Open letter to CMSMS community

[replytomk3]

I can't catch it, sorry... maybe in English or Hungarian 

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.cmsmadesimple.org%2Findex.php%2Ftopic%2C24835.msg235423.html%23msg235423&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

[replytomk3]

another Thing: I have to warn you, don't make Calguy1000 angry - he wrote: "Don't make me angry..... you won't like me when I'm angry...."
so you can find here, when he's getting angry:
http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/bug/view/5823

I guess I made him angry as well, so this is close to my heart, what Cyberman and a few others said here.

[jmcgin51]

alby
RonnyK
Rolf
Nullig
JeremyBASS
jce76350
Patricia
tsw
Dee
nuno

choose to be silent...

of the list you provided, JeremyBASS, alby, RonnyK, and Rolf are currently members of the dev team, so I would not expect them to respond separately from the united dev team response.

I agree that there are some longstanding issues that need to be addressed - both with regard to technical items (outstanding software bugs, etc), and with regard to the way comments/feedback are handled by the dev team.  These issues need to be attended to - preferably by the dev team in concert with the community - as they will not disappear unless the software disappears, and that would be good for no one.  However, I can appreciate and respect the dev team's restraint in their response in this thread, as they chose not to engage with flamers.

To the dev team - I hope you have made an effort to reach out to Cyberman beyond the invitation in your response in this forum.  If he has truly left the community, then he will never know of your invitation, and thus will not have a chance to work things out, even if that is something in which he has an interest.

If you, as a member of the community, have a problem with a member of the dev team (or someone else in the community, for that matter), please have the decency to address it in a responsible and mature manner, not by name-calling, flaming, baseless or exaggerated accusations, etc.  Take it up with that individual, or with our Benevolent Dictator if you feel that the individual is truly that far out of line.  In other words - with no disrespect intended to our fairer friends - man up.  It's easy to post behind an anonymous internet handle (see?  I'm doing it right now! ), but your words still carry weight, and there are real people behind the handles on the other end of your internet connection.  A little respect and common courtesy goes a long way (and yes, that goes for the dev team just as for the community).

Think twice, post once.

[replytomk3]

I agree that there are some longstanding issues that need to be addressed - both with regard to technical items (outstanding software bugs, etc), and with regard to the way comments/feedback are handled by the dev team.  These issues need to be attended to - preferably by the dev team in concert with the community - as they will not disappear unless the software disappears, and that would be good for no one.

I support and agree to this 100%

[replytomk3]

It is hard, but I just read the German thread. I suggest others do as well (but try something other than Google to translate. It's horrible in German...)

[Nullig]

I have been silent up to now, waiting for the dev team response, as there's no point in commenting until you've heard both sides of the story.

Without first hand knowledge, we are left with two different perspectives of the events that transpired and, given the differences between the two narratives, I know that I have insufficient information to form an opinion.

I can see that there may be a certain amount of misinterpretation of events and postings due to the language differences and cross-cultural nuances. This has been true of all of the "internationalised" open source forums that I've ever been a part of. Given the nature of the medium - text - with it's lack of nuance and body language, misinterpretations are usually commonplace.

It seems that most of the flaming is aimed at Calguy - well, I know he can be brusque at times, as we all can given the proper circumstances, but he is a tireless, committed developer, who has the best interests of the software in mind.

I'm not sure what the originator of this thread was out to achieve. The breakup of the community? Diminishment of CMSMS's public status? Eliminating Calguy as a developer? What exactly is the point of this thread?

For myself, I have the utmost regard for all of the dev team and every member of the community because, by far, this has been the best group/forum I've ever worked with - and I've worked with many.

Here's hoping we can all come together in the spirit of the holiday season and work out our differences amicably.

Nullig

[owr_bgld]

Well spoken Ted - well done your beating around the bush

This also addresses the teams decision to remove the flag for the German site as there are some very derogatory remarks made about the system in general, the forum, and some forum members in particular.

