Tag: wordcamp

Cookie-cutter failure: thoughts on WordCamp The Netherlands

The Netherlands WordPress team recently announced that WordCamp Central would not approve a WordCamp The Netherlands event for 2017. The blog post is in Dutch of course, but the emails exchanged with WordCamp Central are in English and tell the story quite well.

Let’s keep a few things in mind: The Netherlands is a rather small country. Small enough that the US states of Vermont and Connecticut put together would have a comparable land area, or looking at it another way, The Netherlands has around one-sixteenth the land area of Texas.

The culture over there is a lot different as well. Quoting one email from The Netherlands WordPress team:

The Netherlands has its own culture, which is unaffected by decisions made in other communities.
[…]
The second, and more important reason to keep WordCamp The Netherlands is because it is for everyone in The Netherlands. We as a people are proud to be Dutch. Being Dutch is something that unites. Being Dutch overrules all the issues there are between people from different cities and regions.

For example, if we drop WCNL in favor of city-based WordCamps, the people from Amsterdam wouldn’t visit a WordCamp in Rotterdam, or any WordCamp east of Utrecht. The people of Rotterdam wouldn’t visit a WordCamp in Amsterdam, or any WordCamp east of Utrecht. The people from Groningen wouldn’t visit a WordCamp in Eindhoven, and vice versa. Of course, you could argue that WCNL could become WordCamp Utrecht. But that has a few issues too.

I’m keeping the quote as short as I can to get the point across, though it does mention fragmentation and the fact that none of the current WordCamp Netherlands organizers are from the larger cities in The Netherlands, and would thus be disqualified from organizing. (As it stands right now, the first city-based WordCamp in The Netherlands would be in Utrecht, and the status is listed as “Application vetted, Needs Orientation/Interview” as of about a week ago. Unfortunately I did not follow the WordCamp status page closely enough to see when the original application for WordCamp Utrecht was submitted, but I can’t imagine it being all that long ago.)

The response from WordPress Community Support contains quite a few points of note. In order:

We have worked hard in the past eight years to move the WordCamp program away from country-named events and toward city-named events for a number of reasons that focus on the health and longevity of the community as a whole.

While I can see how the city-named model would work in many countries, it is obvious to me that The Netherlands is something different. It’s just a guess, but I suspect that none of the “hard work” mentioned was put into looking at the culture of The Netherlands and why it still had a country-named WordCamp after all this time. Of course, if it was, that’s even more damning, as this change is being forced on the WordPress community of The Netherlands despite knowlege of that cultural difference.

In the case of WordCamp The Netherlands, the discussion around moving to a city-named event has been ongoing for five years. We requested the change (via phone calls or in person, with volunteers or with paid staff) and received verbal agreements multiple times.

There’s a somewhat humorous saying (original author unknown): verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Apparently whoever entered into this verbal agreement either lacked the authority to do so or did so without advising the rest of the community team in The Netherlands. Or, perhaps “verbal agreement” is a misrepresentation of what actually took place during the conversation. If the call starts off “we aren’t approving WordCamp The Netherlands in 2017, you guys need to start organizing city-based events” and the gist of the response is “we still want our WordCamp”, that’s not an agreement, that’s coercion. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s one possible situation.

The Netherlands is not the only community we’ve asked to make this change (other examples include the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, and Israel to name a few). We realize it is certainly a hard thing to ask. But we also have seen benefits for the WordPress community as a whole in areas that have taken this chance.

Do any of these other countries have the same culture as The Netherlands, where they all unite as Dutch at events like previous the WordCamps (held as WordCamp The Netherlands versus WordCamp The Hague, WordCamp Utrecht, etc)? I would be willing to bet the answer is no. How willing were smaller countries like Denmark willing to make the change? I would guess they made it only reluctantly so they could continue to have events.

What does this mean for WordCamp The Netherlands? We previously recommended they rename the event WordCamp Utrecht and continue to do the outstanding work they already do. WordCamps in other countries have moved on to new names and have been successful, and we’re hopeful that the same will happen here.

