Words from a Mozillian

[Dicky Moe]

Hello people,

we, who do not wish to be identified, yet, have a lot to tell-or rather, EXPOSE!

Friends, Mozillians, Open Web enthusiasts! Lend me your ears;
­
Mozilla Community is one among a few communities that preaches an Open web that strives for transparency over the internet. But! Let’s
rather introspect whether we are maintaining the mentioned TRANSPARENT and OPEN nature within
our self.

Here are some instances that's recorded in our mind that makes us think about it. But why do people not say it out in the Open? It’s because the so-called community is “Dictated” and controlled by a few members who cannot be Opposed or Questioned!

[1]Selection process for MozFest

Since a while now, the Mozillians subscribed on multiple lists have been receiving updates about the candidates selected for MozFest 2014 one of the largest events hosted by Mozilla! All the Mozillians who’ve seen the “so-called” criteria for the selection process listed in the wiki would definitely agree with us when it comes to the transparency and some of the members chosen.

Very valid is the comment given by one of the Mozillians who asked for a justification or rather a short note on why each and every person was selected for the same. The reply from council was great but wasn't up to the request.

With the growing contributor base, the same set of people invited over and over for these events instead of giving a chance for new contributors. This can be argued upon by saying “The selection is based on Experience” which is a paradox because the experience CAN only be gained when the person gets a chance to attend events!

WE ECHO A DEMAND ON THE NOTE WHY EACH MOZILLIAN WAS SELECTED FOR MOZFEST
ALONG WITH A MORE DETAILED SELECTION CRITERIA.



[2]MozCamp Beta India

The MozCamp Beta, one among the reformed events and the first of it’s kind in the world. A team of 6 members (so called core team) have “chosen” and reviewed over 109 volunteers to select a total of 90 for the event from India.

NOTE that there was NO FORMAL application for the same found in the mailing list, Moilla wiki or Community wiki. So from where did these applicants come from?

If you don’t get what we’re saying, please check the attachment :  https://www.sendspace.com/file/2an1e5
COULD THE CONCERNED PEOPLE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS?

[3]Budget requests

The Mozilla Reps program started to empower the Mozillians to become leaders in the community and inspire volunteers is turning out to some thing else especially with Budgets.

The budget request made by the so called Community leaders for any event is always accepted without any questions while community members who have or had “issues” ( on Opinion or any other ) with their community leaders face problems in getting their budget approved, which mostly happens in the last moment!

Allow us to cite and example here of an event that was recently conducted Women’s only event in Bangalore, IN with a budget of over 3000 USD! The criteria for a normal rep to get the budget approved would be based on the “metrics”. So we happened to see the "SUPER AWESOME" metrics of this Women’s only event- few thimble and popcorn makes. Isn’t that great!? NOT!

To add on, this Mozilla Rep, during one of her talks, also mentioned that she’s traveled to more than 12 countries in a short span of 2 years. Agreed that this may be to encourage new contributors with the perks, but is it actually the right approach? DO WE TELL PEOPLE TO CONTRIBUTE TO OPEN SOURCE BY TELLING THEM THAT THEY COULD TRAVEL ALL OVER THE WORLD AND STAY IN STAR HOTELS!?

A small issue that caught fire on twitter : https://twitter.com/koolhead17/status/493017466449059840
In case the tweet got removed :  https://www.sendspace.com/file/fsprzb

[4]Localization project

The Mozilla L10N project that aims at localizing various projects. Do we even consider these as a project that Mozilla supports?
What made us think so is because of the series of quality events that were cancelled due to budget issues for the L10N team. To RE-AFFIRM this point, one of the so-called ‘Community leaders’ and “Evangelist” in the community openly disagreed the support of the L10N team-thereby meaning that the volunteers who contribute to the same are just “jobless”.

Yes, this might be justified by saying that these are his personal views, BUT ARE THEY REALLY THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SAID BY AN EVANGELIST!?
Would love to have your thoughts on this Mr.Christian Heilmann.

[6] Leadership change

Yes, WE FINALLY MEAN THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE.

