Talk:Leadership Qualities/Archive1

The CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.

How about these?

• Ability for respectful conflict resolution through confrontation rather than avoidance

• Ability for open, direct and sincere dialogue with the community

• Ability to take in and reflect upon constructive criticism and act on it accordingly

• Ability to operate in a multi-cultural environment, actively realizing the mission of intercultural understanding in accepting varying communication styles and other differences stemming from diverse cultural backgrounds

• Ability to operate in a largely virtual organization

Anu, thank you for your contribution here. I really appreciate hearing your opinion on this. You did the right thing by constructively editting the talk page and then alerting us to its inclusion. Kasper - this is a \\\"protected\\\" page. \\\"Protected \\\"Leadership Qualities\\\": Official policy to be edited by leadership team or designated persons only \\\" It\\\'s not constructive of you to just add whatever without going through the required channels. This only hurts communication and trust.

Thanks again, Anu. We\\\'re still editting our doc and appreciate the insight. --RedCouchGuy 18:57, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

This should be rephrased: \\\'avoiding \\\"us against them\\\" situations at all costs.\\\' \\\'avoidance at all costs\\\', to me, implies denial of the differing opinions existing, leading into postponing dealing with the conflict until the disaccordance resolves itself through either \\\"us\\\" or \\\"them\\\" walking away from the situation that\\\'s not dealt with, or building up tension and even more polarization on the situation. Suggesting: \\\"avoiding creating \\\'us against them\\\' situations through actively building bridges and fostering open communication within the community\\\"

I fully understand Kasper\\\'s editions however: it\\\'s _his_ cultural preference to act directly in a space formed for exactly that, with best of intentions and before said \\\'official policy\\\' was in place. I don\\\'t take this as unconstructive at all, just a different style of communication which should be respected (even if not complied to) by the leadership circle. In wiki-culture, the document itself in any stage of development is the current \\\'consensus view\\\' of its editors and most often edited directly, whereas admin-culture is geared towards consensus-building prior to action, in this case public editing of the document. I wont deny accommodating for both these cultures is tricky and requires patience and understanding.

I have now reverted the document to its previous stage (as the original author of the statements), but would like to see if there are more views on this and having them being reflected by the leadership circle not necessarily as criticism but as valuable views expressed by the community.

Anu 15:26, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

• His \\\"different style of communication\\\" continually widens the gap of understanding the \\\"two sides\\\". Mattthew created a protected Wiki page to communicate what the Leadership circle has been coming up with. Rather than respecting Mattthew\\\'s page and how it was set up he chose to unilaterally do whatever he thought was best without talking with Mattthew or anyone else first. This is not contructively being a team player despite \\\"cultural preferences\\\". Admins/Leaders don\\\'t want an \\\"us\\\" or \\\"them\\\" but would much rather have a \\\"we\\\". It\\\'s harder to close that gap when unilateral actions are continually taken causing more and more miscommunication. --RedCouchGuy 19:12, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Why does Mattthew choose to create a wiki page if it\\\'s not supposed to be edited by anyone? The document doesn\\\'t state that it can\\\'t be edited. Guaka^CS 22:36, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Mattthew (and all the leadership circle) considered the wiki page as a suitable page to announce a document. Should he ask anybody\\\'s permission to post it? Should he ask specifically for being respected enough and having that document not editted without prior notice? Isn\\\'t the fact that the document is attributed as \\\"protected\\\" enough? Isn\\\'t the fact that it is an official CS announcement enough? promitheus, 15:45 (CET),11th May 2007

---

\\\"it\\\'s _his_ cultural preference to act directly in a space formed for exactly that\\\" Whoever wrote this may not be aware that though this wiki is in most cases a community editable document, we have been using it for several months as a space to display \\\"official\\\" CS information. \\\"Official\\\" being defined as information carefully edited by several volunteers and approved by the former admins (now leaders team).

Most of the time, these official pages appear on prominent places on the main CS website that we need to remain stable. These official pages on the wiki are specifically protected from editing for this reason. The reason we began using the wiki to display official information was to allow more volunteer input and to make changes faster without having to use up a programmer\\\'s time to change some text on the site.

Kasper is fully aware of this policy and the admins\\\' reasons for using the wiki in this manner. Furthermore, he has previously specifically agreed to respect that policy. When I created this page and protected it, I gave a reason for doing so which Kasper could see when he chose to edit the page. The reason states: \\\"Official policy to be edited by leadership team or designated persons only\\\". By editing this page, Kasper chose to ignore those instructions and to disrespect the agreement he had previously made.

