[P2P-F] P2P Foundation List Moderation Notice

[Kevin Flanagan]

To correct another thing here. No one was intimidated by BG. We made the
choice to move on because we have better things to be doing with our
time simple as that.

With regards to governance at the P2P Foundation. These are things we
are taking very seriously. Please consider that despite public
perceptions, the foundation has been in a precarious condition for some
years with little or no funding and maintained by and large through
volunteer support particularly for the maintenance of blog, wiki, server
backend. The wordpress theme for the blog has not been updated since
2006 for example.

Michel supports himself through lectures and workshops but otherwise
does not have any direct income from the foundation as the finances
simply are not there to do so. Yet he continues to work tirelessly to
hold this space and continues to be the primary contributor to the blog,
wiki and maintainer of community forums.

I spent some time working with Michel in Chiang Mai last year. Shortly
after I left it was discovered that one of our primary contributors
Franco Iacomella had hacked Michels laptop and was systematically
interfering with critical communications, blocking emails and skype
contacts and impersonating Michel in order to promote himself to
positions on boards and to speak at events. These kinds of activities
are incredibly disruptive for a small organisations. Earlier this year
there was a second attack where Michels email was hacked and all his
emails were forwarded to another we must suspect compromised account.
Javier our server admin has told us that we suffer more attacks to our
server than the bank he used to work for. We do not have the resources
to properly investigate these kinds of incidents or take appropriate
legal action. However it is clear that in order to continue our work we
need to build a more resilient P2P Foundation. Robust governance is
essential. We are very lucky to have at the moment a great team of
contributors committed to making this a reality. We currently use Loomio
for decision making and issue tracking and Trello for task management.
21 people have access to our Loomio and are free to contribute and
particpate in decision making. There are 22 who have access to our
internal community development mailing list.

Anyone who is interested in working with us and supporting our work is
welcome to get in touch. We ask that volunteers complete a questionnaire
and speak with at least 1 other longer term contributor in a short
interview for an introduction to our task management process.

This is a transparent process and we have nothing to hide.