I read two things in this: “we’re hoping the same ‘cookie cutter’ solution works for The Netherlands despite there being clear cultural differences” and “what we really got our undies in a wad over was the country name as the WordCamp name”. The former is at best rather short-sighted. I’m not even sure how to best characterize what it could mean at worst. The latter is just plain silly. Clearly the Dutch are happier continuing to call it WordCamp The Netherlands. I fail to see the harm in that.

Jumping back to the beginning:

We’d like to start by saying we are truly thankful for the hard work WordCamp organizers in the Netherlands have put into their events over the years. They have invested countless hours working on their events and the community, and we value their dedication and contributions.

Actions speak louder than words. To me, the non-approval of WordCamp The Netherlands 2017 sends quite a different message than the words written in this post. I believe if those in charge of approving WordCamps are truly thankful for the hard work and dedication of the community leadership in The Netherlands, the right move is to maintain the status quo and approve WordCamp The Netherlands 2017, or allow the current WordCamp Utrecht to change its name to WordCamp The Netherlands at the organizer’s option.

[Update 2021-07-25: correct punctuation error]

A shocking “Discover”y, and related lessons

First, one apology (of two) to my readers. I have been aware of this for about a year. I originally sat on this for a while because the relevant lawsuit was pending. I continued to sit on it because I felt an appeal and/or a new trial was pending, which would have been another three months or so. I have little excuse for sitting on it after 2015 October 1. (This should have been posted no later than the end of 2015 September.) On one hand I don’t like posting stale news; on the other, the only thing worse than posting this late is not posting it at all.

(The second apology will be made in context.)

Rewind to the summer of 2012. Specifically, 2012 August 15. A good month and a half had transpired since my reply to whoever was behind “admin@wordcamphouston.com” with nothing but radio silence. I had received a reply to the third message I sent regarding the financial statement from WordCamp Houston 2010 and who received the scholarship (well, and also what became of the video that was shot of the breakout sessions, but that’s not what this is about). The reply I got merely stated “Thanks for your inquiry, please look for information to be announced regarding the scholarship later this year.” (Again, along with a reply about the status of the video, but I have covered that already.)

Fast forward to early 2015 (I unfortunately don’t have an exact date, but it was well before July). I’m punching some names of people into public records websites as part of an unrelated project, and seeing if I find anything I don’t yet know but should. I finish with the names I had originally planned to look up and move on to some other names. One of those names happens to be Monica Danna (now Danna-Garcia), former WordCamp Houston organizer. What comes up is shocking, in at least two ways, which I’ll get to shortly.

What I found was that Ms. Danna had been sued by Discover Bank for an unpaid credit card debt, in the amount of $12,758.21. The first shock is the amount of the lawsuit, and at first I figured this credit card debt had been run up over a period of about five years or so. When I attended the trial setting on 2015 July 7, I found out the card had only been issued sometime in 2010 (I didn’t take notes, but pretty sure it was in the first half of the year, before the WordCamp Houston 2010 event date), which was perhaps the bigger shock of the two.

One of my original reasons for attending the trial date was largely curiosity on seeing how well the defense presented by Ms. Danna’s attorney, Robert Hinsley, would hold up. Also, I have not really observed that many court trials in real life (really, none of substance from start to finish save the one time I was actually picked for a jury).

As originally stated, I had originally intended to post immediately after the trial date, though that changed once the “trial” had taken place. Counselor Hinsley didn’t make it to the trial due to a medical emergency. (Whether that would have changed the outcome is a matter of debate.) Given that Discover had flown in a witness from Delaware the judge went ahead and allowed the witness’s testimony to be entered on the record so a default judgment could be issued. (Civil cases are decided by a preponderance of the evidence, and a preponderance means there has to be something there for the plaintiff to win.) That was on 2015 July 7. No developments occurred as of the last time I checked; the motions (to set aside the verdict and for a new trial) appear to have been denied and I can’t find any appeals, so it would appear to yours truly, technically a layperson but with a bit higher than average knowledge of law, that this case is a done deal.

With that said, let’s rewind a bit. Before I get into this, I have absolutely nothing to show that there was a plot to steal the WordCamp Houston 2010 proceeds in full, by any of the organizers. I wish I had the proverbial “smoking gun” (smoking credit card?) to show that was the case. But I don’t.

