[Spi-private] Treasurer report for 7 January 2003

Ean Schuessler ean at brainfood.com
Wed Feb 5 16:11:21 UTC 2003


I am copying this to spi-general so that my responses to your continued
criticisms are public.

On Wed, 2003-02-05 at 00:54, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Yes. I get criticised when I try to be constructive, and then ignored,
> so why should I bother, exactly?

I will grant that you have made some attempts to be constructive. Your
review of the Debian donations in particular appeared to require some
work on your part. However, every message you have ever sent has such an
unpleasant tone that it is hardly a suprise that no one wants to work
with you or take you seriously.

First of all, you seem to be under the impression that Branden and
everyone else on the board is providing a commercial service for which
you are a customer. Rather than treating people like busy professionals
who are volenteering their valuable time, you act like we are bad
waiters and you are a famous food critic. Well, that sucks.

Even when you prepared that list for Branden your message was "here, do
it like this" rather than "would it help if I prepared these, I'd be
happy to do it on an ongoing basis". Making little bursts of effort in
order to criticize people actually volenteering is of little use.

> No, my goal is to get you to do the job you stuck your hand up for. You
> remember, getting SPI back on track, and so forth?

Pardon me, but I think things are proceeding relatively well so far.
We've made quorum at two official meetings in a row, which is harder
than it sounds. We've established a committee for overhauling the
by-laws. Branden seems to be getting traction on the finances and we've 
put a democratic process in place for electing board members (which I
noticed you've failed to run for). 

> Instead, you bitch at me when I try to help, and when I step back,
> surprise surprise, you stop managing to do anything useful. What was
> the outcome of your meeting this month? "Oh, lets delay the voting some
> more, ask for someone to start a discussion on these other issues, and
> put the next meeting back a week too". AFAICT, you didn't even manage
> to approve last meeting's minutes when it was raised.

Big deal. So what? No one else remembered to mention it when we were
preparing the agenda. We'll approve the minutes in email. 

You don't like moving issues to the lists for discussion? You haven't
been paying attention. The reason SPI dissolved in the last round is
that no one with a real job could take four hours out of their day for
an IRC meeting. Board meetings are now for making decisions, discussion
occurs on the list. I'm enforcing that and, guess what, both of the last
SPI meetings have taken right about an hour. That's fucking
revolutionary from my perspective. I could not afford to participate
before.

> Of course it's your bloody job. You're the acting president of the group,
> it's your job to make sure everyone else does their job, and when they're
> unable or unwilling to do so, to make sure it ends up done anyway. It's
> also your job to figure out problems in advance, rather than saying
> "well... ooops" afterwards.

Oddly, you also think it's Wichert's job. From your Jan 5th message:

> The agenda of things for discussion is probably something like:
> 
>     1. Approving minutes of last meeting
>     2. Report from the treasurer (Branden)
>     3. Removal of Nils from the board
>     4. Resolution 2002-12-17.wta.1: Charter for the bylaws committee
>     5. New board members
>     6. eCos Membership
>     7. Tax writeoffs / OFTC
>     8. Listing in United Way
>     9. Accepting Sincere Choice
>    10. Copyright assignment (Martin Michlmayr)
> 
> Wichert, could you as secretary please make an announcement like this
> (indicating time, location and agenda for the meeting -- ideally with
> more information on the individual points than there is above) both a
> week and two hours in advance of board meetings in future?

Then to me:

> Ean, as VP, could you please ensure that things keep moving ahead? In
> particular, why have the board failed to remove Nils from its number?

What's up with that tone? You seem to want to speak with authority. You
seem to want to give orders. Why don't you run for the board? Are you
afraid that no one will elect you? I wouldn't be suprised. Your harsh
and bossy tone won't win you much support in a volenteer effort.

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler                                      ean at brainfood.com
Brainfood, Inc.                              http://www.brainfood.com






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