On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 01:12:25PM +0100, Rapha?l Quinet wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:52:27 -0800, Carol Spears <carol@???> wrote:
> [...]
> > i seem to have had a real life community that would not help me get my
> > friends together and an internet community which had no problem with
> > either enjoying the fruits of my labor without me or lying to me that my
> > efforts meant something.
> >
> > when i try to work through what exactly went on, many facts conviniently
> > change. this is a problem with several of the developers i was working
> > with, but in particular with you. in trying to retrace my wrong steps,
> > you lie and deny simple truths that are online for anyone to see.
>
> You claim that people lie and deny simple truths, but yet fail to
> provide any concrete example of this. You have also claimed similar
> things in the past without providing examples, or using examples taken
> out of context. I am sorry, but the "simple truths that are online
> for anyone to see" tend to prove you wrong.
>
that is true, it is difficult to track back -- especially when one of
the players denies the majority of his part in it.
the fact is, the web site that i left needed only a few changes and my
team worked fine without me. by team, i really mean all of the people
who put it together in the first place and the people who were all
working respectfully with each others work.
you suddenly found the time to contribute and the reason you gave to do
this was to get it working on netscape4. you broke the apparatus that
several people had discussed, tested and created. you worked alone.
it is difficult to trace this -- my memories are very clear about it.
another clear memory is of when one of the more prolific of the original
team quit. he, still interested after this horrible experience went to
work on gimp documentation. his parting message was to ask if "we could
please work as a team the next time."
how sad.
> > i think the problem with the web site and the disappearing web team
> > starts right about the time of the post i cited and that solutions will
> > not be found until my questions about all of the failures that started
> > at this point are answered and solutions are found.
>
> You seem to have a very distorted (or very selective) view of the
> past. As you seem to enjoy spending your time looking back at various
> archives, I suggest that you have a look at the number of problems
> happening before I contributed any improvements to the web site and
> before the post that you cited (April 2003).
>
> For example, you said multiple times that you would quit:
> http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/lists/gimp-web/2002-January/000164.html
> http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/lists/gimp-web/2003-April/000258.html
>
yeah, i quit. i also jokingly fired scizzo a couple of times. i get
frustrated and should not write email or talk on the irc. i never lie
about it though, and realize that each stupid thing i do needs several
not stupid things before there can be a recovery.
this is me as an individual. the point of this email was to determine
what about this project made you feel like you could superceed the
really good work of the team that put it there. this team was not me
only. and the work that had been there was near completion.
even at the gimpcon3 this summer, tigert was shaking his head saying
that the site did not need to work in netscape4. it was old news even
then. i guess he had the same impression i did that you started your
destruction for this goal.
> Several times, people had to encourage you so that you do not give up.
> For example, I tried to re-motivate you in reply to this message:
> http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/lists/gimp-web/2003-April/000263.html
>
yep, probably even i need some encouragement every so often. i never
lied about this.
> Also, there was a long silence on the list between February 2002 and
> February 2003. The list was only revived by a message that I posted,
> announcing some updates related to the old web site. Some web-related
> discussion had been posted on the gimp-developer list in the meantime,
> but the site was pretty much stalled. This was not the first time
> that it happened, as shown by this post from 2002 in which Sven still
> tried to encourage you:
> http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/lists/gimp-web/2002-January/000166.html
>
yes. writing things to the list was rather silly as the people doing
the work were busy working on it and discussing things on the internet.
my memories about this time were overall very good. enjoying the people
you are working with, seeing the progress and accomplishing something
that you think will be enjoyed and respected has an appeal. and in
truth, this email is an attempt to see which part of this failed you.
the respect or seeing the progress? it was a good team. i tended to
use the web mail only when i quit. the time working with the people was
mostly good.
> I don't think that we need to waste more time looking back at the
> past, but you can also look at 2001 if you want. Anyway, you cannot
> deny that there were some problems before I started contributing to
> the site ("simple truths that are online for anyone to see"). Note
> that I don't want to blame you for any of this; this was just a way to
> point out that your description of the past is not very accurate.
>
i dont need history to repeat itself. at least not the parts where a
good web site and a good team were destroyed.
the blame i take for this is in starting a different project, one that i
thought would attract enough funding and interest that all could meet,
not just those who could pay their way. i would like to understand what
went wrong there also. there were things that were said back then that
do not mesh with things that are said now. gimpcon2 was the result of
this work and whatever happened there, you feel fine about lying about
your part in it.
> Also, if we forget for a moment about all the mistakes made on the
> way, it is a fact that the web site is up and running now and it works
> better than two years ago. It is far from perfect, of course. And I
> do not take credit for it because many people contributed to it,
> including yourself. If you want to make fun of me, you could even say
> that it is much better now despite my contributions. The only thing
> that matters for me is that we have a working web site that is useful
> for the GIMP users.
>
you get credit because other people to rebuild what you broke. how is
that for putting it into the present?
> Instead of complaining about the past, I think that it would be better
> for you to invest some of your energy in contributing to the web site.
> It seems that there is only one person preventing you from making
> updates to the web site, and unfortunately that person is you.
>
oh no, i am not complaining. i am trying to determine what went wrong
so that if work starts again, some idiot with permission will not break
something good that several people worked on.
> > perhaps you think it looks good to hurt someone who is down and continue
> > to do this?
>
> No, it doesn't. In case you haven't noticed, this is not what I am
> doing. You keep on saying that people do not treat you in a fair way,
> but in most cases the only things that I see are consequences of
> provocative statements coming from you. If you would forget about
> what happened two years ago and stop harassing me, it would be easier
> for all of us to work on the web site and make it better.
>
how to make history not repeat itself?
how to handle someone that shows respect by submitting patches to one
project -- yet totally breaks another?
this is a concern of the right here and now.
how do you put back together a team that was destroyed by one inept and
apparently greedy human being?
the original letter was trying to address these problems.
> I am really sorry about the bad effects that the changes to the web
> site had on your morale. I made some mistakes, others made some
> mistakes as well. I didn't know that some of these issues were so
> important to you. But complaining about this now is unlikely to help.
> It only makes things worse, especially for you (and for me, but I can
> stand it). I have the feeling that continuing this discussion will
> only drive more potential contributors away. This is not very
> productive, so I will stop after this message.
>
perhaps you could clear things up by making one apology where you say in
simple format (these long paragraphs are boring to read) and explain the
reason you felt free to destroy something that worked and replace it
with something broken. maybe you could enumerate the apologies and then
a short paragraph concisely explaining the reason you treated this teams
work differently than others.
> At this point, the best thing that I can do is to repeat to those who
> read this: "please be nice to Carol and do not blame her for things
> that are my fault". Beyond that, I think that the remaining issues
> can only be solved by you. I wish that I could help you, but I am
> probably not the right person for that.
>
dont bother with this. it would be nice if this software community had
a method of reparation.
once again, and i would like to be clear about this, i need to
understand what made you feel like it was just fine to destroy the work
that so many people had done on one project and not do this on another
project?
this is a present concern. also, your apologies have been lost in much
FUD so a nice ennumerated list would help me to see if you have indeed
apologized for everything.
also, can you please please keep the emails shorter. these emails are
long and dont say anything.
carol