The proceeds from WordCamp Houston 2010 totaled $2,790.30. Take the balance at the time of the lawsuit, $12,758.21. Doing a web search for ‘Discover card minimum payment’ finds a typical minimum payment is the greater of $40 or 2% of the balance.

The responsible thing to do, when trusted by the community to handle money properly in such a situation, is full disclosure and full transparency from start to finish. To this day I have no clue whether or not the money was commingled with personal funds of one or more of the organizers (which it most certainly should not have been), or separated into another account as it should have been. A simple “hey, we still need to find a recipient for the scholarship,we didn’t get any nominees in August” would have helped. Even if a year of searching had been fruitless, how about “hey, the money is still safe and in a separate account, here is the (partially redacted) bank statement” or something like that?

And here’s where some of the lessons to be learned come in. First, my failure. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: stupid me, I trusted Ms. Danna, Mr. Valdez, Ms. Laird, and Mr. Everson to do the right thing, and keep the word given by Ms. Danna on the video-recorded introduction to the keynote speech in 2010. So much so, that my first message merely asked for the financial statement and what happened to the video. I decided to think like the rest of the community, and trust that the right thing had already been done. The moral of the story, again, is be careful who you trust and never assume someone will do the right thing, even if their history is impeccable. I still regret not jumping on this sooner. I hold myself to high standards, and my lack of pursuit of transparency of the financial end of WordCamp Houston 2010 until quite some time had passed is, to say the least, a departure from those standards. I am grateful the money did eventually find its way to a deserving college student. That doesn’t change the fact I still feel it’s completely unacceptable for it to have taken over two years.

Second, it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: if you default on a credit card owing enough money, you will get sued! At the very least, even if you are not sued, your credit report and credit score will take a hit, and you may find your borrowing ability suffering for years. So, with that in mind, don’t borrow money you cannot afford to pay back. Realistically wouldn’t expect to get sued for a credit card debt under about $1,000, but as the amount goes up, the odds go up considerably; for a default on $10,000 or higher, I’d call a lawsuit a certainty.

Now, I will admit I haven’t been perfect here; without giving away too many details, what’s on my credit report currently is close to average, but as recently as 5 to 6 years ago, it was an entirely different story. I’ve never been in a position where I was likely to get sued, though, nor have I had to file bankruptcy. Neither are a good time from what I have heard and observed.

To those of you getting your first credit cards, here is my advice (based on both my mistakes and those of others): Use as little credit as you possibly can. Ideally, pay your cards in full every month and carry a balance only if you have absolutely no other choice. Pay on time, every time, with good funds. Late payment and returned payment fees are expensive, especially on top of a 20%+ APR. Annual fees can also get expensive; shop around every few months, and replace cards charging outrageous annual fees with ones that don’t. I’ll break this down into further detail in a post later in February, but these are the most important points for now.

This may seem like a very tardy post, and some may consider it to be beating the proverbial greasy spot where the dead horse used to be. I disagree. Learning of the lawsuit, and reading (and later re-reading) all the documents in the case file, gave me a newfound appreciation for just how lucky we were and are as a community. I am certain now that had I not spoken up when I did, my failure to do so would have haunted me for years.

Yes, this still angers me even though the actual scholarship award was three years ago. You can use whatever comparison you want, say it may as well be 10, 20, 30 years ago, a century ago, in some year BCE, the jurassic era… whatever. It really doesn’t matter to me, this may as well have been last week or even yesterday. I believe strongly in the saying of George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (More often said as “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and similar forms, but the sentiment is the same.)

Picking up the pieces and moving forward, part 4

(Due to technical and other issues, I was not able to get this posted on Friday afternoon as I had hoped. Here it is now, after some editing to reflect the current state of affairs.)

In part 3, you got to read what wound up being basically an indictment of Meetup, which I probably should have shortened a bit now that I look again. But, I digress.

I had originally split this post into five parts. I’m going to condense the last two into one, leaving four. So this will actually include my final commentary for the time being.

