A83: DIsmissal from ticalc.org - some clarifications

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A83: DIsmissal from ticalc.org - some clarifications


Chris Dornfeld e-mailed about my recent comments on the dismissal situation.
He had some clarifications and corrections to make and signaled that I should
post them.

>  I checked my non-ticalc.org e-mail and discovered two e-mails, one from 
> Magnus and one from Chris.  Magnus had sent me the carefully crafted dismissal 
> letter which the four coordinators wrote.  Chris sent me a ZIP file which 
> contained the files in my home directory, and said that my mail was coming soon.  
> I still haven't gotten my mail, I suspect every piece is being read to get 
> missing information for the people who are going to takeover my sections.

Chris has told me they are looking for passwords in my mail.  A legimate reason.
But nonetheless, they will be looking for other things as well.

>  The first incident that I can remember is the so-called "TI-Files hack" 
> incident, which occurred in early November, 1998.  What happened was I got the 
> FTP password to the TI-Files from a member who was resigning, I logged in using 
> that password, and deleted about 15 files in the main directory.  I knew TI-
> Files made backups once a week and that doing this wouldn't cause any unfixable 
> damage, it was more or less a joke.  But nevertheless, nothing can take away 
> from how unprofessional and disrespectful this act was, and I am sorry for it.  
> I made a public apology on November 10, 1998 in the form of a news article on 
> ticalc.org.

I was reluctant to make an apology on the front page of ticalc.org and thought
it was unnecessary at the time.  Only after pressure from the rest of the staff
did I post the apology.  However now that I look back on it, I feel it was the
right thing to do.

> appreciate me at all.  Then after I voiced my concerns about that, Chris
> e-mailed me with a metaphor saying I was like the cook in a restaurant and they 
> were the owners.  That made be feel *SO* much better.

Chris said I didn't understand that analogy.

>  I know what a lot of you must be thinking, "Why go through all this 
> trouble to stop this new policy?"  Well, the way the staff worked up until that 
> point was good.  We were able to talk about things as a team and work through 
> our disagreements.  Now the coordinators would run things and have the final 
> say.  If we didn't like their decision, then too bad.  Does the book "Animal 
> Farm" ring any bells here?  I even changed my nickname on IRC to "Snowball" 
> because of this.  Now the nickname fits perfectly.

Chris said I idealized the old staff situation too much, that my style
demands constraints, and that my decisions must be overridden some of the time.

>  In the end, I was the only one who strongly disagreed with the new 
> proposal.  Only after Chris told me that I could be a coordinator after the next 
> election did I reluctantly vote for the proposal.  Now that I look back on it, I 

Chris told me that I would have a chance to be a coordinator after the next
election, and that maybe six months down the road, it would be highly probable
that my past experience with TI-Files would be water under the bridge.  I
misrepresented the facts there and I just wanted to make that part clear.

>  At the end of January, it came time for the first coordinator elections 
> after the proposal had been agreed to.  Each staff member e-mailed their vote to 
> the staff mailing list.  I don't remember exactly how everyone voted on the 
> second question, but this is pretty close.  I voted no along with Ahmed, and 
> Kirk voted yes.  None of the others voted.  It could have been different, but I 
> know the vote was 2-1 in favor of new coordinators.  However, after Chris 
> "talked" to Ahmed, Ahmed changed his vote to undecided, so the vote was tied at 
> 1-1, which isn't a majority.  Chris said that Ahmed didn't even understand what 
> he was voting for, and therefore his first vote was not valid.  I do question, 
> however, Chris' motive for initially contacting Ahmed about his vote.

Chris and I agree here that Ahmed probably didn't know what he was voting for.
However where we disagree is on the motive of Chris contacting Ahmed about his
vote.  Chris admits his motive was to keep the current coordinators, however he
maintains he approached Ahmed in an impartial way.  Believe what you want.

> added them one by one, so Kirk could not mess up my work.  This entire situation 
> came about because the coordinators felt that they could tell me how to run my 
> section, something they told me they wouldn't do when I opposed the staff 
> structure.

Chris contends he didn't tell Kirk to work on the archives at the same time as
me.  However, Magnus clearly told me that, as I stated in my previous mailing.
Chris also confirms that he was telling me how to run my section but somehow
this didn't go against the guidelines.  How that can be is still a mystery to me.

> which I was "unwilling to compromise".  Perhaps I fail to understand why I, as 
> the veteran file archiver here, know less about doing file archives than the 
> rest of the staff.  Why doesn't the "expert's" opinion count here?

Basically, Chris said that I don't always make the right decisions about the
file archives.

> staff structure, it is much easier to dismiss someone than it was before.  Plus, 
> I believe that one of the main reasons Chris told me to write up documentation 
> on how I handle the file archives was so someone else would know how to do it 
> after they "disposed" of me.  The thought of such a thing makes me sick.

Chris admits this one, however at least he wasn't going to fire me the second he
got the document.

> conspiracies and cover-ups.  I believe this new staff structure and coordinator 
> thing will eventually ruin ticalc.org.  The coordinators discuss everything in 
> secret and don't have to explain everything to the entire staff.

Chris says I'm not a coordinator and I shouldn't be talking about what I don't
know.  That's probably true, but I do know that the coordinators talk among
themselves in secret.


--
Bryan Rabeler <brabeler@isd.ingham.k12.mi.us>
   Former maintainer of The Fargo Archive
   Former ticalc.org staff member
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