First Questions To All MC Candidates

[andreasma]

Hello MC Candidates,

because the MC has a very important role in TDF I think it is important
for the TDF members (voters) to ask the candidates. I'll start with a
first question to initiate the conversation. I'm curious about the
answers of all candidates and hope of a great exchange with the candidates.

Here my first questions to all candidates:

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

Regards,
Andreas

[vmiklos]

Hi Andreas,

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

My approach would be the same as the way we worked during the 2016 -
2018 term, follow the criteria outlined in § 10 of the statues. Make
sure that "doers" stay / become members and the opposite for others.

Regards,

Miklos

[deneb_alpha]

Hello MC Candidates,

Hello Andreas, hi all,

thanks for sending those questions.

Here my first questions to all candidates:

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

Let me try to share my view on this topic.

First of all, there are several ways to contribute to our projects and, as a common ground, our statutes provides also some guidance on the areas and on the ways to evaluate if a contribution is meaningful.

I think that the Board of Trustees is the heart of TDF, it's the body that will empower the governance (both Membership Committee and Board of Directors) and, at the same time, it's also the body that will have the right to vote and elect the members of TDF's governance.

It's not a secret that I consider really important to have a Board of Trustees that can represent all the different voices we have at TDF. For this reason I believe that it's crucial to keep a good balance in it while working at the evaluation of new applications or renewals.

With this I don't mean that in some cases the Membership Committee should be stricter or more flexible just for a "quota" reason.
In the past term, my first in the Membership Committee, we had cases where it was really trivial to take a decision, in others the evaluation took quite some time, required extra investigations and even extra inquiries, reaching out to the people mentioned as contacts for verification for understanding the kind of contributions.

What I also noticed is that in some local communities there's a lot of activity and commitment and that unfortunately there's no visibility at "international level". This is also what I described in my candidacy as the problem to "bridge the gap between the local and international communities".
Last year with the community survey and this year with some sessions with the local communities I think that as MC we made good steps in this direction, but the path to walk through is still a long one from my point of view.
One of the questions we are asking to every member that asks to renew the membership or to every new applicant is their commitment to contribute to our projects. Commitment and engagement are good metrics to be considered in the evaluations, together with the quality of the contributions.
I also think that as Membership Committee we should improve and proactively look at our local communities, searching for new ideas/needs/feedback and new potential contributors that are eligible to became members.

Our foundation stands on the idea that contributors are entitled to take decisions. I would like to go a step further trying also to ensure that all the contributors will be aware of how our foundation works and that if they are interested they can also actively join the governance of our project. This is something that needs to be done in parallel with the constant improvements for lowering the entry contributing barrier for empowering all the users that are still not actively contributing but that could be interested in doing so.

I also strongly believe that "contributors are not falling from the sky". I think that the direction to look into is to increase and strengthen the cooperation between the existing members of the Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors, the Membership Committee, the TDF team, the Engineering Steering Committee, the Advisory Board and the Certification Committee.
This group of people is extremely small if compared with the number of users consuming what is available thanks to LibreOffice or the Document Liberation Project. For this reason we should take care of all the resources we have available, share the workload and maximise the outcome.
We are plenty of users out there, now it's time to let them evolve to the "contributor phase" and to listen to and engage with all the local communities that are already doing an amazing work.

I hope that this clarifies even more what I would like to focus on in this term if the Board of Trustees will decide to re-elect me.

Thanks a lot and happy hacking,
Marina

[andreasma]

Hi Marina, hi all,

Hello MC Candidates,

Hello Andreas, hi all,

thanks for sending those questions.

Here my first questions to all candidates:

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

Let me try to share my view on this topic.

First of all, there are several ways to contribute to our projects
and, as a common ground, our statutes provides also some guidance on
the areas and on the ways to evaluate if a contribution is meaningful.

I think that the Board of Trustees is the heart of TDF, it's the body
that will empower the governance (both Membership Committee and Board
of Directors) and, at the same time, it's also the body that will have
the right to vote and elect the members of TDF's governance.

It's not a secret that I consider really important to have a Board of
Trustees that can represent all the different voices we have at TDF.
For this reason I believe that it's crucial to keep a good balance in
it while working at the evaluation of new applications or renewals.

With this I don't mean that in some cases the Membership Committee
should be stricter or more flexible just for a "quota" reason.
In the past term, my first in the Membership Committee, we had cases
where it was really trivial to take a decision, in others the
evaluation took quite some time, required extra investigations and
even extra inquiries, reaching out to the people mentioned as contacts
for verification for understanding the kind of contributions.

