Thursday, June 30, 2011

Some JUG Politics or "Why doesn't a community grow under farcism"

A group with no/poor leadership is like a ship without a rudder.

I have been trying to reboot MyJUG (at a tangible level, a site and some blogs) for years with no avail, to take lead but got beaten down (continue reading), and when I wanted to talk about some MNCC stuff to the group just now, I found out that I was banned.

MyJUG is established since 1999, founded by Loke KS, owned by Loke, bossed by Loke. Once in a short while, some new faces come and new motivation generated to create new discussions and some ambitious to live up the group and technical talks. Most recently, before 2011, we were told by Loke that he's working something out with Oracle (and now, being the mid of 2011, the group still haven't yet organized a single activity) and looking for volunteers to help out (I have no idea why we have never formed a board or committee to have some balance of power and management, I raised it), and I did,
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I created two polls in Doodle, just click, no hassle registration:
>
> Vote for new platform
> Vote for next talk
>
> I wrote a blog post too, let's make some change to the group for 2011.
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Loke KS wrote:
>
> Yuen, why don't you take the lead in organising some talks?
Very good, I got a tap on the shoulder to go for it.

And I moved fast again, including finding a right place to document the activities of the group, to vote for topics, etc. (so I also started a Google Sites, as the earlier work I did is hosted in my ex-company server). Most importantly, I kept things transparent in the mailing list and opened them for better suggestions.

Then?
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Loke KS wrote:
> Can you discuss with me first before you take any action on any matter?
Come on, what the fuck?
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
> I was acting based on the votes. I didn't know there was a concern,
> enlighten me.

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Loke KS wrote:
>
> If you want to work as a team, then we work as a team else we work
> individually, separately. What does working in a team means? What if I have
> other plans that I am working with other people?

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Yuen-Chi Lian wrote:
>
> Then always share with us.
>
> Secret agenda is no longer a weapon but stumbling block of a community.
> Being open and transparent is the initial driving force to start or change a
> community in this era. You can learn from some successful stories, GitHub is
> one, how Apache/Hudson/MySQL/OpenOffice left Oracle is another.
>
> There's just too much legacy to drag us from moving forward. When we
> sacrifice more individualistic controls over things back to community decision,
> you will see how things can be different.
>
> I'm sure you get my point. Oracle doesn't.
>
> It's not about working as a team, but working with the community.
Things went quiet again, until Bernie (great Android developer) started similar topic, but Loke, this time, never looked into the problem nor contributed anything practical to realize the members' desire.

About a week plus ago, I was told that Chee Aun is working on Connections.my, and thus I brought it up in MyJUG (although I misunderstood what the site is actually for in the beginning, but that's not important) and also mentioned about having a breakaway JUG, as, at that point of time, I was frustrated that Loke still hasn't yet done any real deal with the great Oracle. When emotion goes wrong, bad things can happen - I'm banned:
You have been banned from this group by the group moderator (Yahoo! ID banned: yuenchi.lian). You may not join the group myjug.
I'm not sure if I'm the first one to be banned, but I am seriously tired of dealing with one's fascism (there's only one owner and moderator to maintain the Yahoo! group) but nothing else every time I wanted to realize something.

So, here's an idea, is anyone up for a breakaway, to start clean, with no boss but the people?

At the same time, while the old Facebook page is deprecating, I have spawned a new one here, please join.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Good luck for restarting the community. If you need venue, I can check with hackerspace kl, if you want .......

aizatto said...

I like how you started a Facebook Group instead of a traditional mailing list. kekekeke :P

Best of luck in reviving the group!

Tiensoon said...

Let's get it moving! I would love to see, and will support organizing, JUGCamp or some sort, on a monthly basis :)