]

Johannes,

tl;dr

====

Yeah, I agree with you.

Long version: (I'm a writer, this IS a long version) :)

========================================

I do not disagree with you. Maybe "acceptance" wasn't the right word and even if it is, I may be attempting to serve a purpose in this group that it not wanted or needed.  :)

To put it bluntly, this group has a PR problem. I'd say a good chunk of it stems from the chosen name, but part of it is because of the way the community thinks. We seem to distrust organizations...a lot.

I do not participate in many of the discussions even though I read them all. this is because you are right, it doesn't really affect the community. If it did, trust me, I would speak up. :) I view my role more as a "defender of the faith" if you will. This group is doing great things but there is a lot of misconceptions about what it is and the purpose it serves.

As I attend Conferences, User Groups and any gathering of PHP developers, I am quick (sometimes too quick) to defend the purpose of this group. That, blogging about it, podcasting about it and in general doing everything I can to raise it's profile and clear away the fog surrounding it is what I bring to the group.

I do not believe we need many in my role and while Paul is quick to vote -1 anytime I offer to step aside, I serve as a voting member of this group, at the pleasure of the group. However, whether it is me, Mike, or someone else well known in the wide area PHP community, I do believe that this role - not  the man in it - serves an important function.

All that having been said, I have voiced my concern about bringing in too many people that do not represent projects. You must have skin in the game and you must be committed to the goals of the group, even if you disagree on a specific proposal. This group has been very welcoming to new members and very fair on how it enforces it's rule of "you MUST represent a project to be eligible to vote and you CAN ONLY vote once, no matter how many projects you work on." We need to hold tight to this rule.

IMHO, etc.

=C=

[Handrus Nogueira]

First thanks for opening a new thread pmj.

I was also concerned that my comments would re-open the flood gates of "representing community at large", but since it is PHPBenelux I believe it is worth the risk.

First we can't compare PHPBenelux with a local community, its a international community and also a association. So it has a president, is associated with a commercial chamber and so on.

So lets take as an example W3C, its main purpose is to define standards among browsers (like we do among php projects), so the vast majority of the members are elected by companies developing browsers (like for us, people developing the projects). But W3C decisions affects every single person that works behind the internet, so as a way to recognize this input there are a few invited members, representing the community (so called invited experts).

(Ok I've gone far, lets try to make it simpler than my example, but I believe you got the idea)

I fear losing such a great contributor like Michelangelo (I don't think he is going out of the group whatever this discussion leads to, just want him as a voting member), who could add much to the internal organization of this group, reach a really massive number of PHP developers and help us to achieve a real standardization status.

That said, I don't think any community could add a voting member to this group, the same way not every project actually can. We only consider projects with a big community, so why not only big communities as well. The justification behind it still the same, only a person with capacity to mobilize a great number of php fellows can be eligible.

Mather of fact I believe if we consider to add "User Group Representatives" we should think on a system that is kinda "invited specialists". A voting member could have rights to invite a specialist, this invite should be voted like any new membership.

This could lead to more acceptance and better organization. 

2012/6/1 Cal Evans <c...@calevans.com>

--
Handrus Stephan Nogueira

[Hari K T]

Hi , 

First of all its a good discussion whether we need more people representing community or with projects .

About the case of Michelangelo , 

He is an organization member https://github.com/PHPBenelux , 

but apart from it , he himself has a project called TeamPHP 

https://github.com/DragonBe/teamphp

Teamphp is a collaborative communication tool that allows a group of people to share a single twitter account for broadcasting messages.

So I feel he can open with a new member vote representing TeamPHP ?

But the discussion should go on, for we should think whether adding more community members will bring standards or just talks. ( I am not talking about anyone over here, but more people can come say we are community members ).

I also agree with Cal Evans "you MUST represent a project to be eligible to vote and you CAN ONLY vote once, no matter how many projects you work on."

But Cal can continue for Michelangelo can continue for TeamPHP . 

But may be others who don't have a project can't vote , but can voice their opinion as the group is open . 

For a person to communicate in a thread there is no need of a vote :-) . At some point if we think , he is good enough we can make him also a representative from community . But without voicing on any thread we may not know anyone ( Not just saying the case of Michelangelo , I am talking in general ) .

