Team meeting today

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

Hi all, hi Valorie,

Thanks a lot for this, and thanks a lot for an external person stepping in.

I think I might be one of the targets on why this IRC meeting is 
conducted ("I think" "I might" show you that I am not entirely sure of 
what is going on here, I only "feel" it "might" be about me.)

A few days ago, in the #plasma IRC channel, we debugged a systray 
problem and after testing I reverting 1 Aaron's commit (I CCed him in 
the commit of course). I have the IRC log on the discussion that 
happened about this, this is what often happens on IRC. From what I read 
after this in mailing lists I felt this was interpreted as a "QA Team 
reverting commit" trend. I happen to be part of the new QA team effort 
but this reverted commit was done as annma, annma being part of Plasma. 
Referring here at 
http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2012-June/020042.html
which I immediately denied in 
http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2012-June/020044.html but 
that was never acknowledged.
I clarified again my position in
http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2012-June/020055.html
but again this was never acknowledged.
Sebas replies "Just removing components or reverting commits is not a 
way to fix bugs, it probably leads to more regressions even" to the "
Quality Team: LCD weather station and calendar (in panel) are really 
broken" and thus implies "reverting commits" is part of the QA Team 
procedure. Nobody ever read my answers and everyone just carried on with 
his false perception. I feel pretty upset that an action done as annma = 
member of the plasma team (or so I thought) is interpreted as a QA Team 
action and generalized.

The call for an IRC meeting mail starts with
"it has become apparent that we need to do something here about the 
attitude demonstrated by some of those who have chosen to participate in 
plasma."
in which I would have liked the "some of those" specifically nominated 
and mailing list mails quoted in order to clear what this is all about. 
Apparently other people understand this as they jump in to welcome the 
meeting. This make me feel uncomfortable, not because I might be a 
target but because I do not know what it is all about.
Is my reverted commit a cause of this meeting? is it because other 
developers questioned some design decisions like having the remaining 
time displayed on the battery icon?

On 06/20/2012 10:27 AM, Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
> Hello Plasma team,
>
> I've heard that this group is experiencing some difficulties, and the
> Community Working Group has been asked to intervene. We usually are
> asked to come into crises, while we would really prefer to work with
> groups to improve community. We've been developing a tool to help with
> that, and offer it to you to use (or not) as you please. Please ignore
> what doesn't apply.
>
> Notice that we don't focus on the issues under discussion, but rather
> how the team is functioning, with the goal of improving the
> conversation, and thus the creativity available. I came across a quote
> tonight:
>
> "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that
> created it." - Albert Einstein
>
>
> The ideal KDE Team
>
> The ideal KDE team has fun and is productive. The members trust one
> another enough to express honest feelings and thoughts about their
> project, as well as personal issues when appropriate. The team members
> support and encourage one another, and bring fresh information,
> resources and entertainment to the group.
>
> The ideal KDE team is not only growing, but is always recruiting. Each
> team member is so happy with the group that new members are drawn-in
> naturally. Each team member blogs and writes in other places about the
> work, and about the team. Team members encourage one another to
> communicate publicly, and also to comment the code. At release time,
> team members pitch in to help, and celebrate their accomplishments.
> Team members look for diversity when they recruit, both culturally and
> in team roles.
>
> In times of major disagreements, the ideal team thoroughly airs both
> facts and feelings honestly, and members do not attack one another.
> Everyone feels free to express themselves, everyone is heard, everyone
> feels valued, and every member supports the decisions reached, even if
> their own ideas were not accepted, because their concerns were taken
> into account.
>
> The ideal team has not only an active group of coders, but also people
> who do bug triaging, documentation, community, promo, forums, list,
> and IRC. The developers each do some of this work as appropriate, and
> also just talk with users. Enthusiastic users become testers, and then
> perhaps enter the team more formally to help out. As time goes on, a
> healthy team loses contributors too. However, they leave with fond
> memories, remain friends, and are often called upon for advice,
> feedback, or just to swap stories. Team members learn new roles, and
> train their own replacements all the time. Growing out of a role into
> a new one is more fun that burnout!
>
>
> Team Health Check
>
> [  ] Rate your team 1 - 5, where 1 is needs lots of work, and 5 is
> working excellently. Is our team growing? How many members have we
> gained and lost in the last year?
I would rate 3 because we lost people and we gained some, however we did 
not gain the same people we lost which leads to unmaintained areas (some 
applets)
>
> [  ] Rate your team: Rate the diversity of the team. Consider gender,
> age, team roles, time zones, language, etc.
Difficult but I think Plasma is rather diverse.
>
> [  ] Rate your team: Why are team members leaving? Do social bonds
> with departed members continue?
I thought I was part of the Plasma Team in the sense that I developed an 
applet (Picture Frame) and that I bound Plasma with Edu. But I am not 
sure now if I am part of the Plasma Team which I see more as  "Aaron, 
Sebas and Marco"

