[p2p-research] Issue of bullying within private p2p-f communication
Alex Rollin
alex.rollin at gmail.com
Sun Aug 15 17:53:41 CEST 2010
I don't know what came over me but I can see it was a mistake to get
in a fight here. I apologize for my part in it.
Alex
On Aug 15, 2010, at 3:00 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Alex,
>
> this is a voluntary organisation around a shared goal and both the
> peer governance of the community and the democracy of the formal
> foundation have certainly their place; at the same time, autocracy
> has no place, and everybody has a right to build influence and trust
> through proven contributions. This is what I have tried to do
> myself, and as we can see from the last few weeks, I have no
> independent power to stop you, and have not taken any administrive
> measures to stop you, because I can't (first I didn't want though
> now I think we do need some protections against hostile takeovers)
>
> you certainly have the right to communicate and to share your vision
> with others
>
> it is also a special project of which I'm the founder, and we're at
> a delicate stage of moving towards a more collective project,
>
> there are two visions at stake, as I see it,
>
> a pluralist vision where multiple views are possible honouring each
> other through mutuality, and where code is subordinated to the
> creation of knowledge; and where procedures are secondary to prior
> effort at consensus and conflit resolution through dialogue and
> accepted community arbitrage
>
> and the way I see it, a vision which claims to know what p2p is,
> wants to create tools to enact it in practice, and a very activist
> board that aims to steer this effort and does not leave room for
> other views, which it seeks to displace and dominate; certainly that
> is the way I see my experience in the last few weeks and months
>
> indeed, in your practice, in the past few months, I see the
> following, you enacted code and were insensitive to any challenges
> to your vision of it, you created policy documents given the
> impression of officialdom without acknowledging their private
> proposal status, and you have a habit of bullying and insulting the
> people who disagree with you, in the private emails that accommpany
> the public debate .. you fight to win and dominate and behaved like
> an autocrat
>
> none of the problems would have arisen if you had been more modest
> about your actions, acknowledged differences graciously, and
> acknowledged me as a peer with some influence because of the prior
> work I have done here. I have four years of practice to prove that I
> have never imposed my views
>
> instead, you sought dominance and power, create code and policy
> which aims to dislodge plurality, and openly declare that you are in
> the game to oust me
>
> in theory, yes, this is legitimate, but given the strategy of the
> coucou you have been following, I cannot accept, not the challenge,
> but the fact that it would consume a large amount of destructive
> energies, and that there is someone on board who does not respect
> the plural vision, the mutuality required by cooperation
>
> I'm assuming that seeking dominance for you is second nature, and I
> am not sure that you are even aware that you do it, neverthless,
> imposing and dominating is what you attempt to do, and you use
> process and democracy to hide behind it
>
> Since you cannot accept the slightest challenge to your all-knowing
> certainty about the direction of the p2p foundation, and in my view
> see it as a direct attack on the ego, what your call for democracy
> in reality means is a promise for endless scheming and opposing my
> ideas and vision ..
>
> It is not that they cannot be challenged, but there must be a
> certain amount of acceptance of the road ahead as well, in order to
> have some form of commonality amongst our diversity,
>
> so, peer governance will evolve, and you've seen it in action, we
> talk amongst ourselves about the best way forward and how to deal
> with the conflict, no one has been barking orders and it has been
> through the presentation of the evidence of your actions in the past
> few weeks
>
> and we will also have a new board, discuss about the process to
> nominate its members, and install democratic procedures
>
> but, I cannot accept someone who vows to destroy my work, has indeed
> made it very hard in the last few weeks to progress on, and vows to
> continue until he wins,
>
> you're win-loose propositions and mentality are in my view not the
> proper way to engage with the P2P Foundation, and I reserve the
> right to make this known, and to oppose it.
>
> here's a contribution below that expresses better than myself, what
> I think happened, and why you are so fond of democracy and
> procedure, and are writing an endless stream of policy pages.
>
> Again, I'm normally opposed to psychologizing differences, since
> they can be used to prove superiority, yet since it is my conviction
> that it is central for what happened between us, I will share it,
> and to explain my opposition to your use of democracy as means to
> dominate and take over the P2P Foundation. Not that I believe you
> will succeed, but because I believe you will create further damage
> in the process, and I'm loathe to resume productive work, without
> being drained by an endless conflict.
