[arg_discuss] whitepaper:wiki, next version

[Adam Martin]

On 12/12/06, Brooke Thompson <brooke at mirlandano.com> wrote:

>

> Wendy wrote:

> > I don't know who's still subscribed, and I don't know why there's not more

> > participation. I don't think we can blame it entirely on leadership or the

> > lack thereof. We are not sheep. This mailing list is whatever we want it

> > to be. But I think I'll start a new thread on that topic.

>

> You know, "we" may not be sheep, but who in the heck are "we"?

>

> I honestly have no idea and that makes it near impossible to participate on

> this list. And, I think, that is not "our" fault and is indicative of a lack

> of leadership and direction.

>

> When this issue first came up, publicly, last March (in the "Communities and

> resources" thread), the leadership failed to help the group come to a

> resolution on the issue. And that contributed to an "us vs them" divide.

> Even more detrimental, we were left with what I mentioned in my earlier post

> - players feeling unwelcome and developers feeling unable to participate.

> How did we get there? It was not only because of the inability or

> unwillingness of the leadership to resolve the issue, but by the conflicting


I'm sorry that you have this misunderstanding, but there is no
us-and-them divide between "the leadership" that you describe and (I
guess?) "everyone else", no matter how you many times and ways you
wilfully misinterpret events. Persisting in this attitude is liable to
become a self-fulfilling prophecy through alienating the people who
currently are trying to work with you - no-one appreciates being
talked about the way you talk up what sounds like a fascist
dictatorship.

As it stands, anyone is free to step up, propose ideas, assume
responsibilities, and deliver on them. This has always been the case,
and those of us running the SIG have each been very active in trying
to get people to talk to us and to each other and to push ahead with
whatever they wanted to do.

If you read back through the archives, you'll see that most
explorative conversations on these issues (for instance on moderation,
on the role of the SIG, etc) tend to end with one or other of the
three named people running the SIG (myself, Andrea, and Evan) asking
for more feedback, or to start with us attempting to get follow-up
feedback from conversations that went silent without people responding
in much detail.

We are no different from anyone else, its just that
we're the few who stepped up and offered our time to take
responsibility for the everyday things, like maintaining the resources
(website, mailing list) and co-ordinating activities (whitepaper,
conference meetings) - and to take wider personal responsibility for
the activities carried out in the SIG's name. When the SIG was formed,
and we were asked to
find three people willing to do that, only two actually stepped
forwards and the third had to be co-opted. I don't have the list of 10
founders any more, all of whom were invited but none of whom stepped
forwards, but whether or not you were one of them if you would like to
step up now then please by all means go ahead - there is plenty to do!
There are some basic constraints - you will need to be available to
talk to the rest of us (me especially) regularly and frequently, to
co-ordinate with
the other SIG activities and with the IGDA, and accept that anything
special needs to be agreed/checked in advance, but that's about it
really.

We have said time and again that this SIG is what the people who join
it decide to make of it. Please (and this is a general request,
sparked by Brooke's comments, but aimed at everyone rather than
specifically at Brooke) rather than thrusting blame upon a couple of
us for it not being what you want it to be
just go ahead and *make* it what you want.

The best way is probably to bring up your ideas on the mailing list,
address whatever concerns people raise, rustle up however many
volunteers its going to need, and then propose something concrete
(just as Brian et al are currently doing).

That's how the whitepaper happened, for instance:

 - a couple of people independently raised the idea at the GDC, I
can't remember who exactly but IIRC Evan and Brooke were two of the
most passionate proposers
 - we talked about it at the group gathering and later via email,
eliciting some ideas and some feedback both on how viable it would be,
and how valuable
 - I spoke to the relevant people at IGDA to get their perspective and
find out what the minimum reqs would be
 - I double-checked that we had enough volunteers and resources to
reasonably expect we would complete what we started
 - finally, we put together and got sign off for schedules, aims,
writing guidelines, etc, and sent out the calls for proposals to
everyone and anyone, and I took over the job of organizing and
reviewing the proposals and contributors

Adam