Kevin







Kevin Flanagan:
> Hi Gordon,
> 
> Refraining from personal attacks and flaming is common netiquette.
> Requesting that a person reconsider their position and the tone of their
> provocations in order to maintain a list culture where other subscribers
> feel there is some defense from intimidation is far from censorship.
> 
> Gordon, I am one of those core members who made that decision with Michel.
> 
> Believe or not we have limited time and resources to put into our work
> and this requires us to make decisions about where our energy is best
> placed.
> 
> Engaging in endless tit for tat arguments over the internal challenges
> of the FLOK project on a public forum is not what I consider
> constructive use of our time. Especially when those arguments tend to
> focus almost entirely on the character and role of the FLOK management
> which while evidently flawed ignores the positive contributions of
> months of hard work on the part of the research team, volunteers and
> others, including all of those who traveled to Quito to spend 3 days and
> more contributing to the papers.
> 
> Yes FLOK had problems but we are trying to learn from and build on these
> experiences in a positive way. Building commons must be prefigurative
> this is the ultimate lesson. If you cannot practice what you preach then
> you are doomed.
> 
> I cannot support the way you were treated by Daniel it was disgraceful.
> Michel stood by your work and defended you when no one else would. Let
> me repeat that. No one but Michel stood up for you. He has said all he
> has to say about FLOK and wishes to move on to more constructive work.
> Why you persist and wish to make enemies of those who have otherwise
> been allies and friends truly baffles me.
> 
> By the way I don't use Facebook either. I use Google to login to Feedly,
> While I am trying to move away from Google services it is easier said
> than done. I might not like that so many people use Facebook, Google or
> Windows for that matter but understand there is use value in those
> services that is not so easy to get away from and I certainly don't
> dismiss people as unethical for using them.
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Michel Bauwens:
>> one more time,
>>
>> in a collegiate decision, it was decided not to actively campaign against
>> the abuses of the flok mgt, and I abide by that collective decision,
>>
>> there was no secrecy, the decision, the evaluation, the core members of the
>> p2p foundation, all this info is publicly available and Gordon knows this
>> well and has been informed of it countless times,
>>
>> the real issue is that Gordon is on a warpath and does not accept that we
>> can not follow him in this,
>>
>> if I were facing the existential issues of Gordon, I would not spend my
>> time on this either, apart from the political differences in judgment on
>> how to use one's limited energy and time; there is so much positive that
>> Gordon could continue to do, given his stellar record on describing the
>> emergence of progressive technological infrastructures and the social
>> movements and individuals that suppport it, that the continued and
>> obsessive focus on a few rotten apples is a waste of valuable energy.
>>
>> I am equally disappointed in Gordon, that, instead of focusing on the
>> abuses and the abusers, he is focusing his anger on the only person that
>> publicly challenged it, and that spent an inordinate amount of time
>> defending Gordon, despite his multiple exagerations ...
>>
>> this is for the public record, one more time, as indicated, we decided not
>> to enter further into this particular controversy,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Gordon Cook <cook at cookreport.com> wrote:
>>
>>> And i am afraid that i am still resentful of Michels attitude about the
>>> core members who were being attacked and his decision to fall silent to the
>>> attackers to ensure that they would leave his "core' members alone.,  A
>>> situation made worse by his repost to a FALSE secrecy whereby the core
>>> members could not be identified absent a pledge not to reveal their
>>> identity.  When all the time for the true insiders who knew where to look,
>>> as Orsan pointed out the core members had their own entry in the wiki all
>>> along.  michel playing games with me simply neglected to point this out.
>>> And trifled with me yet again.  The first trifling was not being honest
>>> with me when those in control in Ecuador DV BG et all were trashing my work
>>> behind my back while michel rather than informing of this encouraged me to
>>> finish and waste  yet more time which i did because ….. foolish me…. i
>>> still trusted Michel.
>>>
>>> I was getting the p2p blog just fine until this blew open.  Kevin
>>> suggested feedly as an RSS mechanism and if i remember correctly feedly
>>> requires Facebook.  Sorry i despise Facebook and won't use it.  You are
>>> damn right folks there is a governance problem here.  And for me the key
>>> issue is that i find michel no longer trustworthy.  being told that the
>>> identity of core members is a secret when it in fact is NOT is not
>>> conducive to trust.  Being promise a full report on what happened in
>>> ecuador only to renig on that promise when BG goes wild is not conducive to
>>> trust.
>>>
>>> I once had a great deal of hope for and respect of Michels work.  I have
>>> that no longer. why should i given his behavior this summer?
>>>
>>> If this counts as an unacceptable attack on Michel, then you better remove
>>> me.  You people are moving out from the sidelines into the tough political
>>> arena where things are gong to get nastier and from you what we have then
>>> here is a display worthy of school kids.
>>>
>>> You are going to play with CIC in Spain like you played in ecuador.  But
>>> the playing field is occupied by individuals that appear to hate each
>>> other.  How is THAT going to work to build trust?  And you see that absent
>>> Michels carrying out his solemn promise on which he has reneged there is no
>>> way for a sympathetic outsider to make a judgement.
>>>
>>> On Aug 21, 2014, at 9:21 PM, Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear Willi,
>>>>
>>>> I do not make decisions to unsubscribe people from the list
>>>> unilaterally. Many people have complained both publicly and privately
>>>> about your behaviour. Personal attacks are not acceptable.
>>>>
>>>> In the case of this mailing list. Where an individual is not willing to
>>>> abide by the culture and norms of the list then s/he are welcome to
>>>> unsubscribe and move on.
>>>>
>>>> I am offering you here a opportunity to resolve this conflict.
>>>> Here are the terms. It's really quite simple.
>>>>
>>>> If in the next 24 hours from the time of this email you are willing to
>>>> reconsider your behavior on this list, apologize for that behavior
>>>> publicly on list and will refrain from further personal attacks in
>>>> future. Then you are welcome to stay.
>>>>
>>>> If these terms are not acceptable then I offer you 24hrs from the time
>>>> of this email to unsubscribe. If you have not unsubscribed in that time
>>>> I will exercise my responsibilities as list moderator and will do it for
>>>> you.
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>> Kevin Flanagan
>>>> P2P Foundation Mailing List Moderator
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>
>>>
>>> Gordon Cook, 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618
>>> cook at cookreport.com, 1 - (609) 882-2572 - phone
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>