>
> This is why I'm asking you to retract your democratic threat to do
> all in your power to take over this community and to fight me until
> I'm reduced to total powerlessness as a user. I already have been in
> the position of user vis a vis your imposed new rules and
> information architecture, I know how much you have respected my
> rights to disagree, and I can no longer accept this, and don't want
> such a regime to dominate all the good work we have done so far.
>
> I have my own flaws, you have your opinion on it which you
> generously shared and I'm sure others can say more, but, I'm pretty
> sure that there is no inkling of a desire for autocracy
>
> so, here is the anonymous quote, that sets behaviour into context:
>
> (send privately)
>
> Alex, believe me, you'd be so much happier if you stopped trying to
> be the boss and to push other people down, you have great skills and
> abilities, you would naturally rise through your contributions, and
> were, if you had not sought and thought that you needed to push
> others away in order to achieve your goals ... there was place for
> everybody here
>
> Michel
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Michel, the energy behind your threat is associated with my stated
> intentions to expel you from the board. I said in private that I
> want to vote you off the board. I don't see a problem with this
> intention. This is how democracy works.
>
> To me, this is about democracy, and this is good. Voting for and
> against a position or for a representative is a good thing.
>
> Maybe this is the subject we should talk about?
>
> If this was a democracy I would vote you off.
>
> I say I have a right to critique your use of authority and the
> decisions you make.
>
> I want users to have rights. I want users to be represented on the
> board.
>
> I see democracy as an important part of a community.
>
> I have a right to contact others. I have a right to learn from their
> concerns and to share information with them.
>
> Alex
>
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 7:43 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
> I want to report on an issue that I had communicated privately, to
> honour my own promise to restrain myself, but given Sam Rose's reply
> which I'm not copying in without his permission, confirms that
> private bullying has gone on much more systematically. I must admit
> I find it hard to adopt this restraint, since I feel the very
> survival of what I have tried to build, with others, is at state,
> and people need to know also what happens 'behind the scenes'. As
> you will see from the development below, private communication can
> be used as a weapon, and it's part of the equation and the power play
>
> People who have been following this controversy know that it started
> from increasing frustration that my concerns were not heard, and
> replies like "read the f ..ing manual". A whole attitude of
> superiority and dismissal of concern. As you'll see below, I'm
> literally for Alex "a little man", as well as an "old man" who has
> to learn to share. I may be a little and old man (I'm 52), but I do
> not think that I need any lessons in sharing.
>
> I also reported on the habit of bullying, but perhaps underestimated
> how persuasive this was. While I have seen examples, I was unaware
> that similar communication had been directed to other people who
> expressed support here.
>
> I have also another deeper reason for this. James, who like me has a
> conciliatory and mediating personality (in this of course, I have
> not kept up that habit), tells me he does not wish to take any
> specific measures. My problem is that this means only certainly the
> following scenario unfolding, and bear with me for the explanation:
>
> - in the coming weeks, we will collect candidacies for the new
> board, present it to this list, and see who else wants on, and
> decide on a process for the nomination. Almost certainly, Alex will
> pose his candidacy, since he has openly declared that he wants in,
> and use his position to start a campaign for my ouster. As I
> indicated, I feel this is inaceptable at this stage of the budding
> life of the P2P Foundation as something more than a knowledge
> commons. Permanent 'civil war' will almost certainly dissipate the
> positive energies needed to continue construction of the movement.
> This means, that were his candidacy accepted, he would have won. It
> also means that all the changes that are meant to mold the
> foundation to his own image, would succeed. This would mean working
> under a regime that I would abhor, the construction of the P2P
> Foundation as an authorititarian cult. I accept that Alex has good
> intentions, but I also strongly believe that there is a lack of self-
> reflection and that he is not aware of his bullying manner, and
> prisoner to a conviction of righteousness. To use a historical
> analogy, when Stalin took over the power structure in Russia, he did
> not say, I'm an evil man who wants power and send everyone to the
> Gulag, but draped himself in righteousness, billed the others as
> enemies, used this righteousness as the standard, and send them to
> the Gulag. Of course, no such thing could happen in a voluntary
> organisation, but I want to indicate a similar process. As the
> policy documents produced by Alex indicate, the Board would consist
> of ultra-committed advocates, with only one thing in mind, i.e. they
> would be righteous, they would swear allegiance to his pledge of
> commitment, and a process would be in place to enforce a p2p
> orthodoxy that would go in the sense of what has been described.