I have about another week to cover, from approximately March 6 to the present. Which makes it easy, because nothing of consequence happens between the 6th and 10th.

The late evening of the 11th/early morning of the 12th, I submitted my application to be WordCamp Houston lead organizer for 2013. Since that’s the logical next step, I figured I needed to know if it’s a go or not sooner rather than later. The evening of the 12th, We had our second meetup in recent memory, this time at Caroline Collective thanks to new organizer David Lee. David, along with previously-mentioned Claudia Franco, are the whole reason we’re actually having WordPress meetups in Houston again.

Yesterday, Friday, 2013 March 15, the ides of March, one of the “organizers” of the original, dead, 400+ member group (i.e. either Christopher Smith or Chris Valdez) did what I’d expect any chicken who can’t stand being held accountable to do. He decided to remove me from the (currently inactive) 400+ member Houston WordPress Meetup group and prohibit me from rejoining. This crosses all sorts of lines. I’m not even going to go into the details of just how stupid of a move this is from a PR standpoint–then again, it’s likely Monica Danna (who, I might add, used to have a company called co.lab which unceremoniously co.lapsed not that long ago) taught them most of their PR skills, so the colossal fail here isn’t all that surprising.

Today, Christopher Smith finally posts an announcement to the group. I’m not going to re-post it here, but suffice it to say it is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. I’m only going to say the following (and parts of this are repeats of things I have said elsewhere):

  1. None of the alleged “out of bounds” discussion would have happened if there had been some attempt at communication with the community over the past several months.
  2. If one’s safety is so easily threatened by simple attempts at contact, at the very least, one should not hold themselves out as a community leader in any capacity.
  3. Documented lies are still lies. Perjury and filing false police reports are both against the law. I would expect someone with relatives in law enforcement to know this.
  4. Habitual lying is no way to lead a community. None of this dog and pony show changes that it is in the best interest of the community for Christopher Smith and Chris Valdez to resign and let someone else lead.
  5. The excuse of “protecting privacy” to hide the truth about what one did is reprehensible, unethical, conduct unbecoming of community leaders, un-Texan, and un-Houstonian.
  6. This is retaliation for my assertion of my legal First Amendment rights. In other words, censorship. Until and unless proven otherwise in a court of law I have the legal right to talk about those who hold themselves out as limited public figures, which would include community leaders and thus include Monica Danna, Christopher Smith, and Chris Valdez.

For what little good it will do, I have asked for this to be reversed. At a later date I may republish what I have of the deleted threads (which, incidentally, comprised most of the discussion group activity over an entire month.) In the meantime, as a temporary measure, I’ve joined the new group on meetup.com. I don’t expect this to last longer than a few months; I don’t think meetup.com is the best way forward anymore, and it is my hope to have a realistic alternative to meetup.com available at least to WordPress-oriented groups by the end of the year.

Anyway… Coincidentally, the same day, I also heard back that I’m “not a good fit” “not the right fit” for WordCamp organizer. To say the least, I disagree with this. [Edit 2013-05-07: Oops. I mis-remembered the quote in between getting the email and making the post.]

In closing, there are quite a few things to learn from WordCamp Houston 2010 for those thinking about running a similar event in the future. There are about four things really stand out.

First, communication is important. If you are unwilling or unable to keep the community “in the loop” with updates, then being an organizer of an event like a WordCamp probably isn’t for you. I never should have had to get Andrea Middleton or anyone from Automattic or the WordPress Foundation involved, and I would not have were the lines of communication with the community kept open and utilized while the award of the scholarship from 2010 was still pending. (Andrea did a great job handling the investigation started by my inquiry. However, I feel she never should have needed to be involved to begin with.)

Second, if you speak, especially as event organizer, you should assume it is being broadcast and/or recorded. Remember what you said, especially when referring to proceeds. Some shady salespeople (particularly car and furniture salespeople) do a little ruse. They mark the sales price up so it can be marked down again, giving the illusion of a big discount. Of course, for a total paid out, one would want to manipulate the numbers in the opposite order; this may well have been what our community “leaders” were trying to do.