Please can you tell me, which things this have been BEFORE YOU REMOVED the german flag?
What you - and because you speak for all DEV's also they - are doing is taking a map of the german speaking countries (.de, .at) - and german parts (like Souther Tyrol in .it and others) and pissing on it.

[M@rtijn]

M@rtijn, you put your hands down far too easily.

"I'm a bit surprised at how many newly registered members who seem to know more things about this than many of us...." many people here either participate on other forums, are only part of the dev team (or translations, etc), or just watch and observe all the posts. So not a huge number posts does not mean people are new to CMSMS.

Openletter/Conny/HansDampf, you're trolling. Stop it!
"Not a huge number of posts does not mean they are new", no, it means they only come here to start a fight, to act like proper c*cks, who wants to spoil the fun for everybody else. That's not a community spirit.
Again, this 'situation' between Cyberman and the Dev-team is not an excuse to behave badly all over the forums and 'stone' CalGuy. Think about it, you would not want somebody to do that to you, so don't do it to others.

You say I put my hands down easily. I think you do not understand me.
I'm not on a personal crusade against CG or any other team member, like yourself.
I am on this forum because I love the product CMSMS, to talk about that product and it's modules, ask question on how to use it, help people answer their questions and -maybe- have some fun along the way.

I have had some small altercations with CalGuy, but I can understand where his decisions are coming from. So he's a little harsh in his wording, he is here to keep the forum/forge clean and that is a difficult task.
Because of c*cks like yourself, he has to act like a police officer all the time and let's be honest, who really likes police officers?
But, what they do makes sense, they enforce rules so a community can benefit. They are only doing their jobs, let them.

Maybe you do not understand how this project works. You have somebody who founded it, who decided who was going to be in the Dev-team and what the roadmap will look like. And on the other side of the spectrum you have us, the users, who can do what we want within the guidelines of what the team-members allow us. Accept that.

We have the possibility to file bug-reports and future requests. That doesn't mean these have to be implemented. I understand you have a grudge against anything which slightly resembles authority and you not having it, but stop your annoying behaviour.
If you have a bug to report, explain what it is, how it is caused and what you think will solve and leave it at that. If your bug is important enough (ie. lots of installs suffer from this bug), it will be picked up.
If not, let it be.

I think it is important that this situation is discussed by the people that are involved. There is no need to do that in a public forum. Since I'm not part of this situation, that is where my participation ends and I don't need you to tell me otherwise.
I've replied in this topic because I was shocked and taught I had to say something, not because I want to change anything, have other dev's loose their privileges.
If Cyberman doesn't want to participate in such a conversation, that's his choice. That also means he chooses not to come back. Like I said before that would be a loss for this community, but it would be his decision.

Let's end with some of your own words:

I think a few people have no idea how to differenciate between trying to help, and those who only have negative energy they want to impart on others.

Please think about what you can offer to this community and loose your negative energy!

[moorezilla]

Well... it's the Christmas season, and even as an agnostic I can appreciate that!

Maybe as a community we all should try to be a little nicer to one another, try to see each other's perspective a little clearer, and treat people a little more like we would like to be treated.

CMSMS has come so far and disagreements are probably inevitable with ANY active project (open source or closed source!). Let's not let petty differences get in the way, and here's to hoping that the non-petty differences can be solved logically and equitably.

And for anyone who uses cmsms but who hasn't given back to the cmsms project yet in one way or another, this might be seen as evidence that developing and supporting an open source project isn't all fun, games, and smiles. Might be a good time to Paypal through some project support... especially since this post suggests that a number of hard-working people might benefit from a good talk over a round of good beer. Actually... there's another reason to try and get the German folks back in the fold; they've got the best beer!

[janvl]

One of the biggest problems is the use of "google translator".

Especially in emotional discussion that will not do any good,
I am also busy in animal care and saw people use it to translate
from slovakian to german. My wife who is fluently in both languages
had a good laugh, the translations are miserable.

