[quote]But we need to know who the sun person is and how to contact that person directly so that we can bug that person with community problems and have them resolved.
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The Sun representative will be chosen this week. Once that person is selected we will schedule an initial meeting of the board to begin addressing community issues. It will be up to the board to determine next steps at that time.
I am going to recommend that we create a community board forum to make it easier for people to ask questions and raise issues with the board.
[quote]So, I have one last question for the GTG: Why should anyone bother spending any more time trying to do things with or for you if this is the way you like to do things (taking your attitude to the elections as a whole)? This isn’t rhetorical, it’s serious, and I would appreciate a serious answer.
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Look Adam, I’m sorry you’re pissed, but you know what, if you wanna go, go. I don’t have the time or inclination to convince you to stay.
FWIW, despite having a rather busy day job trying to ensure that Java is a viable platform for game development, I have done what I can to ensure this community has as much say in its future as possible. It was my suggestion that we give the community control over project approval. It was also my recommendation that we create the board of directors rather than simply decide everything by executive fiat. You can bitch and moan all you want about this election, but the alternative was to have the de facto board of Chris, Jeff and myself continue to make all the decisions around here, something you clearly have some objection to.
I have tried to answer questions as they have arisen, but apparently your attitude is that any answer you don’t like doesn’t count as an answer. Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. I accept that the election may have been flawed. I still contend it was better than having no election at all. Perhaps it would have been easier if we had simply invited people to serve on the board ourselves like we did with the forum moderators. If you’d prefer that, I encourage you to take it up with the board between now and the next election.
Here it is folks: You’ve got a board now with majority representation in the community. If you don’t like the way things are done around here, you now have an opportunity to do something about it.
So you have a choice, you can work these issues through with the board, or you can whine about how unfair life is here in the forums, it’s really up to you. I’ve abdicated my role as decision-maker. My job, with respect to this community, is now simply to help implement the will of the community as represented by the decisions of the board. You wanna call that a cop-out, fine, at this point I really don’t care.
I feared that the discussion would lead to a bitter end. On the one hand the election was not optimal, but on the other hand I honestly believe that Athomas tried to do a good job and spend quite some effort to hand some of the power over to the community. After all you both, Adam and Athomas, want to support Java gaming and I’m sure most people here would like you to help bringing Java gaming to the next level.
I only whined that the majority of questions were ignored (look back at the two threads and count how many questions you/other sun staff answered, and how many were asked. There is a considerable difference), and that the opinions of one quarter of those who voted were also ignored (which really did make me bitter: this kind of thing tends to have a lasting negative effect on a community; in theory why should that 25% bother to vote at all next time?).
I asked if time was a problem (no answer). I pointed out that posters here could offer advice if not help in running an election effectively and painlessly, and I tried really hard to get questions answered and problems fixed. At the same time I repeatedly thanked and congratulated you on things that were being done well (look back at the posts). I even, I believe, pointed out that I appreciate your time pressures (I too know what’s it like - I regularly have to do 100-hour weeks).
I’m sorry that I failed miserably here, especially with my last whining post where you’ve ignored the very first question, and the one you did answer wasn’t much help (note: the question was fairly clearly phrased not asking you to persuade me to do something, but asking you to somehow assure all of us as a whole that this process wouldn’t be repeated elsewhere when dealing with us).
I haven’t at any point canvassed any other members of the community on this whole subject, and so I apologise to all those who (in all fairness) probably wish I’d not made such a storm in a teacup (and had just shut up). However, I do know about running communities and I do know a lot about designing and running elections, and I stuck my neck out to try and ensure this board wouldn’t go the way of others I’ve seen start out with the best of intentions and rapidly turn into dead-ends. I also feel that Athomas’s clear “don’t care about the abstainers” attitude is extremely insulting, irrespective of whether I was in that group, and it was primarily a reaction to this that brought down the tone of my last post.
Anyway, it looks like I’m not achieving anything at all, so I’ll shut up. Once again, sorry for wasting your time.
EDIT: Someone just asked me if I thought this election was “rigged”. (I publicly stated I was standing and had emailed; Athomas acknowledged he’d seen this; Athomas didn’t check with me despite the discrepancy; once I’d confirmed publicly my intent to stand, Athomas said he’d leave me off because he thought I was standing down; when I clarified my meaning, he did nothing; the “top two positions” went to Shawn and Abstain, but Athomas said this could be ignored). This thought had never occurred to me, but just the fact that it did occur to someone is the kind of thing that I was trying to avoid by getting the elections right. I stand by my accusation that this election is “crud”; it should never have been possible that the election might appear “dodgy”.
While I’m more than willing to admit that that the election process was less than ideal, something I hope the community and the newly elected board will address before the next election, and that I could have been more flexible with regard to “sticking to the rules” I take some offense at the idea that the election might somehow have been rigged.
Neither myself nor any member of the GTG was involved in nominating the candidates and there was certainly no “stuffing the ballot box” which should be obvious from the number of abstentions (One of which was mine, btw. Since the election rules prohibited me from voting, and, given the way “hidden” polls work, abstaining was the only way for me to monitor the election)
I absolutely agree that the number of abstentions is a clear indication that there were several issues with the election process that must be addressed, so I don’t believe that those who abstained have gone unheard. Even without my own abstention, as many people voted to abstain as voted for Greg (which is no reflection on Greg to be sure). While I don’t think there’s anything that can be done to completely eliminate abstentions, I do think the percentage should be much lower next time.
Finally, it was my idea to hold an election, rather than simply invite specific members of the community to become “advisors” as we certainly could have. It would have been faster and easier (and probably less controversial) but I stand by my belief that the community should control its destiny. This is why the board was created and why this election took place.
Indeed. If there were issues, lets just do better next time.
No point bitching at people who are just trying to make Java good for games. This was a one off event that needs to be done better next time, lets do it better next time and just get on with things for now.
