Damn Kasper, how do you do those quotes?
Thanks 
For your information: this is an extract of the original post by Kasper (http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2008/01/14/ill-communication/)
Thomas said:
It would be nice if Diederik could speak up about his experience and his own evaluation of the CS organisation.
@Diederik
A (small) word of warning: Speaking out against CS will almost automatically get you lumped in with the “OCSers”, even if you specifically state that you aren’t.
Well, to be honest, I probably already am. Some months ago, I had some posts, also on my own website. Seems that the communication went dead afterwards.
Let’s start at the beginning. I think this gives a better insight in my current feelings towards the Techteam, and in general: the leader of it, and Casey (ok, here comes my ban…)
My CS experience started at my former employer. Walter was a programmer then. I and Walter could (and still can) get along quite well, and I was invited in his house.
There were several great people, which had the same “frequency” (another word of saying we could get along, but that sentence would became corny ). I met Duke, Aldo, Tiina, Paul and some others I forgot due to the use of ethanol 
My current position then was system engineer, and I was asked for that position at couchsurfing.
That would become handy, because of the start of the Rotterdam Tech Collective. Some several others were there too. Anu* (love!), Weston, Naz (great friend), Chris where several of them.
I got introduced with Nicco and we had great chats about the code (I’m not a programmer, so having some insight is perfect for me), system engineering, the couchsurfing system etc, etc. At that time, there were several things an issue. Nicco and I (as the only admins, besides some Indian people) started to work.
We had an agenda, and could start.
Several issues were addressed quite quick. Most of them are not-to-be-disclosed, but several were visible from the outside:
- Lesser downtime because of an OSS loadbalancer
- Monitoring
- More webservers which run an *UP-TO-DATE* OS (Visible through the headers of Apache)(I believe that this was an great deal, yeah, check http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/wiki/Security_Concerns).
That time, the collective was already 3 months (or something like that) in the past. Several people came to become “sysadmin”, Nicco was degraded as leader, while Weston became TT-Leader (managing dev and sysadmin). Communication became less and less. From some times, we couldn’t reach Casey, which was our first contact for the code. At that time, my irritation began (my irritation towards the OCS was already there ). Could some parts from OCS be *INDEED* true?
(Anu isn’t really stupid, you know, and Daz is just Daz and should drop dead, etc etc ) At that time, it seemed to *ME* that some people were only busy programming, and not with management.
We had a great CSInterklaas weekend, and the Thai-collective started. We had several “incidents” before and after that (not-to-be-disclosed), and my irritation was at top. When I decided to resign (1 week ago) at the same time the poweroutage at the datacenter happened. Bad timing… Or probably not, because there were some more “incidents”.
This morning, I pulled the plugs from cs-sysadmins, cs-erc, cs-devel(|public). At my desktop is a Freemind scheme (http://freemind.sourceforge.net, go get it) with my thoughts, idea’s and remedies. I had the idea to post it in the CS-Sysadmin group for learning. If only someone would not only *READ* it, but also *REPLY* to it. Therefor, I decided not to do so. I have the feeling that I’m being ignored, so why should I put more energy in it?
From my opinion (an censored version of the mindmap):
- Where’s the communication?
We are having more and more people, which asks more communcation to happen. The group only has 3 or 4 skype-meetings, and no real agenda. LT has, I believe that dev has. Why doens’t sysadmin have one?Miscommunications happen too often. Get a good IRC channel, AND STICK WITH IT. Use it like SVN, and make sure that you are the only one working on one problem. - Weston should resign from being a techteam-leader.
Weston is a great guy (as well as Casey btw), but he is a programmer (as well as Casey). I believe that Casey and Weston should either resign from sysadminning and start programming OR do resign from both, and become a real manager (that is: delegate and check). - Get things prioritized
Sticks with the communication part. Changing passwords is not an problem, but if changing OSes is having an higher priority, get that done. - Have more communication between CS-Sysadmin and development
Commit often
Commit the build to the webservers *NOT* often, but on an weekly base, and *COMMUNICATE* what the differences are. This ensures that everyone knows what is going on, and can act upon unexpected behaviour… - Learn from mistakes
D’oh
Let’s end with some positive notes:
- I met all those great people. Some of those I want to mention: Nicco (thanks mate), Anu, Naz, Aldo (thanks a lot with the thinking), Martine (hug), Stijn, and all those others. Not to mention all those people that we hosted, will host, and I blatantly forgot.
