On 6/9/2010 2:01 AM, Austin Hair wrote:
On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Aryeh Gregor
<Simetrical+wikilist(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2) Make sure that every paid developer spends
time dealing with the
community. This can include giving support to end users, discussing
things with volunteers, reviewing patches, etc. They should be doing
this on paid time, and they should be discussing their personal
opinions without consulting with anyone else (i.e., not summarizing
official positions). Paid developers and volunteers have to get to
know each other and have to be able to discuss MediaWiki together.
I like the "discussing their personal opinions without consulting with
anyone else" bit, and you bring up a very good point.
I don't think (and I don't mean to imply that anyone else does) that
anyone's conspiring to keep the community out, or saying "leave this
to the professionals, we know better." When you're hired onto a team,
though, you're wary of saying anything that would cause strife or
confusion. This isn't necessarily out of fear of retribution from
your employer—it's simply conventional professional ethics, and it's
usually not even a conscious thing. (It's also not limited to paid
staff—the people we put on the Board specifically for their vocal
opinions on things often fall into this, for understandable reasons.)
When it comes to the board, along with others who have oversight
responsibilities like management staff, there's an additional factor in
this. It's not generally appropriate, or good for staff morale, to
publicly go through the work of employees or contractors when you're in
such a position. There are good reasons that work evaluations and other
personnel matters are considered confidential. I don't mean to say that
staff shouldn't be discussing code, roadmaps, or rationales as widely
and openly as possible, but if for example I was qualified to review a
staff member's patch (which I'm not), I might want to think twice about
what audience gets that feedback.
--Michael Snow