On 11 June 2015 at 16:56, Françoise Wybrecht
(I wrote a few mails about openSUSE. You are free to trash them or to "not read", but of course, I secretely ;-) hope not.)
So "is openSUSE a community without a community manager?"
Excuse me for being blunt, but *WAT?!* Until Jono Bacon was recruited by Canonical 5+ years ago there was no notion of "Community Manager", none of our peers have this role anymore and very very few projects or companies have someone with this empty meaning title. We had a vibrant community back then and still do, sure things have changed but we still have active members and our usage is good. I would rather have an "openSUSE Janitor" than "openSUSE Community Manager", why? Well a Janitor cleans and fixes stuff, our community should not be managed but should be fostered and encouraged.
is my first "key project question",
If that is a *key* question for you related to the project, then I fear you are either looking at the project incorrectly or don't understand the project.
as Joss was hired for that a few years ago, did a lot of articles, marketing, noise for and around openSUSE, he "did the job" (2011 was a good marketing year, no?)
As much as I like Jos, I disagree. I made my thoughts very clear on this in the past. Jos did nothing but marketing, if PR/blogs/social media are what a community manager does then Doug fulfils that role and then some. Titles are immaterial here, we don't need nor do we want flashy sounding titles; we don't want rock stars, primadonnas, evangelists. What we do need and want are people that get stuff done, their title has nothing to do with it. Why should it?
then Augustin was hired too did try to "reorganize openSUSE community with less success, he left ? we guess (even if he is still managing openSUSE group on linkedin)
Really? You want to bring that up?!
then ??? no information on the project list ? no formal information (on what was decided)
So what if there was no announcement of new starters etc? Why should we care?
And now ? Some of us have met Doug ... he was not introduced, wasn't he. as far as I heard, he was not hired as a community manager, did he ?
No he wasn't hired as a community manager, his role is multi faceted and he's doing a pretty good job at it. If I remember correctly, his official title is consultant. So what?!
in fact, we (member/contributors ... non SUSE employees) don't know who is "responsible" for what ? (about "SUSE ppl working for openSUSE" - since the openSUSE booster team is no more ... ?)
We are not the Linux kernel, do not need subsystem maintainers. If you want to and can, then just do it!
is there a wiki page somewhere ? explaining who (from SUSE) is working for openSUSE distribution or collaborating to openSUSE project with openSUSE "non-SUSE contributors" ? who do what ?
I don't think so, and to be honest I hope there isn't. Why should we care where someone works? You are running into the past and creating a "them & us" scenario. We have enough on our plate than caring about who someone's employer is.
Comment : it's a difficult mission (challenge?) to manage a community as openSUSE but it's very pretentious to believe that a community can grow and go over challenges without a "community manager"
(boosting, listening, communicating, helping, animating)
it should be an important question for the present and future :
is openSUSE definitely a community without a community manager ?
(who can answer ? who decide ? who choose ?)
As I mentioned, our community does not need managing. What it needs is mentoring, fostering, and importantly have fun. If you have any questions, issues or complaints then you can contact the Board at board@opensuse.org. It is our job to mediate and communicate. The mailing lists are not the place for ramblings. All this noise drowns out the useful content because people switch off. If you feel that you must write your thoughts down, then please do it in a blog post.
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