<div dir="ltr"><div></div><div></div><div>Kontext zu Ryans Mail: Joydeep war ein Jahr lang verschwunden und ist dann vor nem Monat reingeplatzt und hat gemeint, dass was wir hier machen, Mist ist und er zurücktreten wird, wenn wir nicht tun, was er will. Das 8x Field unterstützt er nicht mehr und er wird bei den Trustees ein Veto einlegen. Alle Stoppages sollen generell mit Force Start weitergehen (den Bullshit haben wir ihm noch ausreden können) und das Seitenaus soll abgeschafft werden. Letzteres ist ne Idee von Manuela und wir hatten das schon 2017 diskutiert und auf Eis gelegt. Für 2020 will er es jetzt unbedingt durchdrücken, wahrscheinlich um Manuela zu befriedigen. Das war alles übrigens erst nachdem wir gemeinsam im TC/OC beschlossen hatten, was wir für 2020 umsetzen. Er ist quasi aus dem Nichts wieder aufgetaucht und meint, nach Belieben alles übern Haufen werfen zu können.</div><div><br></div><div>Er hat weder Respekt vor den TC/OC Mitgliedern, die hier ehrenamtlich viel Zeit und Geld reinstecken, und noch weniger vor den Teams. Ich war im OC, damit ich den RoboCup so gut wie möglich vor allem für die Teilnehmer machen kann, nicht, um nach der Nase eines Idioten zu tanzen. Deshalb bin ich zurückgetreten.<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Joydeep Biswas</b> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:joydeepb@cs.utexas.edu">joydeepb@cs.utexas.edu</a>></span><br>Date: Wed, Nov 6, 2019 at 3:14 PM<br>Subject: Re: [rc-ssl-oc] [rc-ssl-tc] The state of SSL committees<br>To: Ryan Strat <<a href="mailto:ryan@str.at">ryan@str.at</a>><br>Cc: rc-ssl-tc <<a href="mailto:rc-ssl-tc@lists.robocup.org">rc-ssl-tc@lists.robocup.org</a>>, rc-ssl-oc <<a href="mailto:rc-ssl-oc@lists.robocup.org">rc-ssl-oc@lists.robocup.org</a>>, Masahide ITO <<a href="mailto:masa-ito@ist.aichi-pu.ac.jp">masa-ito@ist.aichi-pu.ac.jp</a>>, Ersin AYTAC <<a href="mailto:ersin@aytac.me">ersin@aytac.me</a>><br></div><br><br><div dir="ltr">Thanks, Ryan, for bringing this up. I agree with many of the things you have said, and I wanted to particularly highlight one thing that you already mentioned, but also very importantly add another important point.<div><br></div><div>Dear Committees,</div><div><br></div><div>As Ryan mentioned, it is *very important* to reach consensus on the committee. The consensus option may not be the option of choice for every committee member, but they need to to be tempered by the next point I am going to make.</div><div><br></div><div>I thought this does not need to be said, but looking at what is being said on Slack, I am convinced now it does need to be said:</div><div>We encourage a healthy discussion, and decisions evolve naturally from these discussions. However, keep in mind that not all opinions are weighted the same. Simply put: <b><u>respect experience, and bear in mind your place on the ladder of experience</u></b>.</div><div>Beyond the TC, members of committees are not "voted" into place, they get there by the decades of experience making revolutionary technical contributions to the field of robotics and AI in general.</div><div>When there is a difference of opinion, and despite discussions if the difference stands, we should be willing to respect experience and defer to it.</div><div>This goes to all levels of the organization - without naming names, I greatly respect members of the technical committee who have made significant contributions to shared league software and hardware infrastructure, and lead the league in maintaining this infrastructure. Their experience commands my respect. I keep this in mind when engaging in discussions.</div><div>Similarly, we have trustees who have been working not just on SSL, but on many other robotics projects for *decades* now, and are *world leaders* in the field of robotics and AI. Some of the strongest supporters of the SSL are trustees who founded the RoboCup Federation. When I find that I do not agree entirely with some ideas by the trustees, I engage in discussion, but at the end of the day I defer to their experience. </div><div>Get to know your fellow committee members, the executive committee, and the trustees - you will find their contributions and experience in the news, in research organizations (conferences, journals, associations), on public source code repositories, and other places on the internet.</div><div>There will come a time when everyone will have to say, "I still have concerns, but I am going to defer to your experience and try it out". It does not need to be said out loud, but recognizing this is key to arriving at a consensus.</div><div><br></div><div>Finally, we do in fact need to reach consensus on the issue of adding walls, and I'll start a discussion on an email thread with the trustees most involved with the SSL, and the committees. When engaging in this thread please bear in mind the point raised above^.