So concluding :

1 ) "you MUST represent a project to be eligible to vote and you CAN ONLY vote once, no matter how many projects you work on."

2 ) And if the person is active and has been contributing enough for the well doing of group , at some point lets take him also to board.

IMHO ie it ..

Thanks

[Drak]

To be honest, until users participate actively in discussions, I don't see why they should be considered for membership at all. One needs not only to see they represent a community, but that they are willing to actively participate and not simply sleep until such time as a vote comes along ad then disappear again. We need to aim for quality and not quantity. This kind of slower approach also allows one to see the personality and character of potential members.

Drak

[Rafael Dohms]

To that point we would have to consider that PHPBR would need a representative as well, since it's an umbrella group over +/- 21 user groups all over brazil.

However I don't ink we need to go that way. As Cal mentioned you need skin to vote, that means your vote will make a difference in your project. And being a voting member does not at all hinder the participation in this group. Non voting members have been the driving force behind some PSR's and have swayed voting one way or the other.

One, two or three votes will not turn anything around really, so I believe community members and leaders have a very important role in discussions as opposed to the actual voting. I also know mike and cal would still be determined to "fix" PR problems even if they were not voting, as I would and have done in brazil up to now.

So even being a community leader myself, I don't think we need to "open the doors" to this category of people in the voting range, just Cal or Cal and Mike is enough. We should promote their participation in discussions and we should be taking this into our communities and actively talking about it and getting feedback as well as peaking interest.

[Andreas Möller]

> to this category of people

"This category of people" - I can't believe I just read this.


Andreas

[Rafael Dohms]

It might have been lost in translation, but it was not meant in any aggressive or discriminative way, take it as my programmer side being quite literal.

Anyway, hopefully the rest of the message is not completely ignored..

[Kinn Julião]

I agree with Dohms,

We have Cal here for this purpose... 

If we open an exception like this, would open for all relevant user group ... and I believe this would cause more confusion than solution ... It is interesting that the whole community has its leader, and Cal is there for this and doing a good job. 

Anyway, I have no karmato  vote ... this is just my humble opinion.

2012/6/3 Rafael Dohms <rdo...@gmail.com>

It might have been lost in translation, but it was not meant in any aggressive or discriminative way, take it as my programmer side being quite literal.

Anyway, hopefully the rest of the message is not completely ignored..

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PHP Standards Working Group" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/php-standards/-/YyMMajBXFioJ.

To post to this group, send email to php-st...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to php-standard...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/php-standards?hl=en.

--

---------------------------------------------------------

             Kinn Coelho Julião

            

                 kinncj.com.br

---------------------------------------------------------

[Andrew Eddie]

On 2 June 2012 00:06, Paul M. Jones <pmjo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So my question in general (and I believe many others have the same doubts)
>>   1 - Can Michelangelo represent PHPBenelux or does he have to represent a project?
>>  (I believe he can by the rules we have today)

I don't have any problem with allowing representation for groups of
people that produce code and those that "consume" code. There is no
reason why representation can't be expanded to include significant
consumers of PHP technologies particularly when interoperability is at
stake. In fact, independent consumers that aren't waving any one
vendor flag are probably going to have a better idea of the real
problems that exist when trying to wire up code from different
projects. To that end I don't see why, in theory, established user
groups could not take on voting representation within this group, and
further, there is also no reason why significant vendor agnostic
companies (those producing PHP solutions made up of one or more of the
vendors represented here) could not be included as well.

The difficulty is how you move from in-theory to in-practice and the
administrative and organisational overheads that would ensue. To that
end, if I saw that a single user group wanted to take this group
seriously, and it's obvious that their constituency will put effort
behind it (for example, the UG may have devoted one or more meetings
to discussing PSR-0), and they are discussing the fundamental problems
we are working towards solving (allowing developers to choose code
from different vendors reliably), why not let them choose someone to
represent them.

In other words, examine each case as it comes on its merit.

Regards,
Andrew Eddie

[Paul Scott]

On 04/06/2012 01:13, Andrew Eddie wrote:
> In other words, examine each case as it comes on its merit.
>

+1 on that point. The thing here is that this is a *framework* interop
group as I understand things. When I see *projects* joining as voting
members that only produce a single vector of innovation - i.e. a CMS is
focused on CMS things and a BB is focused on bulletin board things, each
may not have a full understanding of frameworks as generic code bases
that are re-usable across *all* projects, regardless of flavour.

