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Allison (3003)

Allison
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Human (I think).

Journal of Allison (3003)

Thursday March 30, 2006
01:41 AM

Announcing my candidacy for the presidency

[ #29157 ]

Hey, why not? All the cool kids are doing it! :)

I would like to announce my candidacy for the presidency of The Perl Foundation. My platform is as follows:

  1. I will work long hours without pay or thanks.
  2. I will spend my personal income and vacation time to attend Perl conferences around the world.
  3. I will always be enthusiastic about new volunteers, no matter how many times I hear:

    "Hi, I'd like to volunteer."
    "Great! What would you like to do?"
    "I don't know."
    "How about X?"
    "I don't want to do *that*."

    Or:

    "Hi, I'd like to volunteer to do Y."
    "Great!"     1 month later: "Hey, how's Y going?"
    <silence>

  4. I will consistently have faith that I can determine the answer to the problems at hand, because that's my job. When one solution fails, I will try another, and another, and another. When a solution succeeds, I will not be disappointed that no one notices.
  5. I will always be aware that the title is just a title and holds no real value.
  6. I will face criticism kindly, and not take it personally. I will honestly assess my actions and the actions of other volunteers to look for ways we can improve. I will also accept that some improvements take time, and appreciate short-term progress towards larger improvements.
  7. I will always look for good ideas, but also remember that not all ideas are good ideas.
  8. I will hold on to my sense of humor and understand when a joke contains a serious truth and when a serious statement is a joke.

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to your support in the 2002 elections! ;)


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  • “Hi, I’d like to volunteer to do Y.”
    “Great!”     1 month later: “Hey, how’s Y going?”
    <silence>

    *hangs head in shame*

    (Not that I have forgotten about it…)

  • I look forward to your support in the 2002 elections!

    typo?

    /prakash

  • Now there is someone I can support!
  • > 4. I will always be enthusiastic about new volunteers, no
    > matter howmany times I hear:
    >
    > "Hi, I'd like to volunteer."
    > "Great! What would you like to do?"
    > "I don't know."
    > "How about X?"
    > "I don't want to do *that*."
    >
    > Or:
    >
    > "Hi, I'd like to volunteer to do Y."
    > "Great!" 1 month later: "Hey, how's Y going?"
    >

    Indeed. If I had a volunteer for every time I'd heard that...

    Unfortunately, it seems a lot of the time that volunteers, when asking
    • > Reducing barriers to entry seems to help.

      What's seen as barriers? I'm not personally aware of, in the past 5ish years I've been working with TPF, that anyone volunteering to help has been turned away.

      > And jobs for which people can gain both notariety and beer seem to be particularly attractive to volunteers.

      There is no notariety. Not even inter-TPF White Camels! And, for all TPF-related things I've done and people and I have helped with, I have yet to get a beer for it (I did get traditional gift f
      • > What's seen as barriers? I'm not personally aware of, in the past 5ish years I've been working with TPF, that anyone volunteering to help has been turned away.

        It's true that I'm working with examples from technical projects here, but for one small example I've seen a tripling or better of small patches actually being applied to code since moving from SourceForge CVS to email-account based SVN.

        There's a couple of extra nigglies needed to get past the SourceForge permissions stuff, but even that was enou
      • And, for all TPF-related things I've done and people and I have helped with, I have yet to get a beer for it

        I tried to buy one for you on the boat at YAPC in Toronto, but then I couldn't find you (go figure--how can someone hide on a boat?). It was getting warm, so I think I gave it to Kurt.

    • Volunteers almost never work out, and you can't use their enthusiasm with a programming project like Pugs to judge their enthusiasm for something really mundane like putting tax records online or setting up a blog they won't be able to post on.

      Most of the work for TPF is really dull to most people. That's why there aren't too many people doing it.
  • That's my job. :) I enjoy a certain amount of schadenfreude when I encourage people to volunteer for stuff around these parts as taking the shiny patina off kids like Alias is cheap entertainment. Notariety and beer *cackle* Sure, kid.

    • Not bitter. It was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. But plenty of room for humor. :)

      Did I tell you the one about the president, the onion, and the glass of carrot juice? No? So, this onion walks into a bar...

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