Hi Guido,
I have unsubscribed from foss4g2017. I am sorry to misunderstand the FOSS4G and OSGeo spirit. Now you can use your private google group for private LOC issues, and (since no one used the public list before my activity) you can now use that public 2017 list for, your press releases, and any other things that you might need occasionally.
I guess you do not realize that I hurt my career for the 2017 decision, and I have fought so hard to move FOSS4G all around the word, to little unknown groups and to give them the spotlight, against so many other's advice, right back to the start of FOSS4G. Often, as did for 2017, those same people in the spotlight eventually turn against me, as they take the spotlight and make it their own. It is just a common fact, and, sadly it has been a part of what I try so hard to promote, the community.
I think it is really a sign of how mature the community is now, that there are so many strong voices, and, less is needed for guidance. I'll take that as a sign that we are mature.
Well, I will continue on with helping grassroots projects, and FOSS4G regional events all over the world, and help both OSGeo and FOSS4G grow, in any little way that I can.
I wish you all the best. And I am sorry that my open messages and help hurt your team so much. You can have a quiet 2017 list again, and use that for your press releases. Please contact your private team members, whoever they may be, and apologize for me to them. I am sure your event will be wonderful. I bet to this day, I am one of the only few to know your proposal so well, and was even using it this week in messages to your team - well, my messages to the air on the 2017 list, that your team never responded to.
One thing I know, my so-called failures in this community are by far my most proudest moments. And I am proud that for 12 years straight, against so many hurdles and walls, I did all that I could, to spread the passion and sharing and learning and fun, of what we now know as FOSS4G, to every corner of this big world. I tried to show that we are all one family, no matter where you come from, what job you have, what you wear, how much money you make, what gender you are, what software project you use, whatever.
But politics are now so deeply involved, that, there is no more fun at the higher levels. The fun is deep now, back where we all started, in the projects and smaller events and code sprints. And that is ok with me, it is why I got involved in this and helped create FOSS4G with Venka and Markus: fun.
Right now I will switch to helping with the next MapServer release. And after that try to help with the istProject and its incubation. Give some love to the MS4W community, and oh find some ways to pay the bills ha. There, that is my immediate future in a nutshell 
Have a nice weekend,
-jeff
On 2016-09-16 12:09 PM, Guido Stein wrote:
Jeff,
I am with you and want the public forum which already exists, but as I
said... we need a place for people who want information from the LOC
without the conversation. Not everyone wants that kind of involvement in
the FOSS4G community.
Since your last email we have lost another subscriber, so that's 8
people in 16 days from a list that was a little over 100. At this rate
in 2 months we will only have you and me on the list, so .. yes this is
an issue.
And if volume of people leaving isn't enough, since your last email
about this we have lost another member who is from the city of Boston...
so that's one less person participating in the discussion who may be
able to spread the word and coordinate with us within an organization
that holds a lot of sway in the local community.
To be clear, I am asking for an announcement list, which there have been
in the past (look at the lists.osgeo.org <http://lists.osgeo.org>). I am
also trying to be helpful to future events by making it a list for
FOSS4G and not just Boston, which solves the problem of sharing list of
emails... instead we can share the management of one list. I am not
trying to get rid of the FOSS4G2017 community list.
I would really appreciate it if when you address us, the LOC, you
recognize that we are listening and doing all we can to facilitate the
community. We have not been terribly vocal yet because we have needed to
respect our "on deck" status and now we are preparing for the roll out
of a new informational site and sponsor prospectus. We have been working
on this for months and conference committee has given us the
responsibility to run this event as we see best.
"I really wonder why i care so much about foss4g so much in advance
each year, trying so hard to help, on my own time with no agenda."
I care a lot about this event and community. I do not pretend to speak
for all the projects or chapters, but I invite everyone to share their
ideas. That is exactly why I have asked for this second list, because I
don't want people to walk away from this community because they didn't
realize that the list can become full of conversation when all they
wanted was updates about the event.
