Plasma team social health

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hi Valorie, others,

First of all, thanks for your email, and thanks for caring about this issue.

On Friday, January 03, 2014 16:29:11 Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
> I'm writing to the Plasma devel list on behalf of the CWG because
> worries from lots of individual team members and former members have
> come our way. Another person came to me today and pasted part of the
> IRC backlog from earlier today.
> 
> Disagreements always happen; what matters is how those disagreements
> are dealt with. It seems to me that trust has broken down, and so the
> 'thinking together' that has made the Plasma development team so
> central to the KDE community, and the software we produce, is in some
> danger. How can we change that?

To be honest, I don't know. I've thought a lot about this, but the best I 
could come up with is fire-fighting when it's too late, trying to talk to 
people who have been involved, taking the heat off and increasing mutual 
understanding. Not much of this process has been visible for a lot of people 
(the nature of the beast of taking it offline), but sadly, it didn't have much 
effect either, to a point where I became personally involved in such a 
conflict. The cynicist in me says it was a matter of time. The idealist in me 
wishes for a better future, but has to admit defeat to the cynicist for now. 
I'd love to change this.

> We're in a bit of a quandary. How can we help? We would appreciate
> some ideas either here on the devel list, or addressed to our private
> list. Pointing fingers and assigning blame is not our goal. What we
> want is some ideas about how to rebuild trust so that the Plasma devel
> team can be happy and healthy, and welcoming to new members.

I think indeed trust is the main issue, but patience and mutual respect is 
just as important. Lately, it has been almost impossible to have any 
substantial directional or strategic discussion. Especially in this delicate 
porting and next-gen architecture phase it's not something we can live 
without.
Purely technical, low-level work has not been a problem, but we have created 
an atmosphere, where people do not dare speaking up anymore, or worse, aren't 
even interested, or even worse than that, are actively avoiding Plasma for its 
atmosphere. This hurts us all.

This is something we have to regain. We need to show more respect towards each 
other, we need to be more understanding on the one side to people pointing out 
problems, but on the other side, we need to watch our words, and what we 
express better, in the light how it's understood. We need more respect, active 
and passive, and we need to learn to trust each other and not lash out at the 
slightest disagreement. We need shorter toes as well, and not shoot down each 
others ideas so that motivation is destroyed. I've been missing positive, 
forward thinking, and I've been missing kindness in disagreeing.

> We're interested in hearing from those at the center of some of the
> disagreements, and those of bystanders as well. Where there has been
> heat and hurt feelings, we'd like to see light and reconciliation. If
> you write to us privately, venting and anger are ok; we can handle it,
> and it will go no further. So we are hoping to hear from everyone who
> has input.

Well, I was in the center of Friday's disagreement. I'm annoyed and saddened 
that we had this discussion at all. I'm not clung to Tokamak as a name, but it 
has value to me, and it has value to the team as a whole. If the majority of 
people thinks we should change it, because things have changed, I'm fine with 
that. I think we should not give up artifacts of our culture that easily by 
the request of a single person. It's a team asset, and I'd like to keep it 
like that.

On the other hand, I don't think the topic of naming our sprint is that 
important. It's symptomatic of a destructive tendency in our team, and I did 
not want to sacrifice yet one more pillar of our culture in a downward spiral. 
We need to stop right there, and reconcile. I just don't know how, but maybe 
we can achieve this better, as a team.

The premise that everybody involved cares and hopes for these things to 
improve and to heal still stands, and that fills me with hope for the future.

> In the spirit of the new year,

Cheers,
-- 
sebas

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