[p2p-research] On Alex Rollin stated intentions to expel me from the P2P Foundation board

[Natalie Pang]

Michel, you have my full trust of course, and I believe that you possess 
the vision and devotion necessary to fulfill the promises of this 
network. I consider the task of managing people the toughest job of all, 
not to mention a community that is growing this quickly. So I greatly 
laud your efforts, and no one should take anything away from you in this 
respect.

I believe there must be a genuine misunderstanding here. Being the 
non-techie I am, I must admit my inability to fully grasp what is 
happening here. But may I suggest that further discourse on this will 
only seek to pursue a peaceful solution, one that will be accepted by 
all parties?

As Thomas Carlyle once said, every noble work is at first impossible. So 
while things may seem difficult now, I believe it also presents an 
opportunity for us to look at things differently, and grow in our depth 
of understanding what may/may not work in our community. Let us all 
pursue a resolution with the goal of growing this productive community.

-- 
Natalie Pang
Assistant Professor
School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore Internet Research Centre




On 8/12/10 3:33 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> Dear friends,
> Though my critique of Alex has been harsh, I have explained why I 
> thought that was necessary, I have always made the disctinction 
> between his contributions, and the fact that I was opposed to him 
> imposing new technological directions for our wiki without process and 
> taking into account the opinion of its main contributor.
> Alex of course retorts that all his propositions are viewable (some of 
> them indeed are, many changes are not), but they are of such a volume 
> that it is not possible to process by the communty, nor by myself. The 
> result is a rapid escalation of changes, most of them beneficial, but 
> some of them greatly complicating the editorial work, which I oppose. 
> I never said this before, but I'd like to reveal now that from the 
> very first day, Alex actually stated that he did not intend to ask for 
> my permission or opinion on any matter, which is actually fine, as 
> long as I have the same freedom, which I have not if technological 
> changes are imposed.
> Because of my double evaluation, which recognizes alex's key 
> contributions and importance, I even yesterday proposed to James Burke 
> in a Skype conversation to reserve a place for Alex in the new board, 
> pending our decision on which process we would use to make the 
> choices. Because we do not have a membership, the idea was to propose 
> a list of names, publish it on the list, and wait for reactions, in 
> order to reach a consensus. Since we are seriously considering 
> building a membership organisation, at some point in the next few 
> years, probably this will happen through elections.
> This for the context, why the urgency.
> Alex has sent me a private letter, which I'm not suppose to divulge, 
> and I will not, but it also contains a threat.
> Namely the following: "*You can bet I will vote you off the board as 
> soon as I get a chance, but in the mean time you would do very well to 
> keep this kind of thing under wraps*."
> Cleary Alex is not happy with the public discussion, hence the threat 
> of: *"be quiet or else"* and at the same time, I'm unwilling to keep 
> it under wraps, he knows that, we knew that, so the next step is 
> already declared. This is valuable information.
> But I do think that his threat and position as a overt enemy in the 
> organisation I have created with James, is not acceptable. I talked 
> about a hostile IPO before, and perhaps nobody else saw this or felt 
> this in quite the same way as I did, and of course, the primary issue 
> was the imposition of a new policy and direction that I did not 
> approve of.
> This is different, and a step in the escalation in which Alex declares 
> himself an enemy.
> I do not think this is acceptable. Therefore, it is a matter of 
> principle for me that Alex Rollin will NOT sit on the board, and I'm 
> reinforced not only in the belief that there should be a fork, but now 
> that this fork should be OUTSIDE of the P2P Foundation.
> Thanks for sharing your perspectives.
> My position is clear: it is not workable to have a declared enemy, 
> opposed to the very organisation I have founded and tried to create.
> Once again, the P2P Foundation is pluralist, and strives for peer 
> governance and democracy, but I do believe there is a justifiable 
> boundary when sometimes declares an open civil war.
> Building the P2P Foundation is both a personal project and a 
> collective project, where hopefully the collective can transcend the 
> personal at some point, and obviously, I have my own limits. 
> Nevertheless, I believe my personal contribution has been necessary 
> and important, and that the continued growth of our work should be 
> based on trust. We are not yet at a stage where factions vie for 
> dominance, and perhaps never should.
> What I'm now asking is indeed trust. I have made an evaluation of Alex 
> Rollin, I have tried first to privately convey my unhappiness at 
> imposed policy stages, then made the issue public in face of any 
> progress, but making a careful difference between the attempt to 
> moderate the technological changes, and Alex' otherwise positive 
> contributions.
> Alex however, is playing a different game, and clearly states his 
> intention to expel me and to see support for this. It seems to me that 
> this is a time of choosing, and I hope my friends and P2P Foundation 
> supporters will support my continued efforts, and that since Alex 
> finds my presence unacceptable, should found his own, using freely of 
> course, all the material that has been collected so far, which is a 
> commons for all to use.
> Michel Bauwens
>
> -- 
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: 
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; 
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
>
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100812/e4fe0675/attachment.html>