Hi Goran,

>>I'm actually looking forward to changing that relation when there is a 
>>board that has an actual mandate by the community. Even if it's a rough 
>>cut with the elections it will be indefinitely better than the current 
>>or (even worse) the initial situation.
> 
> Good! And btw, what are *you* doing to help this forward? It is all
> about talkers and doers - you do *tons* of stuff technically (and you
> know I respect and admire that immensely) but AFAIK you haven't helped
> us move an inch forward regarding our self organization - on the
> *contrary*.

Well, I'm sure it's all my fault, somehow ;-) If that makes you feel any 
better, be my guest (I actually mean it the way I say it). And one of 
the things I'm currently doing (or rather "trying" but I'm getting a 
little better) is to attempt to not rise to a rethorical bait that's 
thrown my way. Let's see if I can make it through this email safely...

> So sure, fee free to "look forward" to a new board - but even better:
> *help* this community getting it. And if you think I am the only one
> feeling this - read Marcus' post.

If I would know how to respond to it, or if I would feel that I could 
actually help clarifying matters, I certainly would. I have started a 
number of discussions with Marcus about these issues in the past (in 
German, as you may guess as it's the native language for both of us and 
somewhat limits the number of misunderstandings) but unfortunately, it 
seems that these days Marcus can't even use my name without an 
accusation right next to it. To bad, but I'm trying hard not to follow 
him there. It is not going to get either of us anywhere, anyway.

> I just humbly wonder why you didn't bother to even *reply* to the survey
> emails which AFAIK asked quite a few questions regarding these things.

Honestly? Really, there were a couple of things. First, I'm busy. 
Second, I didn't find the questions neither terribly relevant, nor 
terribly interesting, nor terribly related to what we are doing. Most of 
it seemed like reflections on the state of affairs ("what do you think 
about the islanders", "what do you think about m17n", "would you like to 
set up a team") and while this is all nice and well I felt that the only 
relevant parts at that point where those that related to the future. And 
here, I didn't dare to speak my mind freely - simply because you 
promised to publish the results and if I would say what the most likely 
course of action is it would get me even more of a reputation of being 
an evil guy who wants to prevent everyone from doing anything. So none 
of this was really appealing to me.

And I actually almost wrote you a message saying just that, when I got 
your "order to comply or else" and let me just say, that *really* pissed 
me off. I simply deleted all of those messages to make sure I don't even 
accidentally reply (because that would've been seriously out of whack 
even for my measures). And I'm glad I did that. And you should be, too.

End of story.

> Regarding the question at hand - of course, I agree - a better decision
> process *is* important - we all agree on that. The problem is *getting
> it*. I mean, if the stakeholder contact persons don't even bother answer
> our emails - then what chance do we have? A decision *process* involves
> all parties - not just the board.

This almost reads as if that survey wasn't so voluntary after all. Every 
now and then I'm still wondering a little about this btw, and it is 
interesting to see how you react to the fact that people choose not to 
participate in an unsolicitated and (from what I could tell) entirely 
voluntary survey.

> It is also worth remembering that the *current* team model delegates how
> each team works to the team leader. The minimalism in that is
> intentional to make it as "easy" as possible to step up as a team
> leader. If we add too much bureaucracy to the team model it will
> probably have a negative effect.

I'm actually perfectly fine on the team-level but this is about 
strategic directions. Remember I was specifically mentioning the "big 
ticket items". I don't think it's worth having decisions about each and 
every individual feature (that sure as hell would be way to 
bureaucratic). But the question whether an entire new package should be 
included in a "basic" image is something where I think a bit of a 
process wouldn't hurt - in particular if there are (as usual) strong 
proponents as well as strong opponents.

Cheers,
   - Andreas