So be carefull with conclusions.

There are alway two sides to a story, remember that too.
This will not be solved within a day, it takes time.

Jan

[Sonya]

The intention of this open letter was not insulation of the dev team. Read the first post thoroughly, there are just facts as cyberman sees them. He does not say anything offending against the team. What he does is expressing his opinion and saying he is not agreed to the rules. Now, if you say rules are rules and cannot be discussed, then you are not in the community. "A community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment." I cannot see any interaction. The official answer to the letter is like "Cyberman is evil because…". However, it is not about cyberman, it is about general rules.

Try to see it more global. I am professional and thus the "target" person for CMS Made Simple. I will not ask, how to install module or create an own template. My only interest is the code, if ANY code (even bugfixes) is prohibited I do not know what is the reason for me to stay in the board. "Just" helping other people – is not enough, it is a good feeling knowing that you have helped, however, I cannot sell this feeling and buy some bread for it. In other words, any person giving support in forum has its own mercantile interests. This is obvious. If someone shares his knowledge he should be able to get something back. Allow any signature to the users with certain number of posts like other boards do. E. g. 100 posts before the signature will be displayed. But after 100 posts the signature can be commercial as well.

If you address professionals you first interest must be to care about the forge that is thought for professionals. Saying forge is difficult to change is like saying: "We do not want car drivers, we would like rally drivers, however, we do not have any racing cars, and you know, guys, it not so easy to get such cars."

Recently, there was a very funny situation. There was a bug in 1.9.1 that conflicted with SiteMapMadeSimple module and thus made creating pages impossible and left garbage in the database. We do not speak about any minor templates issues. We say: it was NOT possible to create pages in CMS. Posting of the fix for this issue was not allowed and it took three weeks for the new release. This is the most ridiculous situation for me. I have spent half an hour to fix the issue in my installations. Many other developers did the same, before the fix was available in svn. Is this efficient? EACH single professional has spent time on the same issue instead of quickly getting the fix in the community. Newbies could not create pages in their installation for three weeks as it was not allowed to help them. Funny?

Now, I can respect and understand the decision of not offering any changes to the core that are "improvements" in any way, but I am not agree to the way how it has been made here.

What about practical suggestion? Add checksum of the core files to the view Site Admin » System Information. If any of the core file differ there should be message:
"Attention! Your core files have been changed. No warranty and no support!".

To make it really annoying add the message throughout entire admin panel in the notification area, make it blinking without possibility to remove it Add to View Text Report (suitable for copying into forum posts) a line "Modified core files: yes/no" somewhere down in the list, so that newbies are not aware what they are copying and posting in the board.

I am sure there can be a lot of clever ideas to solve it. However, to get the ideas you should communicate with the users here and be prepared to discuss.

And, put the German flag back – this is just childish

[jmcgin51]

What about practical suggestion? Add checksum of the core files to the view Site Admin » System Information. If any of the core file differ there should be message:
"Attention! Your core files have been changed. No warranty and no support!".

To make it really annoying add the message throughout entire admin panel in the notification area, make it blinking without possibility to remove it Add to View Text Report (suitable for copying into forum posts) a line "Modified core files: yes/no" somewhere down in the list, so that newbies are not aware what they are copying and posting in the board.

Good ideas, Sonya!

[Ted]

It's time to move forward. Both sides have said their peace and instead of this turning into a monster thread that goes really far off-topic and helps no one, we'll be locking (not deleting) this thread on December 25th.  There will be no further response from the development team in this thread.  After this time, if people have concerns or questions should contact the development team directly and privately.

Any further threads on the original topic will be deleted and the users who continue to post them may be banned.  Other issues brought up in this thread that are valid, constructive and not trolling or flames will be collected and discussed after the holidays when we've all had a change to relax and regroup.

At the end of day, we're trying to have a happy, healthy and productive community here. Going beyond constructive criticism and pointing fingers or making personal attacks for 5 pages is counter-productive for everyone. It's time to move on and have a happy holiday (if that's your thing)!