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Joydeep</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>Joydeep</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 10:51 AM Ryan Strat <<a href="mailto:ryan@str.at" target="_blank">ryan@str.at</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif">Members of the Small Size League Executive, Technical, and Organizing Committees,<br><br>The discourse and events over the past few weeks have evolved in a way that is no longer constructive for the league and is counterproductive to achieving our goals. The group is fragmented right now, in both opinions and behaviors - so much so that Christian chose to resign than to deal with it anymore - And I don’t blame him - Over the past month, we’ve devoted far more energy into a debate than trying to organize a robot soccer league. This is untenable going forward.<br><br>Before we can talk about what the future of the league is, we must first agree on a few tenets of how we work, which we have not been doing effectively.<br><br>We must all be aligned when decisions are made, which means that we support and defend the decisions of the committees to teams, the LOC, and the Federation, even if they don’t align with our personal beliefs. We can only align on our goals and decisions through active participation, such as attending meetings or engaging via Slack when we have time conflicts. Not participating in meetings and later calling for discussion of prior decisions made is not respectful to members of these committees who are prioritizing this volunteerism in their lives. <br><br>Additionally, we must change how we interact with the league when it comes to making large decisions. Right now, we consider an idea amongst ourselves and debate with with a small group of others from our respective teams - this is OK for small procedural changes, but for large changes, we must develop these concepts in the open where teams can discuss and offer feedback to these committees. A byproduct of soliciting feedback is that we must develop changes on a timeline that allocates time for team feedback. A “move fast and break things” approach is not appropriate when our work, in part, sets the research agenda for over 300 individuals. It is disrespectful to the league when we change course with little notice and conduct the rule-making in private.<br><br>We must be mindful of the sacrifice of the people who volunteer their free time, vacation days, and money to serve on these committees. This means respecting each member and the perspective each of us brings to the table, it means not opening any dialog with an ultimatum or threat of resignation, if one’s idea is not eventually selected, and it means making decisions in an order that reduces the amount of re-work required due to changing requirements.<br><br>Over the past couple months, I don’t feel as though we have done a good job adhering to the above principles, and as a result, I don’t feel as though my time has been respected. If I were still actively involved on a team, I know that I would be highly critical of the current committees. The very same feeling that once motivated me to join this group makes me endlessly frustrated as I devote hours of my time each week.<br><br>This email is not a result of any of the decisions that we have made, or remain outstanding regarding the game, but instead is about the way the business of the league was conducted. I send it as an attempt to collectively take a moment to pause and consider the impact of the way we have been conducting business as of late. I am interested in making these committees a better place to volunteer our time and energy, but it cannot be productive without the support and active participation of each and every member of the EC, OC, and TC.<br><br>Respectfully,<br></div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif"><br></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:12.8px"><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><div style="display:inline"></div>Ryan Strat</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:ryan@str.at" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><font color="#45818e">ryan@str.at</font></a><br></font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif" color="#999999">+1 (678) 517-3393</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><div style="display:inline"><a href="https://ssl.robocup.org" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><font color="#45818e">RoboCup Small Size League</font></a><font color="#999999"> | Organizing Committee</font></div></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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