What I also noticed is that in some local communities there's a lot of
activity and commitment and that unfortunately there's no visibility
at "international level". This is also what I described in my
candidacy as the problem to "bridge the gap between the local and
international communities".
Last year with the community survey and this year with some sessions
with the local communities I think that as MC we made good steps in
this direction, but the path to walk through is still a long one from
my point of view.
One of the questions we are asking to every member that asks to renew
the membership or to every new applicant is their commitment to
contribute to our projects. Commitment and engagement are good metrics
to be considered in the evaluations, together with the quality of the
contributions.
I also think that as Membership Committee we should improve and
proactively look at our local communities, searching for new
ideas/needs/feedback and new potential contributors that are eligible
to became members.

Our foundation stands on the idea that contributors are entitled to
take decisions. I would like to go a step further trying also to
ensure that all the contributors will be aware of how our foundation
works and that if they are interested they can also actively join the
governance of our project. This is something that needs to be done in
parallel with the constant improvements for lowering the entry
contributing barrier for empowering all the users that are still not
actively contributing but that could be interested in doing so.

I also strongly believe that "contributors are not falling from the
sky". I think that the direction to look into is to increase and
strengthen the cooperation between the existing members of the Board
of Trustees, the Board of Directors, the Membership Committee, the TDF
team, the Engineering Steering Committee, the Advisory Board and the
Certification Committee.
This group of people is extremely small if compared with the number of
users consuming what is available thanks to LibreOffice or the
Document Liberation Project. For this reason we should take care of
all the resources we have available, share the workload and maximise
the outcome.
We are plenty of users out there, now it's time to let them evolve to
the "contributor phase" and to listen to and engage with all the local
communities that are already doing an amazing work.

I hope that this clarifies even more what I would like to focus on in
this term if the Board of Trustees will decide to re-elect me.

thanks for your elaborated answer to my questions.

Regards,
Andreas

[andreasma]

Hi Miklos, hi all,

Hi Andreas,

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

My approach would be the same as the way we worked during the 2016 -
2018 term, follow the criteria outlined in § 10 of the statues. Make
sure that "doers" stay / become members and the opposite for others.

thanks for your answer!

I'd have expected a more detailed reply with a vision where to invest
more energy to improve the number and contribution of community members
and how to 'convert' users to contributors. What is your take on the
role of the TDF bodies, especially the MC and the board in such a process?

Regards,
Andreas

[gbpacheco]

Hello Andreas, members, community!

Sorry for my delay. Last week we had, here in Brazil, the second edition of the Latin American Conference. Happy to say that we had an amazing event!
In the next few days we will share more information: numbers, photos, results…

Answers below. Thanks for the questions.

• What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

This is always an important topic.

I believe we are an open and inclusive project and TDF is the formal reflection of that. I also believe that a “contribution” is an individual way to our very well written “Goals of the Foundation” (§2 of the statutes). So, in a big picture, I see value in a contribution when I see the engagement of a member to contribute to reach some of these objectives. Basically, what we can read in §10/a of the statutes.

To guide the MC decisions, we also have in §10/b a non-exhaustive list of types of contributions and, more important, I think: the alternative to confirm the contributions with other members.

• Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
  contribution?

For me, in a non trivial contribution we can see the intention to reach our goals in §2. For example, “My contribution is translating LibreOffice to my language and its available in weblate, my user is xyz” or "I have worked to present LibreOffice as the best alternative for my local government during the last months and members X and Z can confirm’’. On the other hand, in an insignificant contribution, you can’t see clearly our goals as, for example, in “I want to be a member because I use Calc to handle my personal accounting”…

For sure that is a gray area between both cases. Again, the reference of other members is a key to confirm or not the membership and, also, the approach of the MC to clarify the doubts about the application.

• Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

No, my decisions are made more from a wide perspective, as I said in the previous questions, than from areas of contribution.

But let me point this question in another perspective. What I differ is my expertise in different areas to decide about a membership.

In other words: it’s almost impossible to know what happens in all areas of our project and our organization. All areas are important but, for some of them, a MC member couldn’t have the right skills to check if the contribution is valid or not. That’s the importance of a plural MC. Sharing responsibilities inside the MC is important to identify from technical contributions (translation, development, infra…) to non-technical contributions (with language barriers, cultural differences, complex politics cenarios,…)

Best,

–

[andreasma]

Hi Gustavo, hi all,

Hello Andreas, members, community!