Taking the wonderful example of Philippines community where they change the Community leader within a period. Unlike some communities that have liaisons that want literally everything in a community to pass through them. Agreed that this is good, but the same would be expected out of this person so that the
community gets to know about future plans.

TRANSPARENCY in all the projects, programs and selection process is expected in the Community.

[7]Cancelling Grow Tunisia

When an event of such a scale is planned, the amount of efforts taken by the 10’s and 100’s of community members and volunteers is exponentially MUCH more than that of one or two staffs and so called CORE MEMBERS ( identified for no specific reason in most case) who’ve been assigned to take up the event!

And just few days before getting the selected list of volunteers, we see a mail saying that ALL THE GROW EVENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. Mozilla, the organization, is what it is today because of the community and the volunteers who strive to better it day after day! A decision was taken on this just by an
internal panel who apparently ‘discussed’ things with team was not convinced by the structure of the same.

ANY DECISION AS SUCH SHOULD AT LEAST BE DISCUSSED WITH THE VOLUNTEERS/REPS.

Files If missed : http://www.sendspace.com/filegroup/yK4Ii%2BzgSoyHaz7FPRd%2Fsg

We would like to make a note that this isn't any issues with Organization, its just a few members of the current community that is deviating the mission / goal of Mozilla, we hope a small discussion over this will get the problem solved.

better to act now than to be sorry later

Regards
Fellow Mozillian

[Dyvik Chenna]

Hello Fellow Mozillian,Everyone,

I always feel that Mozilla is my family, I've learnt about many things
after stepping in to this open platform and for now it has been 2 years
that I have been volunteering with Mozilla and i'm currently a rep from
India. I know it's a sensitive issue that happens in every community, as
being in Mozilla for a very long time i had seen many contributors leaving
Mozilla as they cannot report their concerns(Might be local
support/problems with reps/community issues) anywhere. I never say that
everything should be perfect in a community but my opinion is to have an
anonymous complain box where mozillians can put up their concerns over
there and moderators should try to focus on them. I've planned this very
long back and named it as concern box but as there is no community support
i'm stating this over here.

Thanks to Fellow Mozillian for bringing this issues out, i really agree
with your points and i really appreciate for what you have done.Yes,without
knowing the drawbacks in our community its difficult to move on, I feel its
just like discussing our family problems with our family. Let's be open in
this open project and make our open world awesome without any
misunderstandings :)

Finally it's just an opinion form my side and i am not here to point
fingers.

Regards,
Dyvik,
Mozilla Representative.

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[Dyvik Chenna]

Hello Mozillians,

[April Morone]

I understand from where you are coming. But, I also feel that concernes can
brle brought up in meetings (Grow Mozilla meetings, for example), or in
forums (in Community building forum, for example), in Mozikla Contributors
group on Google+, on Facebook, and on IRC chat. Or by goibg to #mozillians
channel on IRC. There are a lot if options and whatever concernes
contributora have, can be brouggt up there in hiee places, as well as in
different IRC channels depending on what the topic is.

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[priyanka nag]

Hey Dicky,

I can't really say I appreciate you taking this initiative, but I
definitely agree to the last line you have said - 'better to act now than
to be sorry later'.

Being in an Open community, I am sure the concerns you have raised are
shared by more members in the community. So, just putting in my 2 cents
into this, with full faith this would avoid future misunderstandings.

Regarding the issue raised on the budget requests and it being an easier
process for community leader, is not entirely true. You had given an
example of a WoMoz event, organized here in India. If you go through the
bug and comments on that (bud id - 1033932), you will realize it wasn't an
"easy" process to get the budget sanctioned. I totally agree to your point
of the event (it was actually a series of events) not being able to show
sufficient short term metric...but at times we do things for long term
goals as well. This event was an initiative towards several different
things, including an opportunity for more collaborative work with the
WeTech (http://www.iie.org/Programs/WeTech) community in India. These are
tough metrics to show on the reps portal and anyone missing on seeing these
goals is completely possible and thus, your point raised in valid enough
from your perspective.

Coming to the next point raised regarding a tweet passed on after one of my
events. Well, honestly, I don't have a recording of my that day's talk,
else would have been easy for me to prove that I had never exactly said,
what I was accused of. I have not visited 12 countries in my life yet
(Mozilla or no Mozilla funded) and thus had not mentioned that number at
all.
My sole purpose of talking about my personal experiences and journey was
just to motivate other young students in the room towards Open Source
contribution, citing examples of how we are rewarded, and why we work even
though we are not paid. I may have phrased it wrong due to which someone
from my audience got upset and made the tweet. After I realized my mistake,
I had not only apologized to him, I had also apologized publicly -
http://priyankaivy.blogspot.in/2014/07/my-apology-against-happenings-of-last.html.
But some sins probably can never be forgiven. Since that incident, I have
been avoiding any public speaking for any Mozilla events, scared to harm my
community's name in any manner again.

I am not trying to justify my actions. But, since these issues were raised,
being in an Open community, I thought it as one of my responsibilities to
keep things as clear as possible.

--
Regards,
Priyanka Nag
Dev Evangelist, Scrollback
Contact : +91- 9731923363

Website: priynag.in
Blog: priyankaivy.blogspot.in/

[Robert Nyman]

Hi,

First, thanks for being a part of the community and for being so passionate about it. If you believe things can be better, it's always good to give that feedback.

With that said, in my mind, there are a number of issues with the form of this:

You decide to e-mail a huge number of people and mailing lists, thus spamming a lot of people
You write in uppercase letters, which is perceived by most people as shouting and being angry. And you might very well be angry, but shouting is not the constructive path forward
Using words like EXPOSE turn this into some kind of witch hunt, where someone has to be judged for their actions. This does not breed mutual respect nor understanding
You bring this forward anonymously. If you want to bring change and give feedback in a constructive fashion, it is a lot less likely to be taken seriously if you can't be open about who you are (and if the reason is fear of possible repercussions, that's a bad thing and should also be discussed and addressed)
You call someone out for what was said in a specific event. Me myself, I'm a professional speaker, and I make mistakes as well with that I say. If people will refrain from public speaking out of fear for saying something wrong, we will very soon not have any speakers, because, trust me, no one is perfect. All you can ask for is that people learn, improve and, most importantly, dare to keep on trying


Moving forward, instead of e-mailing everyone, I suggest approaching the people working with community directly, such as:

William Quiviger
Chris Hofmann
Janet Swisher
David Boswell
Pierros Papadeas
Brian King

If you have a problem with anyone in the above list, I suggest you give them the courtesy of letting them know, to fix and build this up together. Also, feel more than welcome to contact me directly, and I'll help you talk to applicable persons at Mozilla.



- Robert Nyman

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[Christian Heilmann]

I wholeheartedly agree with what Robert said (and just deleted half my email not to repeat him).

I also feel sorry that things seem to be as bad that it drives a Mozillian to post something like this to so many people. The format does not help the matter though:

* We should never go for caps. Computers evolved beyond them. I like that, although I miss my C64
* I can not take someone serious who doesn't take others serious. If you put people's job titles in quotes you diminish their impact before you attack them. This is a cheap shot.
* I am allergic to propaganda talk. "we, who do not wish to be identified, yet, have a lot to tell-or rather, EXPOSE! Friends, Mozillians, Open Web enthusiasts! Lend me your ears;" We're not anonymous and that kind of V for Vendetta intro gets tiring really fast. If you expose, you expose facts, times and dates. This had a lot of attacks hinting at information and context people who want to change the issues lack.
­
There are a few things in here we should be addressing and some that I will in follow-up meetings and discussions. I would love this to be a topic on next Monday's meeting for example.

What this shows me is a few things where we need to improve:

* Provide simple to use, official channels for feedback (Robert's offer to triage is good, but doesn't scale). That someone found it necessary to scatter these messages everywhere shows me we don't have that.
* Get a handle on events and budgetting. I am part of the group that reviews developer events and sponsoring for them. We keep getting asked to sponsor events that are not developer focused and we keep getting feedback that the budget process for other events is complex. We should make this easier and be faster in turning requests around. Again, the problem here is that we rely on a few individuals who get overworked instead of having a group that can say yay or nay.
* Be very transparent in what we are doing and where our people are. There is quite some criticism and jealousy about evangelism in this post painting a disturbing picture. This has been a concern for me for quite a while and I will describe in gory detail just how physically and psychologically draining our jobs can be.

