First up, I generally try to avoid profanity, but I'm just not able to figure out a better way to express it, so it is with a title that sums up my feelings in a short, sweet film reference.
I write this as me, a former SMF contributor. not with my 'Wedgeward' hat on.
I shouldn't really dignify the comments that have been made, and simply ignore them with all the contempt they deserve but that is not my way. Being open about things, including my feelings, is pretty damn important to me. It is also ironic that this is one of the failings I will be talking about.
I am aware of the things said in private about me and Norv, about how we want SMF to die and so on.[1]
I find it interesting how they won't say it to our face, they won't level these comments to our faces but they'll say it behind our backs where we can't deal with it.
It's wrong, of course. The comments we've been making aren't trying to kill SMF, we're trying to explain why SMF is doing so well at trying to kill itself. If it's going to survive, it needs to be more open with its community, just as a start. Like a roadmap or even some idea what SMF 2.1 is supposed to be... it's only been 20 months in the making and no-one outside of Github reviewers really knows what's actually in it. There are some vague comments about new features but it's hardly much more than straight up marketing spiel.
For any project that would be fairly poor, but for a project that spent so much time trying to claim it is open, that's truly poor. It is also a major contributing factor.
Here's one thing some people don't seem to understand: Wedge is a closed project. We are, and have always been, hesitant to accept contributions from third parties, we haven't revealed a roadmap or anything... but 1) we've always made it clear that we have the role of benevolent dictators for Wedge and 2) we do actually involve our community in things. I suggest new ideas and features at least once a week specifically for community involvement in shaping those ideas.
Contrast this to SMF: a project that claims to be open, that has an organisation to support project development, with a project team of about two dozen people (which is low, I remember it at times being 40+). On top of that there is a Board of Directors who makes decisions that not even the team are fully made aware of, even as organisation members. (Because that's good, right?) They're not even open amongst themselves, let alone open with the community as a whole.
No plans have been announced for 2.1 development as such, or indeed anything beyond that. Truth of the matter: the lead dev in 2.0 didn't even want 2.1 to exist. I understand that - she wanted SMF to progress on smCore and devote all its time to that. The project had a rumbling and decided that 2.1 was necessary to prevent SMF falling even further behind - with the understanding that smCore + SMF would be at least 2 years away from that point. And so it came into being - in 2011. Except here we are in 2013 and only alphas of a 'small incremental release' have been hinted at, and nothing beyond 2.1 has been even mentioned, as smCore is clearly defunct now. (But again, lack of transparency about all of this.)
I understand that development is slow, I understand that only too well. But why is there no real communication about the roadmap? I'm not asking for chapter and verse, or pointing fingers at people for not doing their job properly. I'm just trying to point out that this organisation is failing to do a key job in onward development. (Our changelog is very public.)
At this point you can turn around and say that we haven't released a roadmap either and that we could be called hypocritical. It'd also be wrong, but you could claim it. The entire thing is one long rolling upgrade at this point in time. We can't tell you exactly what Wedge 1.0 will be, because it's still growing and evolving. Setting arbitrary boundaries at this stage would actually limit what we do. Right now we're still figuring out some of the key things we want to have. But what we do have is very public and we encourage discussion on it.
While we're on the name calling angle, actually, there is a claim from certain members of the project that people like me and Norv have 'more credibility' than the SMF team and 'how evil they must be' and so on.[2] It's all bullshit.
The reason we have more 'credibility' is because we don't do stuff in private much, neither Wedge nor ElkArte.[3] We try to involve everyone where possible. We certainly don't sit in a tower on high making decisions about things, especially things that we aren't going to get involved with making. You don't see a project sitting above Nao and myself telling us what we should be writing.
But more than that, I'm not interested in killing SMF. I never have been. I saw back in 2009 when I first joined the team that it was in trouble. It's still there, despite everything I'd done in the meantime, despite everything Norv did, despite everything that's happened - it's still in trouble. If I genuinely thought SMF was so poor and I wanted it to die, why did I spend a lot of time on support issues? Could it be because somewhere, I still care? Nah, that would controvert this idea that I want SMF to die, and god forbid we should let the truth get in the way of a righteous smiting.
I should also add, I have heard it said that the community shouldn't have been made aware of the drama in the team in the past. Except this to me is a colossal problem. That implies that the team are not part of the community. That they're somehow removed from the community. Now, the team are all heavyweight contributors to the project, I have no beef with that. What I have a problem with is the notion that being long-time contributors somehow makes their opinion more important than the rest of the community's.