Having said that, and coming back to the original +1 point though, we
must concede that some folks involved in the more specialised projects
are excellent people and have excellent ideas that need to be heard. I
am not convinced that each of these projects need to be represented as
voting members, but definitely do need to be heard as part of the
discussion with the voting being more "restricted" to people that are
domain experts in writing and maintaining generic frameworks and components.

Just a proposal, I am not wanting to get people's backs out or start
some sort of silly war, so take this as something to think about...

-- Paul

[David Coallier]

On 2 June 2012 04:42, Drak <dr...@zikula.org> wrote:
> To be honest, until users participate actively in discussions, I don't see
> why they should be considered for membership at all. One needs not only to
> see they represent a community, but that they are willing to actively
> participate and not simply sleep until such time as a vote comes along ad
> then disappear again. We need to aim for quality and not quantity. This kind
> of slower approach also allows one to see the personality and character of
> potential members.
>

I'd agree with Drak and use myself as an example. I haven't been able
to participate as much as I'd want due to time constraints therefore I
refrained from voting on various ideas. I voted on the ones I was
active, I'm going to be voting on the ones I'll be active in, but
swaying one way or the other because of friends and lobbying is not
particularly something I'm interested in either doing or even seeing.

Before voting one should step back and see if she/he understands all
the implications of the discussion. Not-so-common common-sense should
be used at all times.

Either way, I don't think it's about quantity, but rather about
quality. Surely there's a model we could use that would work; allowing
less-active people to vote with a lesser degree of power (I'm thinking
about a model that would ressemble something like preferred stocks vs
common stocks vs options. Before boring everyone with financial
models, I'm going to think through this and maybe come back with a
retribution model for active vs non-active participants :P)

--
David Coallier

[guilher...@gmail.com]

Even though I like DragonBe being the representative, my personal consideration cannot be the opinion of the project I represent.

Doctrine voted -1 for DragonBe

Guilherme Blanco
MSN: guilher...@hotmail.com
GTalk: guilhermeblanco
Toronto - ON/Canada

[Michelangelo van Dam]

Hey Hari, Evert,

Thanks for the plug for this community hack-something-useful-together tingy we did at tek, but I rather take point in this as a voice from the community. As Evert says, I listen a lot and make an opinion when I've heard all sides of a story and I think the voice of the community is a valuable asset that can be used.

@Evert, I appreciate the kind words you said here. I feel the same as you, but it were Cal Evans and Paul Jones who said I should become part in this standards group as I know what's going on within the community, the folks that use the tools and frameworks you all are working on. They express their desires and frustrations to me and other community leaders and we have no other means to deliver it upstream except the mailing list of each project. With this mailing list I can filter all these "community feelings" and suggest them once a certain topic needs decision upon. Consider my voice to be the balance in the force of project owners and project users.

Again, I'm not a community Godfather as Cal is, but I've got a tight relation with user group organizers and we share our member's feelings a lot and I believe I can provide good feedback in certain matters.

Hope this clarifies things why I requested membership. 

Michelangelo

[Michelangelo van Dam]

Dear group,

For some reason I created a storm in a glass of water, which was not my intention and way beyond my feeling towards this group and the cause this group serves. I hereby revoke my request to become a voting member and participate solely as a community voice. This way I can show this group my devotion and earn my seat at the table in a later stage. I don't seek popularism nor want to become a disturbance in this group.

So dear group, don't let my membership request distract you from your important work bringing interoperability amongst the frameworks and projects as it's no longer an issue. Go and be awesome!

Michelangelo

[Hari K T]

Hi Michelangelo,

I am a reader of your blog, tweets, slides etc. So I know you not personally, but virtually.

I am not sure whether my words hurts you. If so, I am sorry.

I was telling about the same case earlier which we have 

Membership Request: Peter Cowburn (the community at large) 

See thread

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/php-standards/9Xdd_l86L7E/discussion

We all love you as a PHP community member, and we welcome you to voice your opinion to php-fig

Thank you

Hari K T
M: +91-9388758821 | W: http://harikt.com/blog