- I still believe that CS works. It needs to change. An negative one here is that I don’t believe that that will happen in the near future.
- I still will be hosting with my girlfriend. We have a lively community in Rotterdam, which I love.
- I seem to understand better and better where this OCS is all about. I only hope that I won’t reach the cynical level of communication that some of OCS have. At the same moment I feel that I will become only more bitter.
I guess that the post shuld be called “Casey Love”, the feeling that you were loved, but the other end just decides to move on to the next one.
Love from Rotterdam!
Diederik (And Frank Sinatra… “The best is yet to come”)
p.s. When resigning from cs-sysadmins this morning, I saw the description of the group. Guess that this one is not NDA bound:
“Description: This group is free from political agendas and personal ideologies. It is a place to serve the one of the core needs(server administration) of the CS Organization in order to make sure that the members have access to the site at all times so that they can experience inter cultural understanding.”
Diederik, welcome on this side of things, and hope you won’t be too much labeled by the announcements here and elsewhere.
I was wondering if you’d have any interest in wandering to Amsterdam this Friday, I’m hopping over to the BW unconference for the weekend and wouldn’t mind meeting anyone (goes for the rest of the readers too!) who happens to be on the way there.
Anu,
I’d love to, but I have other priorities. Among them are work, school and a kitchen which really should be finished
I hope to see you, and others in some time though
I’m saddened but not surprised at the news that yet another volunteer has resigned from CouchSurfing. I wonder how many volunteers must leave before Casey et al gets the message.
Does anyone know how many volunteers who were in Montreal are still actively involved? It would make a fascinating churn diagram…
I always saw a similarity between anu and Diederik.Both very loyal to rhe org they work for and are ready to forgive small mistakes. It take a lot of small miscommunication and wrongs to shake their loyalty in an org. That is why i just let these 2 brilliant people just make up their own minds.
Thanks for that. To be honest: I don’t know Anu that good to have a clear opinion on this. Her ways of saying things are quite the same, probably more European and person bound.
Small mistakes are always made in an organisation, nobody is perfect, and therefor, should be forgiven. Stupidity is not among of those, and those persons should be shot at sight
So, yes, there were lots (and AWFUL lots) of mistakes, miscommunications and more to make me leave. Or better: to make us leave, because I get the sincere feeling that we are quite common in our feelings. And no, I’m not purrrrrfect, but quite human (and I like to hug
)
One more to end the evening:
The method of your communication is not entirely mine, but at the end, it is the friendship that counts
And one more:
Half-an-hour for day 8. The next comment may tell for what
NN!
D.
@Diederik
Thanks for your post. It sounds like a sad experience for you, but you understand how it doesn’t surprise me at all. On an interesting side-note, I said exactly that to Walter when I met him: that for practically anyone joining CS as a volunteer (especially in tech) it would end in a world of hurt. I’m sorry I don’t seem able to explain this sufficiently , so we’ll keep seeing it happen. It seems these guys think of volunteers as disposable goods, whenever one quits, they can always find a replacement. However, they gain a disgruntled ex-volunteer and bad publicity every time as well and the good volunteers are staying away “collectively” (haha, a pun!).
Some small advice: the NDA you signed is – as far as we can tell – not legally binding at all. If you are “holding back” because of that piece of silliness (assuming you signed it), don’t worry about it.
Currently, I’m on speaking terms with Casey. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that means, but I will be able to explain my current feelings towards the project.
The NDA doesn’t bother me to speak or to shut up
I only wouldn’t find it appropriate to give more information than that I already wrote down. Call it “ethics” 
Just for the record: recently I’ve had a good call with Casey to explain all the reasons I have left. Seems that the real world is somewhat different at some perspectives (the Internet sucks for communication sometimes
). Therefor, I’ve decided to spend some more times on Couchsurfing Sysadminning.
