Re: [tdf-discuss] My application was rejected, ;-(

Hi Jaime,

Jaime R. Garza wrote on 2011-05-04 11.16:
> Yes, the truth is that I have only being part of the MAIL-LISTS and my
> contributions for now have been nothing more that ideas, comments and
> suggestions.
>
> So, as Sophie said, that's difficult to quantify and qualify. If someone in
> the Mail lists thinks I have contributed something that is non-trivial,
> please let me know.

I'm totally un-involved in the membership application process, so I want 
to spread a few personal thoughts.

First of all, thanks for your application!

Especially during the discussion of the bylaws and statutes, it became 
clear to me that with our membership process we are to create something 
unique even in the world of (at least German) foundations. Our members 
get a lot of powers. This is exactly what reflects our community 
approach, but on the other hand, it means that we -- not just for 
ourselves, but also for the legal process -- need to justify these powers.

I must confess I didn't follow all your mails closely, so don't get me 
wrong on the following paragraphs, this is more an abstract thought 
rather than for your concrete application. :-)

If we were to accept the application of everyone posting a few messages 
to the list, then on the one hand we would have a large membership base, 
which is good. On the other hand, it might get problematic justifying 
that. So, what we are trying to approach with the membership process is 
that we want to actively engage community members, and then granting 
them rights like to vote or to being voted for. To me it is obvious that 
someone who "just" writes an e-mail now and then is not a member of TDF. 
Someone who does more, and wants to be involved, should be a member 
indeed. Doing more can indeed consist of writing e-mails, actively 
joining discussions, contributing... but it doesn't have to necessarily.

It will be pretty hard to always do the right thing, so we might grant 
some applications that maybe shouldn't, and reject others that we should 
accept instead. We're all humans and make mistakes sometimes. :-)

So, feel free to state what your contributions have been. I know the 
members of the membership committee very well, and they do a tremendous 
job. As many others, they have to read hundreds (!) of e-mails per day, 
next to their day job, family life and so on, so it is rather like that 
some contribution just slips through...

Again, I'm neither involved in the membership process itself, nor do I 
know concrete details for your application, but I wanted to share a few 
generic thoughts. :-)

Florian

--
Florian Effenberger <floeff@documentfoundation.org>
Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted