informal relationships map

[Karsten Wade]

Article about mapping informal relationships in an organization:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973083.htm

I think it would help us _a_lot_ if we had some mapping of how stuff
gets done in Fedora.  This is from a survey, where you ask people who
they go to for information, who comes to them, and what kind of
information they share.

Some social risks are involved, but it's worth a look.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
Content Services                          Fedora Documentation Project
http://www.redhat.com/docs   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject

[Alex]

Actually, if we define Fedora as a true meritocracy, we will be able
to establish the leaders of the project this way.
a

On 2/28/06, Karsten Wade <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Article about mapping informal relationships in an organization:
>
>  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973083.htm
>
>  I think it would help us _a_lot_ if we had some mapping of how stuff
>  gets done in Fedora.  This is from a survey, where you ask people who
>  they go to for information, who comes to them, and what kind of
>  information they share.
>
>  Some social risks are involved, but it's worth a look.
>
>  - Karsten
>  --
>  Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
>  gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41
>  Content Services                          Fedora Documentation Project
>  http://www.redhat.com/docs   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
>
>
> >  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >  Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
> >
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>
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>
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[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Alex Maier wrote:

>  Actually, if we define Fedora as a true meritocracy, we will be able
>  to establish the leaders of the project this way.
>  a 
Brilliant.  A big, sparkling +1.
 
>  On 2/28/06, Karsten Wade <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Article about mapping informal relationships in an organization:
>  >
>  > http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973083.htm
>  >
>  > I think it would help us _a_lot_ if we had some mapping of how stuff
>  > gets done in Fedora.  This is from a survey, where you ask people who
>  > they go to for information, who comes to them, and what kind of
>  > information they share.
>  >
>  > Some social risks are involved, but it's worth a look. 
--g

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[Peter Jones]

On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 16:20 -0500, Alex Maier wrote:
>  Actually, if we define Fedora as a true meritocracy, we will be able
>  to establish the leaders of the project this way. 
That's all well and good, except it's clearly not a "true meritocracy".
At best the structure is defined by reputation based on historical
merit, although that's still not a very realistic assessment.

There are a lot of facets to the project, and who its leaders are depend
on which facet you're looking at.  For instance, gdk is clearly one of
our leaders in many senses, and for good reasons, but he doesn't
contribute a wealth of code.  At the same time, there are quite a few
people who contribute significant amounts of code but have relatively
low visibility.  These people are also our leaders.

Defining Fedora as a meritocracy really only allows for one of those
classes to be leaders, unless you take the most vague sense of "merit"
possible, which seriously undermines the point of trying to categorize
what sort of organization we are.  The term is basically a convenient
fiction to gloss over real introspection.

Also, top posting is one of the many roots of much human suffering.
Just a thought.
-- 
  Peter

[Rahul Sundaram]

Peter Jones wrote:

> On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 16:20 -0500, Alex Maier wrote:
>   
>
> >Actually, if we define Fedora as a true meritocracy, we will be able
> >to establish the leaders of the project this way.
> >    
> >
>
> That's all well and good, except it's clearly not a "true meritocracy".
> At best the structure is defined by reputation based on historical
> merit, although that's still not a very realistic assessment.
>
> There are a lot of facets to the project, and who its leaders are depend
> on which facet you're looking at.  For instance, gdk is clearly one of
> our leaders in many senses, and for good reasons, but he doesn't
> contribute a wealth of code.  At the same time, there are quite a few
> people who contribute significant amounts of code but have relatively
> low visibility.  These people are also our leaders.
>
> Defining Fedora as a meritocracy really only allows for one of those
> classes to be leaders, unless you take the most vague sense of "merit"
> possible, which seriously undermines the point of trying to categorize
> what sort of organization we are.  The term is basically a convenient
> fiction to gloss over real introspection.
>
> Also, top posting is one of the many roots of much human suffering.
> Just a thought.
>   
>  
I am not sure if everyone here read Elliot Lee's take on the subject. 
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/016feb06/features/meritocracy/. Obviously 
there are multiple facets to the project which provides enough scope for 
some interesting water cooler chat. Anyone who contributes to the 
project regardless of the nature of it 
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HelpWanted) gets merit but letting 
everyone  set the direction would only result in anarchy and we might 
not be able to sustain the project without a rigorous sense of direction.

-- 
Rahul

[Max Spevack]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Karsten Wade wrote:

>  Article about mapping informal relationships in an organization:
>
>  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973083.htm
>
>  I think it would help us _a_lot_ if we had some mapping of how stuff
>  gets done in Fedora. 
One of the many things I'm working on right now.  :-)

--Max

-- 
Max Spevack <mspevack{at}redhat.com>                 gpg key: mspevack.asc
http://people.redhat.com/mspevack/                  fingerprint: 5A17 CF21