Before some people will scream that I’m bad, ignorant, plain stupid or should burn to hell: I’m not leaving OCS (as well as I have never applied for membership, check http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2008/01/22/what-is-opencouchsurfing/
). I *WILL* keep an eye on progress in the sysadmin team, and I *WILL* have critics on everything that runs bad (from my point of view 
). The main reason for me returning is that it is better for Couchsurfing (and thus for OCS? 
) that someone is screaming and yelling at some jerks 
Although I could not help frowning when I read this, I sincerely do hope you can get some improvements through, Diederik. If not organisational, then at least on the tech side…
I hope you keep posting your criticism here, it would be interesting to see how long you will be tolerated if you do (I honestly don’t mean any sarcasm here; I am truly interested in what would happen these days when an admin is openly critical of how CS is run, maybe the ‘leadership’ has learned from past mistakes that it is better to address than to smother criticism from within).
Third, I can’t help noticing: while a couple months ago, someone with your attitude would be ditched as soon as possible, now they are remarkably eager to retain your services… I wonder whether that is because the volunteer tech pool is drying up
Hey D
You are a good sys admin so if you can make cs more stable and the people allow you to do it. Go for it !!!
@ Daz: Thanks. I will give it a try…
[blockquote]
Although I could not help frowning when I read this, I sincerely do hope you can get some improvements through, Diederik. If not organisational, then at least on the tech side…
I hope you keep posting your criticism here, it would be interesting to see how long you will be tolerated if you do (I honestly don’t mean any sarcasm here; I am truly interested in what would happen these days when an admin is openly critical of how CS is run, maybe the ‘leadership’ has learned from past mistakes that it is better to address than to smother criticism from within).
[/blockquote]
From my point of view, all is about democracy, or at least: the possibility to speak your mind. I have not and will not let a voluntary (damn typos) site say what and what not I should tell. On the other hand is the “ethics” thing I was talking about earlier: we all (or most of us) have the idea that CS can be improved. Some of us think that screaming and yelling will reach that goal, I’m personally more of the subtle way
[blockquote][Third, I can’t help noticing: while a couple months ago, someone with your attitude would be ditched as soon as possible, now they are remarkably eager to retain your services… I wonder whether that is because the volunteer tech pool is drying up
[/blockquote]
I doubt so. We have several good sysadmins, but we lack the coordination. I will have a talk with Weston about this issue, which (from my point of view) should be addressed by him. I have the idea that Weston is capable of doing so. I’m quite certain that coordination (what, when, by whom) is the most important part for CS-Sysadmins…
From the “banning” point of view: see A). No, I’m not a perfect sysadmin, but I think that my criticism is most of the time positive. I hope that that will be in that way
Hey all,
[quote]maybe the ‘leadership’ has learned from past mistakes that it is better to address than to smother criticism from within[/quote]
just wanted to say that you guys mustn’t mix up LT and tech team leadership. They are not the same thing.
I have more to say but will refrain from doing so because I just don’t feel like it (and i have to go to the supermarket
). I feel that my capabilities as a writer are not good enough to express my chaotic thoughts and feelings in a proper way 
Walter
Hey walter
Would love to hear what you need to say . In what ever words you can say it . Been wondering for a whole year what was on your mind .
@Walter:
I know that Tech Team and ‘Leadership’ are not the same, but ultimately the power structure is such that the LT (well, Casey) can ditch people, right? That’s what I meant.
@Niels: I don’t think so, but I have been out of volunteering for a while now. Anyway I don’t think this is how it works. Besides that it is not my place to say anything as I’m not in teh LT. Never was and never will be
Hey Walter,
Nice to see you around here. The whole Diederik story reminds me enormously of a conversation we had while walking by the lake near your house. I’m not going to say “I told you so”, but in a sense I am doing it anyway
I hope you’re doing well and that you’ve had some fun travels so far!
Thomas
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