Kasper and others have been asking the leaders team to make an announcement about its intentions and policies. We did so by creating this document for everyone to see. Kasper chose to edit our statement, thus depriving the entire community from hearing the very statements from us that he has been demanding.

Finally, you cannot use \\\"it\\\'s his cultural preference\\\" to justify any and all actions. I can\\\'t punch you in the face and then say, \\\"What? It\\\'s my culture preference. You have no right to be angry.\\\" Kasper made an agreement with the admins which he then knowingly ignored for his own selfish reasons. One of our leaders team members is from the same home country as Kasper and he can confirm to you that this is not the \\\"cultural preference\\\" of all people from that country. Selfishness is not cultural. --Mattthew 21:35, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Just a minor correction: in the above, I referred to \\\'admin culture\\\' (consensus by negotiation) vs \\\'wiki-culture\\\' (consensus by action) - not anyone\\\'s specific national culture. As I wasn\\\'t aware of Kasper\\\'s prior negotiations I apologize my ignorance, and understand your viewpoint better now. Also, there\\\'s next to no harm done as the servers are down and it\\\'s not possible to reach this page through the links provided in the document and it\\\'s not prime-time for most of the surfers in any case. Hoping this wont stop you listening to _constructive_ feedback in these matters. Cheers, and peace. Hang in there, _I_ for one am not doing this just out of spite but out of genuine concern over issues far too easy to overlook if only seen from the \\\"inside\\\". Anu 22:17, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Where in the document does it say that it\\\'s \\\"official\\\"?

Does \\\"official\\\" mean that no one has the right to edit?

Where is the agreement? It\\\'s not the NDA...

What are my selfish reasons?

I just started the Dissident Team, with the according Dissident Qualities. Guaka^CS 22:36, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Response to Mattthew\\\'s comments

Hey Mattthew,

Mattthew wrote:
\\\"Kasper made an agreement with the admins which he then knowingly ignored for his own selfish reasons.\\\"

I\\\'m sure this is not what you meant Mattthew, but what you expressed here is an opinion. I don\\\'t believe you can possibly know the motivations for Kasper\\\'s actions, his intentions or that he knowlingly ignored anything.

I, personally, believe Kasper made the edit without realising the page was protected. I\\\'ve looked back at the history, and there\\\'s only a small warning above the edit box that says you\\\'re editing a protected page.

However, I don\\\'t think we can ever truly ascertain a person\\\'s intentions. So I\\\'d like to suggest we stick to the facts. Mattthew created a protected document. Kasper made an edit to that document. Anu reverted that edit. Kasper has since made technical edits and left the content intact.

Personally, I think this shows Kasper respects the protected status of the page.

Mattthew, I\\\'m sure you didn\\\'t mean to sound accusatory, but I think that\\\'s how your message came across. We\\\'re all busy people and we all write things in a hurry, I\\\'m sure that\\\'s what happened here. Maybe we can all try to spend a little time reading what we\\\'ve written before we post it to keep CS communication as positive as possible.

Cheers - Callum^{Talk CS}

Origins of the document

While you argue about the importance of protect this important document . Lets see from where this document was plagiarized ________________________________________________________________________________________

who \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'plagiarize\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' everything anyone does or says anyway (or lack thereof) and anything said there is anonymous so definitely not to be taken as \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'community feedback\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' Anu 20:07, 11 May 2007 (EDT)) ________________________________________________________________________________________ Maybe in your coutry finland it is not a big issue. plagirisingsomeone elses work !.maybe in the united stated people can get sued for copying someone elses work and it is NOT a trivial matter. The University of Michigan and Joshua Messer(the author of the original work) should be contacted.

There is a difference between copyright infringement (using someone\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s work without asking for permission); and plagiarism (which is not only using their work or ideas without asking for permission, but also without giving them the credit, presenting it as your own and \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"stealing\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" their ideas).1

Facts are fact and please dont triviliase the issue by saying the poster is anonymous as you always do to not discuss issues .

________________________________________________________________________________________

Anu did not even check the document before making the comment.This shows her distaste for anonymous users on the wiki and shows that her posts have no relation with the original issue of plagiarism and has all to do with her views on another issue ie anonimity on the wiki

Apologies - I stand corrected, might have been better to go to sleep before reacting (thankfully this is 'only' a talk page, and hopefully I learned a lesson here, thanks anyway for the correction). Anu 02:34, 12 May 2007 (EDT)