Third, before taking on a position that requires, by its nature, interaction with potentially anyone in the community, think it over. If your comfort zone is such that you feel you cannot interact directly with certain members of the community, or that you find yourself reaching for the block button even when logged in to the event/community Twitter account or Facebook page, it’s likely the public relations and social media aspects of organizing a WordCamp are not for you. If you are a public relations professional, act like one; acting in a volunteer capacity is not an excuse to throw professionalism (i.e. pride in one’s work) out the window and it’s quite possible for one to be professionally judged by one’s actions as a volunteer. (It can be for better as well as for worse; see Alan Rosen, recently elected Harris County Precinct 1 Constable, for an example of the former.)

Fourth, organizers of an event such as a WordCamp are responsible for the monetary proceeds of the event until such time as the proceeds are disbursed to the charitable organization or purpose for which they were designated, and it is also in their best interests as well as that of the WordCamp and WordPress brands to not communicate for an extended period while the money is still outstanding. If you and everyone on your team lack the time to see the award of a scholarship through to the end, then maybe this is not how your WordCamp’s proceeds should be distributed. A simple donation to a non-profit organization is probably a better choice in this case.

Finally, just a couple of more items about how I feel. I am happy the scholarship has finally been awarded. If proceeds from our future WordCamps in Houston go towards a scholarship like the one in 2010, I don’t ever want to see it take this long for the money to be awarded again. Not in Houston, not anywhere.

I want honest, trustworthy, transparent, reasonable, and law-abiding people in charge of our Houston WordPress community and its events, such as future WordCamps and the Meetup group. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask, and I would like to think this is the majority viewpoint in the community.

Originally I had a whole paragraph here formally asking Christopher Smith and Chris Valdez to resign. I still don’t think it’s appropriate either of them continue to enjoy the visibility, in light of the circumstances. Most importantly, to preserve the high standard of ethics among creative companies in the Houston area, I recommend NOT doing business with either Design Bigger or Primer Grey, their respective companies, in hopes they will both go bankrupt. Contact me if you need alternatives.

Lest we forget, this is Matt Mullenweg’s hometown. For those reasons I find it especially outrageous that our WordPress community scene, or lack thereof, is what it is. And I now know I’m not the only one. I’ve probably said things that other people in the community just wish they could. I have no idea yet what it’s cost me.

Looking forward, I believe Houston deserves better in 2013. I’ve said it before, but it needed to be said again. And on that note, it is my endeavor to help deliver a better WordCamp Houston in 2013 in whatever capacity I can. I will admit I don’t need to be lead organizer to help, but I could sure benefit from the visibility. I should note that recently some events transpired in my life which could have resulted in my leaving the Houston area for several months to a couple of years, or possibly even for good. However, I found a way to remain here in Houston (at least the area if not Houston proper), and my anticipated future contributions to WordCamp Houston 2013 and the Houston WordPress community did factor into my decision to stay.

Comments are open. My usual comment policy is in place.

[Edited 2021-07-23 to fix some unfortunate typos/misspellings]

Picking up the pieces and moving forward, part 3

Part two concluded with my last attempts to reach out to the Houston WordPress Meetup organizers.

It was bad enough that not only my emails, but those from other people trying to get the meetup going again, were ignored. To make matters worse, the staff at Meetup.com are no help:

Hello Shawn,

I’m really sorry to hear you and your fellow group Members are going through this. Unfortunately, because Organizers pay dues to run their Meetup Groups, they are essentially the owners of their Meetup Groups. We’re really not able to take any action on an account unless we hear directly from the Organizer of the Meetup Group.

It’s a difficult situation, but I do hope you’ll consider starting your own group. You sound like the kind of passionate, determined person we like to see become Organizers. I’m not sure if it will help, but I’d be happy to create a 50% off coupon for you to use to get started.

If that sounds like something you’d like to do, please let us know.

Translation: “We own meetup.com, we are the real owners and we can do something about this, but we are choosing not to and instead call the organizers, including ‘zombie organizers’, the real owners of the site. We don’t care about the 400+ pawns–I mean members–that are in your dead Meetup group, only the $19 your absentee organizer is giving us. But we’ll happily take your money, because that pads our bottom line, and that’s what we really care about.” (If this seems crazy to you, I’m sorry, but this is how I read it.)