> Even if no blood would be shed, the atmosphere would not be that of
> a congenial and convicial voluntary organisation, but that more akin
> of a cult, driven by a righteous leader. True all of this is now
> only visible in seed form, and most of you may not see this, but it
> is there already if you can see it.
>
> Needless to say, I do not want to be part of such an organisation,
> not of course, because I am against commitment, but because such a
> vision of p2p-f sees it not as a movement based on come and go
> voluntary contrbutions, but as something altogether different. I
> have indicated before that Alex' vision, however legimate as one
> choice within the p2p sphere, is entirely monological, since he
> things he can positively describe singular p2p principles and hold
> people accountable to them. My problem is NOT with that vision, but
> with the effort to impose that singular vision on the whole of the
> p2p-f and to make the work of us that disagree, subservient to that
> monological vision. If Alex has a vision of text as code, however
> legitimate as a hypothesis and belief, then he simply enacts it,
> refuses to take into account any objections, and implicitely forces
> all of us to go along. If Alex has a vision of the P2P-F as an
> idealized cult of p2p monks, he writes up policy documents that if
> accepted, would be the basis to attack those that diverge from that
> idealized vision.
>
> In other words, if nothing happens, Alex comes on the Board and I
> refuse to enter it under those conditions, this is far from being
> only a personal matter only. I will have to create another vehicle
> for my work, and make sure that next time, there are minimum
> protective measures that can counter any strategy of the coucou, as
> we have just witnessed. The rest of you, those that do no wish to
> act against the imposition of a singular vision, will ultimately
> also live with the consequences. I expect that most of you would
> leave once they see the real consequences of the change, but others
> may come, who like the direction of a stern father figure telling
> them of the one way to salvation. In the process though, four years
> of work will have been hijacked, and morphed into something that
> goes against the orginal spirit.
>
> From your experience here, through the wiki, blog and mailing list
> discussion, you must already be aware of the counter-vision that I
> have proposed and enacted, with faults and warts but nevertheless as
> a sincere attempt, that of the foundation as a pluralistic
> platform, with mutual respect, and where different visions can co-
> exist. Such co-existence can also include that of Alex, if he
> retracts his promise for a permanent civil war, and if he would
> learn to take his place as a peer instead of imposing his singular
> vision of everybody else. I have personally lost any confidence and
> trust that Alex would be capable of this, but would still accept it
> in the name of due process and giving everybody extra chances. But I
> won't be happy to work in a context where I have to fight
> constantly, be bullied. Why would I, since for me as well this is a
> voluntary engagement, and the new lord does not pay me to undergo
> this particular treatment.
>
> OK then, exhibit one:
>
> "it is a user regime. it always will be, no matter how confused
> little men like you are. you old people will have to learn to
> share, especially since you need the techs in order to do anything.
> [8/12/2010 7:15:28 PM]
>
> (Alex does not see the contradiction of advocating a user regime,
> while wanting to sit in the board and demote me as a user ... the
> new regime will not be a user regime, but a board-driven
> authoritarian organisation, where petty rules (the literarlly
> hundreds of pages are being produced as we speak) will drive
> process; what alex has in mind is not just the formal rules of the
> wikipedia but also it's power structure of powerful admins, that
> have successfully halted the growth of it)
>
>
> Exhibit two, a for now anonymous confirmation of my intuition:
>
> - You were more than justified. Alex went well into the realm of
> personal attacks, harassment and bullying towards you in these
> exchanges. I think the only way you were going to see it stop was to
> hold up a mirror for him, so that he could see how he was acting.
>
> Yes, this is just a waste of time at this point. I see this as
> bullying, because he's putting pressure on you in an abusive way to
> try and trip you up, then use this against you.
>
> When someone starts doing stuff like this, there's no need to extend
> the regular respect and patience that you might extend to most others.
> They don't deserve it.
>
>
> I really hope that other people will hear this, and take steps to
> avoid the metamorphosis of this project.
>
> Michel
>
>
>
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