[Board] Some issues occurred with one potential GSoC mentor (Warning: long email)

Sat Apr 2 05:07:03 PDT 2016

Dear all,
GSoC is a great program and was gratly administered and largely successful
in the last years thanks to th great work of anne and madi. I know they are
absolutely correct and that if any misunderstood i am sure that it occurred
for unclear communication and not for any personal issue.

I remember anyway that any osgeo community member can privately contact the
code of conduct committee to express situation they believe are not fear
and or non correct.

I also recall that madi is appointed by the board and has the full trust.

Maxi
Il 02/Apr/2016 12:45, "Jorge Sanz" <jsanz at osgeo.org> ha scritto:

> Hi all
>
> We don't know the timing of these emails and I really don't care. My
> only concern is about students applying to the GSoC and having a fair
> chance to participate on the program. From the wiki page I see Brian
> added himself to the list of proposed mentors on March 14th[1], the
> same day the applications for students opened[2], listing himself as
> SciPy, PostGIS and GDAL.
>
> If there's been any misunderstanding please try to fix it and do your
> best, assume good faith and communicate, because at the end we are all
> here working for the community and welcoming new people in this case
> with GSoC. Please remember our code of conduct guidelines, specially
> the second one[3].
>
> I'm totally confident on Margherita's good judge, so Brian if you have
> any issue with any other member of this community please deal with it
> privately and think on the hard job is needed to get the GSoC program
> working and that we are all human and need each others to get things
> done. As a past mentor and point of contact between OSGeo and gvSIG I
> know how much work is needed to get this done and how easily the lack
> of communication can make things difficult, specially on this
> procedures that proceed over several months.
>
> All the best
>
> [1]
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Google_Summer_of_Code_2016_Administrative&diff=prev&oldid=97385
> [2] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
> [3] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Code_Of_Conduct#Specific_Guidelines
>
> On 1 April 2016 at 15:11, Margherita Di Leo <diregola at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear members of the Board,
> >
> >
> > I am writing to you because I am experiencing some issues with a person
> that
> > applied to be mentor for GSoC. I don’t think it is any news that as
> admins
> > are responsible for the mentors and, should they disappear during the
> year,
> > admins should take over. It is our interest to *select* mentors that are
> > reliable, and have a solid record in the community they contribute to.
> > Managing mentors from all the project communities under OSGeo’s
> umbrella, as
> > well as guest projects, is not easy, mostly because we don’t know each
> and
> > every person that apply to become mentor. Most of the times, it is
> > sufficient to browse the code contribution of these people. We have also
> > simplified the procedure to become a mentor, so that the mentors have to
> > appoint themselves in a wiki page [1], the more transparent the procedure
> > is, the better. We normally contact would-be mentors if any information
> is
> > missing or unclear, especially if we don’t know them.
> >
> >
> > Now, it occurred that one of those people, that I don’t personally know,
> had
> > indicated several entries in the field of “software community”, some of
> > which are not under OSGeo umbrella. Normally, what I do in these cases, I
> > contacted him asking to clarify what exactly was the idea he wanted to
> > mentor for. I also discussed with Anne and she was in cc in the whole
> email
> > exchange. This person never clarified his intentions, remaining vague.
> Anne
> > and I were in doubt whether the procedure was not clear to him. I can
> > extrapolate some sentences from the email exchange:
> >
> >
> > Me: “I'm writing you because I saw that you requested to mentor this year
> > for GSoC. Could you please specify for which software community and which
> > idea?”
> >
> >
> > He: “I am new to GSoC. After many years of building the SciPy Geo stack
> for
> > OSGeo-Live, I believe I could take a student through many different
> paths. I
> > have not looked at the ideas page much -- what is the protocol there ?
>  Do
> > I add ideas ?”
> >
> >
> > He had not specified OSGeo-Live as a project he wanted to mentor for, but
> > since he specified several, and cited it in his first email, I assumed he
> > meant to mentor for OSGeo-Live. However, I requested him again to
> specify at
> > least one idea he wanted to mentor for, and linked him some resources,