Needless to say, I’m not taking up Meetup.com on their “generous” offer. $9.50 is more than I want to give this excuse for a company. (Unfortunately, I can’t stop other well-intentioned people from doing so… more on that in part 4.)

The idle group looks bad on not just Houston’s WordPress community, but the Meetup brand, and possibly the WordPress brand as well. This can’t be the first time this has happened. Of course it’s not. This smells, looks, and waddles like a canned response.

Think about this for a bit: If just 100 organizers keep their groups open, but inactive, that’s $22,800 per year extra for the owners of Meetup.com. And I’m pretty sure at any one time there are probably many more such “zombie groups” out there. Add it up and annualize it, and in all likelihood there’s an obscene amount of profit being made off of absentee organizers–I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches into seven figures. (For those not good at math, it takes only 4,386 zombie organizers to reach $1 million annually.)

So I’m going to ask all my readers out there: if you have ever been an organizer on Meetup.com, please make sure you are not paying for a “zombie group.” Do the right thing, and ask someone else if they are willing to take it over. Or, better yet, start migrating it away from Meetup.com entirely. There’s no reason to pay for a “zombie group” and contributing to a for-profit company for nothing. If you really have an extra $19 per month you won’t miss, I’ll happily recommend a list of charities that could make better use of it. Just paying the monthly dues is actually one of the worst things you can do for whoever is left in the Meetup group, especially if they still care about organizing meetups for the group’s topic.

If you’re currently an active Meetup.com organizer, I think it’s time to start looking at alternatives. They are out there, I haven’t researched them thoroughly so I’m not making any specific recommendations at this time (if enough readers ask, I might do a post on the alternatives I find).

If you’re on Meetup.com as just a user, you can consider doing what I did: winding down your participation on the site completely. The good news is when you leave a Meetup group, you can send a message to the organizer saying why you are leaving. Use this opportunity to ask for an alternative way to keep up with the group. The bad news is, Meetup stupidly assumes since you left a group, you want to sign up for more of them, so you have to keep going back to your home page to leave each group in turn. To whatever user interface designer at Meetup did this, shame on you. It should not be that big of a pain in the ass to leave several groups in a row, and send the same message to each organizer (the latter problem, fortunately, is solved with copy and paste).

If we can get enough organizers to leave Meetup.com, eventually they will figure it out. The only way to talk to a company which does not otherwise care, is through their bottom line. Honestly, right now I flat out don’t give a damn if Meetup goes bankrupt. People have been saying Meetup is on the decline for years, including Matt Mullenweg himself back in 2005.

More troubling, perhaps, are the non-profit organizations, specifically including NetSquared and the WordPress Foundation, pumping money into Meetup.com. I don’t have exact numbers, and I’m not even willing to make a more exact guess, but it does not take a genius to realize it’s probably a good bit more than $19/month. There’s no easy way to say this, but I really think any non-profit organization of any reasonable size has no business serving up revenue to a for-profit company who clearly cares less about the people than about its income stream. This goes double in the case of the WordPress Foundation, given that Meetup is at least as bad (and in many ways, actually much worse) than buying a proprietary software package and running it on a web server. WordPress (either as a single- or multi-user install) with the proper plugins should be able to do most things that can be done on Meetup.com, at least as of the last time I looked into this some months ago.

Coming up in part 4, the events which have transpired in the last few weeks, including those who felt slighted by the neglect of the existing Meetup group re-organizing and re-booting the Houston WordPress Community.

Picking up the pieces and moving forward, part 2

Part one of this series covered mostly the remaining happenings with WordCamp Houston 2010. This post will focus on what has happened–and more importantly, what has not happened until very recently–with the Houston WordPress Meetup, which is perhaps the more important part of the community at this point.

In the following quote, Monica Danna refers to a call for organizers for the Houston WordPress Meetup group posted “last year” (verbatim quote, emphasis added by me):

This group, as many Meetup groups, is mean to be a group effort. The organizers who have stepped up over the past few years have done a great job, when their time allows. We are all here to learn and share, and many of us are also involved in other activities, including full-time day jobs :-) We put a call out last year for anyone interested in serving as an organizer.

