Subject:
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Re: I resign from the LPRV committee
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Apr 2005 19:51:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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1981 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, Kelly McKiernan wrote:
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In lugnet.admin.general, David Koudys wrote:
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In lugnet.admin.general, Kelly McKiernan wrote:
<snip lotsa goodstuff>
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You bring up some good and valid points, especially regarding perception of
opacity. It’s a real issue, and it’s something we’re trying to improve on. In
this specific example (the LPRV committee and process documentation), I do
think there’s been an appropriate amount of disclosure about what’s been
happening. For example, when
Janey asked about the status of changes promised after a recent episode,
Larry replied with information about forming a committee to review documents
that were created after the incident. A couple of days later,
he announced the committee
publicly and described what we were trying to do.
At this point the question becomes “why a small select group instead of
everybody on LUGNET”? It was (and still is) the viewpoint of the LUGNET
administration that a small, dedicated group of people would be able to
identify issues and recommend changes in an effective manner, without
providing a document to all of LUGNET that may have inadvertant errors or
invalid assumptions. For example,
Kevin’s original post in this
thread called out some valid concerns that we need to address before the
documents are ready for everyone else to see, such as the limits of offsite
activity and appeal processes for those who feel they were treated unfairly.
There are other points that need to be taken care of as well. If the review
process had worked as intended (all points discussed and issues presented to
the admin team, preferably with recommendations on alleviating the issues),
we would have been able to plug the holes that are at issue, or at least
explain more fully the rationale behind any particular portion of the docs.
Since a portion of the issues have become public, we’ve now got forty-some
posts that wouldn’t have been necessary otherwise.
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LUGNET historians might remember the flurry of posts about CP and cp--community
policing. It was all in the open and we all chimed in and we all hashed it out
(at least those of us who felt strongly about it)
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I understand and agree with the concept that all LUGNET members absolutely
must have a voice in what happens to the community. Where we may have a
difference of opinion is to what degree. Many people have called for complete
openness - all admin contact done in public forums, all review of proposed
changes drafted and discussed in public. With all due respect to those
opinions, admirable as they may be, that simply is not feasible... there are
many reasons why tiered review processes are much more efficient. I would ask
that people please not confuse processes like the LPRV committee with a
sinister “cloak of secrecy”. Confidentiality is not a bad thing in some
instances, just as openness is a good thing whenever possible and
appropriate.
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Again, perception, even if it’s invalid, is what it is. There’s an old
euphimism--“Rumours can get halfway around the world before the truth can even
get it’s shoes on”. To combat rumours and wrong perceptions, the truth must get
out quickly. This is one of the things covered by transparencies.
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The first step, in my humble opinion, isn’t accuracy, it’s transparency.
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But if you have inaccurate or incomplete information (e.g. an imbalanced post
such as Kevin’s), then any amount of transparency is moot. Transparency
doesn’t equal accuracy.
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Then you don’t know what transparency is--a transparent system means we can see
the workings of the system--if there is incompleteness, we, the people viewing
it can see that. However, if you hide up there in your fortress of solitude and
come down with the tablets in hand (hows that for mixing a bunch of societal
images?) and say, ‘Here it is’, well, that’ll cause a furor.
For another example--a guy’s building a house. He can either cloister himself
away from everyone else, build the thing, and then, when finished, open it up to
the world--at which time someone who might know a little more about weeping
tiles comes along and mentions to him that the weepers were installed
incorrectly. Then where’s the guy? He’s looking at tearing down the whole
place to fix the problem that lies at the root of the house. On the other hand,
if his building process is open ‘for all to see’, then the problem can and more
than likely will be fixed before the rest of the place is built over a poor
foundation.
Incompleteness isn’t a problem. Most of us have, during the process of writing
papers, have solicited valuable input before the paper is finalized. Getting
the input after the paper is complete might require complete reworkings of the
entire thing. But again, these are onlyt examples.
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...but when a community feels wronged, justifiably or not, then the
community feels wronged.
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Exactly. The administration must work on changing that perception.
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Yes you do. Especially when your own members of the administration team are
pointing out the apparent wrongdoings.
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As the administration of this little community, it’s not up to you to
dictate how the community should or should not feel by pointing out the
accuracy of what actually transpired, it’s up to you to be as transparent as
possible --thus giving the community all data to base their decision making
processes.