> > because he was clearly confused about the whole GSoC concept. Waiting for
> > his answer, I have hold to appoint him as mentor.
> >
> > He never got back with a reply, but his next email was: “Hi Margherita --
> > whats going on now ?”
> >
> >
> > You can imagine my surprise, however, I replied that we received no
> students
> > submissions for OSGeo-Live. Moreover, student submissions were closed
> and we
> > accept further mentors only if they are already bound to a specific
> > proposal. Then his answer was the most surprising one:
> >
> >
> > “Hi Margherita -
> >
> >  this is confusing, since I am not listed as "OSGeo-Live" mentor..
> perhaps
> > someone else is giving you information and you are distracted ?
> >
> > You might be mixing this with last years OSGeo-Live and your
> brother-in-law
> > ?
> >
> > I had two students, but I don think they were clear on the process,
> either,
> > since this is their first time too
> >
> >  I am available as listed - thanks”
> >
> >
> > So he never mentioned who are the students and what are the ideas that
> he is
> > up to mentor, but he is accusing me to be distracted and confused, and
> he is
> > mentioning my brother in law, that is, no mystery, epifanio. At this, I
> > perceived his intention was more like spamming / bullying rather than
> > mentoring, and I replied :
> >
> >
> > “this is confusing indeed, because you were not clear at all about the
> OSGeo
> > or guest project you wanted to mentor for! I guessed it was the
> OSGeo-live
> > because was the only OSGeo project you mentioned in your email! Please
> try
> > not to mix my family ties with gsoc and make clear to yourself your plans
> > about mentoring.”
> >
> >
> > However, the reason why I’m writing is that this person has started to
> > slander my work as admin in public chats, like this:
> >
> >
> > x: ah hm interesting -- my student just wrote me and said that he DID
> supply
> > the application for PostGIS in time for the deadline
> >
> > x: thats a neat twist, considering that my mentor status was listed as
> > "PostGIS" .. and the rejection email from Margharita definitely said "We
> did
> > not receive any applications for OSGeo-Live"
> >
> > x: and, there is one and only one PostGIS mentor listed, which is me
> >
> > x: -
> >
> > x: so I have to give you some credit epifanio for actually feeding your
> > sister-in-law some story that got me out .. effective "revenge" there
> >
> > x: you said you would get me, and you did
> >
> >
> > Now, I’m not impressed by his bullying, and I pity him. But, beside I
> don’t
> > have a clue of what he is talking about (not that it interests me in the
> > slightest) I need to maintain my reputation crystal clear, and since
> this is
> > a delicate matter about privacy, I don’t feel like sharing to everyone
> all
> > the email exchange revealing the name of this person and so on. This
> would
> > be mean. But I remain at disposal of any member of the board that wanted
> to
> > go further in this matter.
> >
> >
> > I also would like to point out that this is a very serious matter, since
> in
> > the GSoC program, money are involved and I don’t want to raise the
> slightest
> > doubt about my respectability or my favouring a member of my family in
> any
> > circumstances. If this person continues on this way, I’m afraid I’ll be
> > forced to do anything is legally in my power to protect my
> respectability.
> >
> >
> > Finally, as far as GSoC is concerned: I have always given the benefit of
> the
> > doubt to anyone. English is my second language and I cannot be always
> sure
> > to understand every shades of what people mean, and in the doubt, I
> always
> > assume that they mean good. However, it looks clear to me that this
> person’s
> > behavior demonstrates a childish attitude (not to say worse) and, as
> long as
> > the mentors selection is under my responsibility, I don’t consider him
> > mature and reliable to become a mentor for any of our students.
> >
> >
> > Please, pardon the length of my email, but I needed to bring this matter
> to
> > the Board in order to make the situation as transparent and crystal
> clear as
> > possible. Allow me to add that behaviours like this one really dishearten
> > people from taking the initiative of doing something on a voluntary
> basis.
> >
> >
> >
> > [1]
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code_2016_Administrative
> >
> > --
> > Margherita Di Leo
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Board mailing list
> > Board at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>
>
>
> --
> Jorge Sanz
> http://www.osgeo.org
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
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