Guido Stein
Co-Chair
FOSS4G Boston 2017
On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 10:39 AM Jeff McKenna
<jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com <mailto:jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com>>
wrote:
Since now this involved the entire SAC community, some more reference to
the background/next steps i proposed for sending out messages
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2017/2016-September/000055.html
however, i see the writing on the wall.
will go back to grassroots.
For the love and true spirit of FOSS4G,
-jeff
On 2016-09-16 11:29 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Down 7 subscribers? I am an admin also, there is no issue.
Because of
> my messages trying to get the LOC to be more open, the engagement
all of
> a sudden and ideas flowing is wonderful - the last few days some
amazing
> ideas have been brought up by outsiders. Against my advice you
created
> a private google group for private loc discussions, fine, past LOC's
> have done that, but now you also complain about the public 2017 list
> after it starts to be used? It seems you are not used to open
> discussions, at all. I get the impression that you want to close
doors
> totally. Your response is not even in the ticket, or to the 2017
list,
> but to the whole sac community?
>
> I really wonder why i care so much about foss4g so much in advance
each
> year, trying so hard to help, on my own time with no agenda.
>
> Respectfully, have a nice weekend.
>
> -jeff
>
> On 2016-09-16 11:09 AM, Guido Stein wrote:
>> Jeff & SAC members,
>>
>> I respectfully disagree with Jeff.
>>
>> Since the beginning of the heightened traffic on the list in
early sept,
>> we have lost 7 subscribers and are now down to 94 participants on the
>> list.We lost 7% of our list so far. Some of the people who have
dropped
>> off are local people we know and have been trying to recruit to
>> participate in the event.
>>
>> We, the LOC, have been pointing people to the FOSS4G2017 list to get
>> information about our conference. Since this list is becoming
more of a
>> forum and less announcnment oriented we feel it's time to open
another
>> list where people can get information from the LOC (similar to
how there
>> is an osgeo twitter account and a FOSS4G twitter account). I am
all for
>> an active community discussion list, but not at the expense of
loosing
>> people who are interested in event information, but not the
conversation
>> or other OSGEO announcements.
>>
>> I am happy to make sure our outbound messages go to as many
channels as
>> needed to that all OSGEO folks are aware of this, but we need our own
>> channel with our, the LOC, message is broadcast.
>>
>> Thank you all for your time,
>>
>> Guido Stein
>> Co-Chair
>> FOSS4G Boston 2017
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 9:34 AM OSGeo <trac_osgeo@osgeo.org
<mailto:trac_osgeo@osgeo.org>
>> <mailto:trac_osgeo@osgeo.org>> wrote:
>>
>> #1793: Reqiest for FOSS4G-announce list
>> ---------------------------+--------------------
>> Reporter: gsteinmon | Owner: sac@…
>> Type: defect | Status: new
>> Priority: critical | Milestone:
>> Component: Systems Admin | Resolution:
>> Keywords: |
>> ---------------------------+--------------------
>>
>> Comment (by jmckenna):
>>
>> I'm not sure the benefit of yet another announce list. A
'foss4g-
>> announce' list is actually the OSGeo-discuss list. Have you
>> considered
>> sending all of your FOSS4G 2017 press releases directly to the
>> OSGeo-
>> Discuss list?
>>
>> For example, a typical workflow is:
>>
>> - use the public foss4g2017 mailing list for discussions
>> - draft your press releases on the OSGeo wiki (see the many
great
>> examples of past press releases for FOSS4G 2009 at
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Releases)
>> - once you have the text and wiki ready, then send your press
>> release to
>> 'news_item (at) osgeo (dot) org' (that step is described at
>> http://www.osgeo.org/content/news/submit_news.html). That news
>> item will
>> be magically posted to osgeo-announce/discuss (an no need of a
>> separate
>> announce list)
>>
>> Does that make sense?
>>
>> I'll also describe this to the foss4g2017 discussion list. As i
>> said, it
>> would be great to have more open discussions with the 2017
marketing
>> committee.
>>
>> -jeff
>> President Emeritus, OSGeo
>>
>> --
>> Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1793#comment:1>
>> OSGeo <http://www.osgeo.org/>
>> OSGeo committee and general foundation issue tracker.