Sorry for my delay. Last week we had, here in Brazil, the second
edition of the Latin American Conference. Happy to say that we had an
amazing event!
 In the next few days we will share more information: numbers, photos,
results...

Answers below. Thanks for the questions.

    - What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

This is always an important topic.

I believe we are an open and inclusive project and TDF is the formal
reflection of that. I also believe that a "contribution" is an
individual way to our very well written "Goals of the Foundation" (§2
of the statutes). So, in a big picture, I see value in a contribution
when I see the engagement of a member to contribute to reach some of
these objectives. Basically, what we can read in §10/a of the statutes.

To guide the MC decisions, we also have in §10/b a non-exhaustive list
of types of contributions and, more important, I think: the
alternative to confirm the contributions with other members.

    - Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
    contribution?

For me, in a non trivial contribution we can see the intention to
reach our goals in §2. For example, "My contribution is translating
LibreOffice to my language and its available in weblate, my user is
xyz" or "I have worked to present LibreOffice as the best alternative
for my local government during the last months and members X and Z can
confirm''. On the other hand, in an insignificant contribution, you
can't see clearly our goals as, for example, in "I want to be a member
because I use Calc to handle my personal accounting"...

For sure that is a gray area between both cases. Again, the reference
of other members is a key to confirm or not the membership and, also,
the approach of the MC to clarify the doubts about the application.

    - Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

No, my decisions are made more from a wide perspective, as I said in
the previous questions, than from areas of contribution.

But let me point this question in another perspective. What I differ
is *my* expertise in different areas to decide about a membership.

In other words: it's almost impossible to know what happens in all
areas of our project and our organization. All areas are important
but, for some of them, a MC member couldn't have the right skills to
check if the contribution is valid or not. That's the importance of a
plural MC. Sharing responsibilities inside the MC is important to
identify from technical contributions (translation, development,
infra...) to non-technical contributions (with language barriers,
cultural differences, complex politics cenarios,...)

thanks for your detailed answer to my questions!

Regards,
Andreas

[enoki]

Hello Andreas, all,

Thank you for your questions.

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

I will write my understanding including this premise. I'd appreciate it if you could point me out if I'm wrong.

We chose adopted a bottom-up approach contributors supporting and meritocracy, in the governance model of The Document Foundation.

The reason why MC check contributions in membership applications is to make TDF's governance system work. Contribution activities are required to become a member, so it necessary to check it.

While § 10 is obviously referenced, we often refer to previously discussed cases. This is not a standard, but it can be helpful.

As far as I can see, MC seems to be trying to maintain fairness by having MC members with various positions and contributions come together and discuss. That approach isn't perfect, but it seems to work reasonably well. Of course, it's for fairness, doesn't improve transparency.

For fairness and transparency in membership applications, a little more detail criteria might work. However, there are many different patterns of contributions, and it is not easy to create criteria that work well.

Still, there may be a way to create MC documents with criteria that are a little more detailed than § 10.

Best regards,
Shinji

[andreasma]

Hello Shinji,

Hello Andreas, all,

Thank you for your questions.

- What are the criteria to measure the value of a contribution?

- Which are the criteria for a non trivial or obviously insignificant
contribution?

- Would your rating differ from areas of contribution?

I will write my understanding including this premise. I'd appreciate
it if you could point me out if I'm wrong.

We chose adopted a bottom-up approach contributors supporting and
meritocracy, in the governance model of The Document Foundation.

The reason why MC check contributions in membership applications is to
make TDF's governance system work. Contribution activities are
required to become a member, so it necessary to check it.

While § 10 is obviously referenced, we often refer to previously
discussed cases. This is not a standard, but it can be helpful.

As far as I can see, MC seems to be trying to maintain fairness by
having MC members with various positions and contributions come
together and discuss. That approach isn't perfect, but it seems to
work reasonably well. Of course, it's for fairness, doesn't improve
transparency.

For fairness and transparency in membership applications, a little
more detail criteria might work. However, there are many different
patterns of contributions, and it is not easy to create criteria that
work well.

Still, there may be a way to create MC documents with criteria that
are a little more detailed than § 10.

thanks for your answer and explaining the problems you  and the whole MC
has to deal with.

Best,
Andreas