>
> [  ] Rate your team: Do we encourage one another to learn new roles,
> and change those roles as time goes on? In other words, how do we
> stave off burnout?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: What sort of recruitment of new team members are
> we doing? Is this recruitment increasing our diversity? Are we
> recruiting for diverse roles in the community as well (documentation,
> usability, testing, community, as well as coding)?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How often do team members meet up in the various
> fora, in meetings, and for sprints? How many of the team participate?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: Do we have any sort of metrics set up that we can
> use to rate our progress?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How well is our code documented? (Undocumented
> code is a major roadblock to new contributors.) Is is a team value to
> Always Document?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How clear and up-to-date is our team
> documentation in KDE space, such as our website, Techbase, Userbase
> and Community wikis?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How often do our team members blog about their
> work? Are their blogs all on Planet KDE?
>
> [  ] Rate your team : Does our team contribute articles to The Dot?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: What sort of training and guidance do we provide
> for our IRC ops, listowner, and forum administrators?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How many of our team members consider themselves
> to be leaders in the team? Do the non-coding members feel equal to the
> coders? Do all members of the team feel valued by the team?
>
> [  ] Rate your team: How good is our bug triage, commenting, and bug closing?
Bug triage has been heavily done by the bug Squad (Myriam in particular) 
in order to really have bugzilla as a usable tool for developers.
>
>
> Individual Health Check -- within the team, and KDE
>
> Is my voice heard?
The perception of some people trying to fix bugs and thus relaying users 
voices (yes I know, users are not always right) is that they are not 
heard and decisions are taken which cannot be discussed and challenged.
>
> Are my ideas respected?
>
> Are my emotional needs met? (within the boundaries of KDE and teams,
> this means appreciation for contributions and a sense of camaraderie)
No, lately I felt rather side tracked from Plasma. This started when a 
Plasma Active meeting was set up and KDE Edu was keen to get some 
programs on Plasma Active and also to learn how to develop programs that 
are fit for desktop, mobile and tablets. I did not feel welcome to send 
Edu developers at this meeting. In fact, I always felt out of Plasma 
Active and I gave up testing the isos in a tablet I was not lucky to be 
given (at Akademy 2011) but I chose to buy by myself.
Before I thought I was part of Plasma on my own small level, of course I 
never developed Plasma libs or such. I was interested in testing and 
fixing applets and bounding Plasma with KDE Edu. Lately I felt 
disconnected and unwelcome.

Speaking honestly here (of course my perception is probably biased) 
which is what the Community Working Group is expecting. I'd be very 
happy to see other answers to this mail.
Unfortunately I can't be part of the IRC meeting later tonight, I'll log 
the discussion to read it tomorrow.

Best regards,

Anne-Marie
>
>
> I would appreciate feedback about this Health Check tool; criticisms too.
>
> All the best,
>
> Valorie, member of KDE Community Working Group
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