Compare and contrast that with Wedge. There are only two people in this project whose opinion outweighs everyone else's. There is also a small group of people whose opinion outranks others. This is not really a secret. But let me explain how it works.
The top two people are Nao and myself. We write the vast bulk of Wedge's code. That gives us final say on what happens. The reason, then, that our opinion is more important is not because we have inflated egos or anything but because we're the ones *actually doing it*.
The second group of people I mention are the Consultants. The reason they have an opinion we pay more attention to is because, again, they're actually doing it. They're looking at the code, they're actively writing code that has been taken under consideration and in some cases even drafted into the core. Again, because they're actually getting down and dirty with the code, we pay them some extra attention.
Then there's everyone else. It is not to say that we don't listen - because we certainly do. We listen to every comment and every thread that gets made. We're not under any prerogative to accept it, just as I'm not under any prerogative to accept any code Nao writes and he, I, vice versa.
Compare this with SMF. They have a vast group of people who are not code authors, who are not getting down into the code suggesting how things could/should/must be done. Why is their opinion more important than the regular users? Should it be so? I'd say not... you can be a major contributor without being a 'team member'. I've proved that. I can happily make thousands of posts without being a team member or without having a badge, and my opinion is considered as valid as a team member's in most cases because it's backed up by experience and/or code. So the badge is not a requirement. It is the worst kind of meritocracy, the self-serving, self-selecting kind.
So with the latest salvo (e.g. Motoko's snide comments, and the comment about the only place I want to see SMF is down the drain), I might as well just leech off sm.org rather than contribute because it's increasingly clear my comments aren't wanted.[4] Since the management is already convinced that I'm desperately trying to kill SMF, I might as well indulge them in that by taking Wedge so far beyond SMF that it'll never catch up. Then it can die a quiet, hopefully painless death because that's the best it can hope for now.
There's the gauntlet, folks, thrown down, right there.
:edit: by Nao: both clarified and concealed topic subject... :eheh:
I write this as me, a former SMF contributor. not with my 'Wedgeward' hat on.
I shouldn't really dignify the comments that have been made, and simply ignore them with all the contempt they deserve but that is not my way. Being open about things, including my feelings, is pretty damn important to me. It is also ironic that this is one of the failings I will be talking about.
I am aware of the things said in private about me and Norv, about how we want SMF to die and so on.[1]
I find it interesting how they won't say it to our face, they won't level these comments to our faces but they'll say it behind our backs where we can't deal with it.
It's wrong, of course. The comments we've been making aren't trying to kill SMF, we're trying to explain why SMF is doing so well at trying to kill itself. If it's going to survive, it needs to be more open with its community, just as a start. Like a roadmap or even some idea what SMF 2.1 is supposed to be... it's only been 20 months in the making and no-one outside of Github reviewers really knows what's actually in it. There are some vague comments about new features but it's hardly much more than straight up marketing spiel.
For any project that would be fairly poor, but for a project that spent so much time trying to claim it is open, that's truly poor. It is also a major contributing factor.
Here's one thing some people don't seem to understand: Wedge is a closed project. We are, and have always been, hesitant to accept contributions from third parties, we haven't revealed a roadmap or anything... but 1) we've always made it clear that we have the role of benevolent dictators for Wedge and 2) we do actually involve our community in things. I suggest new ideas and features at least once a week specifically for community involvement in shaping those ideas.
Contrast this to SMF: a project that claims to be open, that has an organisation to support project development, with a project team of about two dozen people (which is low, I remember it at times being 40+). On top of that there is a Board of Directors who makes decisions that not even the team are fully made aware of, even as organisation members. (Because that's good, right?) They're not even open amongst themselves, let alone open with the community as a whole.
No plans have been announced for 2.1 development as such, or indeed anything beyond that. Truth of the matter: the lead dev in 2.0 didn't even want 2.1 to exist. I understand that - she wanted SMF to progress on smCore and devote all its time to that. The project had a rumbling and decided that 2.1 was necessary to prevent SMF falling even further behind - with the understanding that smCore + SMF would be at least 2 years away from that point. And so it came into being - in 2011. Except here we are in 2013 and only alphas of a 'small incremental release' have been hinted at, and nothing beyond 2.1 has been even mentioned, as smCore is clearly defunct now. (But again, lack of transparency about all of this.)