If anyone is interested in organizing a meetup, any member can do this.

We all share a love for WordPress and for Houston. Look forward to seeing new meetups in 2013.

Thanks,

Monica

(Note that “last year” in Ms. Danna’s post is 2012, since that was posted in 2013 January.)

My first search for this supposed call for organizers focused on the Twitter feed, the Facebook page, and the Meetup discussion boards, from 2011 December on (I added an extra month just to give her some benefit of the doubt). I asked in a followup post, where this supposed call for organizers was made. Another user, “Network Geek” told me a week later it was in an email, but it may have been further back in 2011. As of this post, I have yet to find it. I have conducted an exhaustive search, even going back to before Christopher Smith took over the group, well into early 2011.

I would still like to be proven wrong, but at this point all signs visible from my point of view, point to Ms. Danna having lied yet again. I have to make a note here: If this was sent out via an e-mail, and I was omitted from the distribution list (intentionally or not), then from my point of view, there was no e-mail sent.

Note that it is technically true that any member can organize a meetup. However, only organizers have the power to make such a meetup “official” and they can choose not to do so. I could not announce, for example, the meetup on Tuesday, 2013 March 12, and none of the other 400+ “pawn level” (non-organizer) members could either. (Not even Ms. Danna could announce it, she’d have to ask Chris Valdez to do so!)

Which leads into my next point. This discussion thread regarding organizers for the Meetup group only even came into being because several of us were frustrated at the inaction of Christopher Smith and Chris Valdez as Meetup group organizers. As an example of this, a spam post sat up there for most of a week, and may have even been deleted by Meetup’s own spam filters eventually, not by either of the organizers. Now, had I been the organizer of the Meetup group, it would have most likely been gone within a day (either by my hand, or that of one of my trusted assistant organizers).

I had made several attempts to reach out to the organizers. The new leadership had already begun using the discussion boards of the old group, and announced “unofficial” meetups. I got to attend one such meetup on February 12, at the Looscan branch of the Houston Public Library. (I had suggested this venue because I knew of it, but knew the limited hours might be a problem. As it turns out, this was likely our only meetup at this venue.)

As time went on, we got to March 3. I had finally had enough of the flagrant inaction. The impending meetup about a week away, and still no official announcement by either organizer. I sent this to the organizers in an email at 14:44 Central Time on that date:

The March Meetup at Caroline Collective is still only showing as suggested. This meetup is actually happening, it has not just been suggested.

I would like to ask as your last acts as organizers that you announce this meetup, transfer organizer status to Claudia Franco and David Lee, and then step down as organizers. If for some reason you feel Claudia and David should not be running the group, I am welcome to discuss who else is fit to take the group over, but we can’t have organizers who are just in it for the PR and do not give a shit about the group (pardon my French). It would be nice if you would apologize to the group as well, as your inaction has made it much more difficult than necessary to organize meetups.

I am asking privately before making a more formal request visible to the entire community in a blog post (my WordCamp Houston 2010 wrapup which has still not been posted just yet). Nothing personal against either of you, but this has gone on too long and I’ll be damned if I’m going to just sit here while it does.

Sincerely,
Shawn K. Quinn
Houstonian since 1975 November, WordPress user since 2008 December
spectacularshawn.com rantroulette.com quinnsbigcity.com

Yep. I dropped the S-bomb. For a day or two I regretted it, but in retrospect it was exactly the message I needed to send. Not surprisingly, I have yet to get a reply.

A direct message to Christopher Smith’s company account on Twitter was not replied to. Worse, I made a point of checking if I was still following the account, and found I was blocked the morning after sending it. These actions, taken by themselves, clearly indicate someone who does not have the community’s best interests at heart.

Coming up in part 3, it’s time to call for backup again.

(Note that as of very recently, by which I mean mere hours before I was about to schedule this for posting, there has been a change. It does not fit well here or even in part 3, but will be covered in part 4; I am referring to it here just so my readers know it has not been ignored.)

[Edited 2021-07-23 to fix some unfortunate typos/misspellings]