I have a hard time parsing this post. It was written in anger and that's when we become incomprehensible. Don't post in anger! (http://christianheilmann.com/2012/06/04/de-trolling-the-web-dont-post-in-anger/) I was named in person in one section and asked for feedback about a certain situation that was just hinted or half-explained. I don't know how to react to this and yet I feel I should. I'd love to hear more details about this:

"To RE-AFFIRM this point, one of the so-called ‘Community leaders’ and “Evangelist” in the community openly disagreed the support of the L10N team-thereby meaning that the volunteers who contribute to the same are just “jobless”. Yes, this might be justified by saying that these are his personal views, BUT ARE THEY REALLY THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SAID BY AN EVANGELIST!? Would love to have your thoughts on this Mr.Christian Heilmann."

Was that me? Should I comment on somebody without knowing what the person said or the context? This feels to me like "I tell your boss".

Let's make this better. Let's not throw blame and confusing hints around. Also, let's never, ever use Sendspace.

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[Lawrence Kisuuki]

This really infiltrated all our lists... mmm



*Regards,*


*Lawrence*

*Community Manager*
*Mozilla Uganda | GenOpen*

On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 10:00 PM, <
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> 1. Words from a Mozillian (Dicky Moe)
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> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:56:05 +0200
> Subject: Words from a Mozillian
> Hello people,

>
> we, who do not wish to be identified, yet, have a lot to tell-or rather,
> EXPOSE!
>
> Friends, Mozillians, Open Web enthusiasts! Lend me your ears;

> cancelled due to budget issues for the L10N team. To RE-AFFIRM this point,

> one of the so-called ‘Community leaders’ and “Evangelist” in the community
> openly disagreed the support of the L10N team-thereby meaning that the
> volunteers who contribute to the same are just “jobless”.
>
> Yes, this might be justified by saying that these are his personal views,
> BUT ARE THEY REALLY THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SAID BY AN EVANGELIST!?
> Would love to have your thoughts on this Mr.Christian Heilmann.
>

> better to act now than to be sorry later
>

> Regards
> Fellow Mozillian
>
>
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>

[Brandon Nozaki Miller]

Seems that concealing your identity somewhat reduces your credibility of
desiring openness though your opinion is valid, so is your identity.
Everyone has opinions and should feel free to express them, positive or
negative, but it is important for all sides to be open and transparent, not
just those being questioned, or critiqued. Lead by example if change is
desired is my philosophy.

IMHO.
On Sep 30, 2014 2:29 AM, "Lawrence Kisuuki" <lawr...@mozilla-uganda.org>
wrote:

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[Lawrence Kisuuki]

I agree with Robert. Criticism does not solve a problem, but rather
constructive outreach and offering of plausible solutions as well as
reaching out to the right people. And indeed all caps is rude/angry...

Some of the people who have been added to this email spam or not really
concerned about this my community's list inclusive. I'm getting many
complaints about spam.

Thanks.

[Brian King]

Hello,

I'd like to acknowledge the points that you make in your email. As
Mozilla communities grow, we are faced with challenges every day to
scale and to work together in a transparent and fair way. We strive to
be our best and give equal opportunity to all Mozillians to make an impact.

I'd like to echo the point made by others that is is very difficult to
discuss these topics with you if you remain anonymous. Feel free to
reach out to me, your local community manager, or Mozillians you trust.
From there we can start the discussions and decide what are the best
forums to move forward.

- Brian
Community Engagement

On 29. 09. 14 18:56, Dicky Moe wrote:
> Hello people,
>
> we, who do not wish to be identified, yet, have a lot to tell-or rather, EXPOSE!

--
Brian King
@brianking | https://mozillians.org/u/kinger
Join Us | https://www.mozilla.org/contribute/