I understand that development is slow, I understand that only too well. But why is there no real communication about the roadmap? I'm not asking for chapter and verse, or pointing fingers at people for not doing their job properly. I'm just trying to point out that this organisation is failing to do a key job in onward development. (Our changelog is very public.)
At this point you can turn around and say that we haven't released a roadmap either and that we could be called hypocritical. It'd also be wrong, but you could claim it. The entire thing is one long rolling upgrade at this point in time. We can't tell you exactly what Wedge 1.0 will be, because it's still growing and evolving. Setting arbitrary boundaries at this stage would actually limit what we do. Right now we're still figuring out some of the key things we want to have. But what we do have is very public and we encourage discussion on it.
While we're on the name calling angle, actually, there is a claim from certain members of the project that people like me and Norv have 'more credibility' than the SMF team and 'how evil they must be' and so on.[2] It's all bullshit.
The reason we have more 'credibility' is because we don't do stuff in private much, neither Wedge nor ElkArte.[3] We try to involve everyone where possible. We certainly don't sit in a tower on high making decisions about things, especially things that we aren't going to get involved with making. You don't see a project sitting above Nao and myself telling us what we should be writing.
But more than that, I'm not interested in killing SMF. I never have been. I saw back in 2009 when I first joined the team that it was in trouble. It's still there, despite everything I'd done in the meantime, despite everything Norv did, despite everything that's happened - it's still in trouble. If I genuinely thought SMF was so poor and I wanted it to die, why did I spend a lot of time on support issues? Could it be because somewhere, I still care? Nah, that would controvert this idea that I want SMF to die, and god forbid we should let the truth get in the way of a righteous smiting.
I should also add, I have heard it said that the community shouldn't have been made aware of the drama in the team in the past. Except this to me is a colossal problem. That implies that the team are not part of the community. That they're somehow removed from the community. Now, the team are all heavyweight contributors to the project, I have no beef with that. What I have a problem with is the notion that being long-time contributors somehow makes their opinion more important than the rest of the community's.
Compare and contrast that with Wedge. There are only two people in this project whose opinion outweighs everyone else's. There is also a small group of people whose opinion outranks others. This is not really a secret. But let me explain how it works.
The top two people are Nao and myself. We write the vast bulk of Wedge's code. That gives us final say on what happens. The reason, then, that our opinion is more important is not because we have inflated egos or anything but because we're the ones *actually doing it*.
The second group of people I mention are the Consultants. The reason they have an opinion we pay more attention to is because, again, they're actually doing it. They're looking at the code, they're actively writing code that has been taken under consideration and in some cases even drafted into the core. Again, because they're actually getting down and dirty with the code, we pay them some extra attention.
Then there's everyone else. It is not to say that we don't listen - because we certainly do. We listen to every comment and every thread that gets made. We're not under any prerogative to accept it, just as I'm not under any prerogative to accept any code Nao writes and he, I, vice versa.
Compare this with SMF. They have a vast group of people who are not code authors, who are not getting down into the code suggesting how things could/should/must be done. Why is their opinion more important than the regular users? Should it be so? I'd say not... you can be a major contributor without being a 'team member'. I've proved that. I can happily make thousands of posts without being a team member or without having a badge, and my opinion is considered as valid as a team member's in most cases because it's backed up by experience and/or code. So the badge is not a requirement. It is the worst kind of meritocracy, the self-serving, self-selecting kind.
So with the latest salvo (e.g. Motoko's snide comments, and the comment about the only place I want to see SMF is down the drain), I might as well just leech off sm.org rather than contribute because it's increasingly clear my comments aren't wanted.[4] Since the management is already convinced that I'm desperately trying to kill SMF, I might as well indulge them in that by taking Wedge so far beyond SMF that it'll never catch up. Then it can die a quiet, hopefully painless death because that's the best it can hope for now.
There's the gauntlet, folks, thrown down, right there.
:edit: by Nao: both clarified and concealed topic subject... :eheh:
| 1. | Norv and I don't exactly get on, but we do have some mutual respect for the position each other holds. I have other issues with some of the things she has said and done, however for me at least, most of them are in the past. |
| 2. | Again, notice this hasn't been said in public. The only public comment is how according to one team member, Norv is just delusional. She's not, of course. She's just more hardline about things and I'm pretty convinced that she's right about a lot of things in this whole matter. But hey, I've been called wilfully dense by the team before, it's only a matter of time before I'm called delusional too. |
| 3. | We did in the early days. But right now almost everything of the stuff happens in public and that's entirely by design. |
| 4. | Their bug reports, their feature suggestions etc. |