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You seem to be contradicting yourself... first criticizing for us for
providing information about what happened, then criticizing for not providing
all the data. If you’re saying that we should have released raw, unreviewed
documents for all LUGNET to comment on, I would strongly disagree. If you are
saying you’d like to know more of what’s happening WITH those documents, and
would prefer to have more frequent updates and expectations set, that’s
definitely something that we can take into consideration.
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There is no contradiction--I don’t think I’ve ever criticized the admin team for
providing information about what happened, at least, I don’t recall as such. I
think maybe you parsed the sentence incorrectly--you should not dictate how the
community should or should not feel. The point was that the community felt
‘this way’ instead of ‘that way’. It’s how the issues were perceived. I should
have, i suppose, used the word ‘apparent accuracy’. In a world of ‘spin’, it’s
difficult at the best of times to discern the truth of a situation. Bottom
line--you should ‘lay your cards on the table’ for all to see. You should not,
however, be surprised or upset if there are those in the community who feel
wronged.
THe good news is with greater transparency comes smaller fallouts. Again, the
“taxation without representation” lead to a huge ruckus, if I recall. Now that
you have the representation, the fallout of governmental transgressions, thus
far, hasn’t lead to the same type of ‘ruckus’.
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I don’t expect to change any minds, since words are just words and not
actions. All I can really do is ask that ill intent not be attributed to an
action without specific knowledge of ill intent. For example, it would be
easy to take Kevin’s post personally and think he was simply out to cause
trouble, but I don’t think that. I prefer to think he is trying to help as
best he knows how, and I respect that, if true, even while I strongly
disagree with his methods. So the best I can do is correct misperceptions and
inaccuracies, and provide information (or “transparency” if you will) to
recent events. It’s not complete, because there’s no way to provide a
complete, unbiased view into the interpersonal dealings of many people. Any
view must necessarily be displayed through a filter. The ultimate goal, I
think we would all agree, is to make that filter as wide and clear as
possible.
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Which perfectly describes transparency. So there you are.
To be clear, I’m not advocating that every single member of LUGNET has to sign
off on every single change at this website. I’m advocating transparency of the
procedures and the changes--“We, the administration team, think that this is a
nifty thing to do and are thinking about implementing said feature.” or “we, the
administration team, in order to clarify the rules regarding this issue, wish to
modify the ToS to include the following--blah blah blah”
Information. If people care, they’ll read it and voice their support/concerns.
If people don’t care, then no harm/no foul. But the idea that you put it out
there for folks to read, well, that speaks volumes about caring for the
community. I’ve always tried to live my life as if I am part of a communal
‘we’, instead of ‘us’ against ‘them’. Us Canadians against You Americans, Us
Leaf fans against You Red Wing Fans. Us pro-bley against you anti-bley. It
should be “We, as a community...” One community with many voices. The admin
team should think of itself as an equal part of the community that basically has
the added responsibility of ‘rebooting the server’ when necessary. We don’t
need guidance counsellors to ‘guide LUGNET’s path’, we don’t need CEO’s to usher
in ‘a bold new future’, and we most certainly don’t need an aristocracy (or
oligarchy, take your pick) made up of ‘the elite’ who feel like they know what’s
best for the masses.
In the big issues over the past few months, the perception, at least from these
cheap seats, is sometimes just that--“Shut up and wait until we tell you what’s
going to happen--oh, and there’ll be no more debate on it when it does happen.”.
All that said, I’ll do what I can to support LUGNET because, when all is said
and done, I still love this place, and I can see that you do as well. So there
you are.
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Kelly McKiernan
LUGNET Administrator
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Dave K
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: I resign from the LPRV committee
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| (...) I don't know about all of this. People keep talking about transparency and how great it all is, but exactly what do you want to see? Do you want the Admin emails to be public? Do you want to see every draft of public pronouncements? To use the (...) (19 years ago, 21-Apr-05, to lugnet.admin.general, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: I resign from the LPRV committee
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| (...) You bring up some good and valid points, especially regarding perception of opacity. It's a real issue, and it's something we're trying to improve on. In this specific example (the LPRV committee and process documentation), I do think there's (...) (19 years ago, 21-Apr-05, to lugnet.admin.general, FTX)
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