[Wolfhardt]

Ok, so that's it. Discussion over.

You have driven away some of the most helpfull and dedicated members of this 'community' through neglect and abuse and now you put a lid on it. I see you had to decide between benevolent and dictator and choose the latter. Very sad indeed.

So we get a muzzle order, the points made by cyberman in his open letter will be glossed over and nothing will change. All concerns have to be posted  privately to not stir the 'peace' of the community, so Censorshipguy further can have his ways.

It may be that this will make you and your community happy, but it is neither healthy nor productive.

Your answers to this incident are oppressive and a violation of free speech. That's never healthy. And Sonya said all about the 'professionalism' and productivity of this environment.

It's very sad that a technical great product like CMSms is so flawed in the interpersonal department.

I'm new to this system, trying to make my first site with a CMS. cyberman was very helpfull to me while others here have called me an imposter and insulted as a liar (I'm looking at you Mr. Dude/M@rtijn ), I have seen how a bug report was closed out of spite without adressing the bug(http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/topic,50225.msg239739.html), I have seen how a dedicated, friendly and helpfull member of this 'community' is treated, I have observed an atmosphere of oppression and censorship, a rude tone of certain Devs, a way of communication I REALLY can't stand, a 'My way or the Highway' mindset.

You say, it's time to move forward. As a german user robbed of the german part of this 'community', as someone who has invested only one month in this product, as someone who really can't stand this kind of mindset shown by the Devs here, I must aggree, I must move forward.

My way is the highway, so I am out of here. Have your happy little 'community' where you can do as you like, but no further with me. You sure won't miss me as I am one of the annoying clients who thinks that bugs must be fixed, not glossed over.

All the best to cyberman and the german community for the Hollidays and CMSms.

Over and Out

[TeXnik]

Dear    Ted,
the entire  thread is  adressing  a problem in  the community    and    the    leadership.
Do you  really  believe  the problem disappears  by closing the  issue?

Yes I am  one  of  the  bloody users, who  are  not    professionals.  But I  love this  system, because    it  is  true  to its  naming simple.
I  look at    this    forum    now    for    3  years.    The attitude shown  from some of    the  devs  are  frankly speaking  absolutely  impolite  if  not  to say    crude and brute. 
Even non-professionals  have  their advantages for    the  system.  They  face problems  which could by  solving    lead to    even a  simpler system  and  they  meet    time    by time  professionals who  never  heard  of  the  system.

Another issue    not  really    mentioned  is  a lot    of  hollow announcements  where realization never  surfaced.

No Ted, please  reconsider  and think    about    the problems    in    solitude. Don´t  censor the    users and    disregard    their needs    and    wishes, theuserarepart oftheteam  and not    stupid  sheeps    which  have    to    be  herded and    bullied at  one`s  descretion.

Commited members  have been  bullied,  their    only    fault was    to  critize and    hint solutions.  Of course    they    are    upset how    they    were    treated and    a    lot  people  react  more    harshly  when falsely    accused than    others.

One  way  to  overcome    the  communication problem would be  to  install admins  and mods not    involved  in development    and  programming.  These  pwesons wouldnotsee  a personal affront  in  critical  comments and  be  able  to    moderate.

By the  way  thinking to offer  Skype, IRC  and other    methods    to  solve communication problems  is  a little  stupid when    not considering the    different    time    zones around    the world  and not    be    able    yourself  to  communicate  beyond "business hours".

Using  this argument  to  discredit  valid critics  is  quite  an old    method in political    propaganda and does    not    help. Such    methods are    in    general used    by    people  who have no    valid    counter arguments.  Ted using    this  proves that cyberman  had  some real arguments  and  you could  not counter. 

No Ted,  think and  identify the problems  and  come  back    to    the    community    with    probable solutions. If    not  I    suggest  you remove the word    "benevolent".