on contraction and embracing shadow

Sun Nov 22 02:00:50 PST 2009

Tree and all:

Thanks for your mail(s).

I would profit this one to voice my own opinions.

1. As many of you know, I am quite often a "contrarian" and an "heretic” and quite often voice opinions that are divergent with the "majority". But I try to do this with due respect for the persons involved. I try - even if sometimes I am not able to - to criticize the "facts" or events or behaviors I disagree with, but showing that I am not criticizing the people themselves, but only the behaviors and that I am not trying to "kill the image" of anyone. And I really love some people that have, sometimes, ideas or behaviors I disagree with (remember, just as an example, my discussions about the "foundations" of OST and against the so called "principles of OST").

So, yes, one shall discuss the shadow; one shall embrace discussion, when discussion is needed; one shall always question all the accepted paradigms.

But one shall try to do this with respect. Kaliya has crossed a line of disrespect that I had never seen in this list, where I am for some 11 years now.

2. You seem to be worried about who owns openspaceworld.org; but I never saw no one worried about who owns the OSLIST? or about who owns http://www.openspaceworld.com/? or, for that matter, about who owns http://www.openspacetechnology.com/?

For me it doesn't matter who invites us for his/her/their site, but only about how open is the space and if one can or not create a similar one and invite people there. You and others think that osw.org is too closed, and maybe you have information that I don't have. But for me there are three points that are more important. 

3. First - it is free of charge, I never had to pay any fee to put information in the osw.org. Maybe I have to ask MH to put the information there, or to open a wiki for me, but he never asked me for a payment to open that space.

4. Second. I am not obliged to use his space. I can create another site or platform (and there are a lot of OST-like domains still available) or ask some friend to put my information in another site with the same characteristics. OSW.org is not an accepted paid monopoly in the OST community - as there are others that I never saw any of you criticizing.

5. Third - 9 years ago, after OSonOS in Berlin (that now would be called WOSonOS), I have a fight against what I saw as a strange closeness of all the OST presence in the Internet, including the osw.org - they were all written in (US) English, as if English was the only language that existed in the world, and all the other people in the world should understand it.

And guess what? Who was the person that offered the space to do that? Michael Herman. He created a Wiki, that was at the time something quite new, and opened the space for many groups of different languages, to put there their contents, without any payment or control - as he did not even understand most of the languages...

The first or second wiki space he opened was the Iberian one http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/iberia.cgi?. And if you go to the Development team, you will see that it was itself open to other collaborations. And no one there was a technician and we all have learned to use the wiki in less than one day. (In fact I have been a Systems Engineer some 30 years ago, but I am only a user after more than 20 years).

6. I will let you understand how to have an international site in English-only his oppressing for a foreigner by showing you a reverse example: Here is the content of the page of the development team, in Portuguese:

Equipa de Desenvolvimento [IberiaWiki]
Este é o grupo que tem estado efectivamente a desenvolver este site. Indicam-se também as pessoas para quem pode canalizar dúvidas, questões, sugestões ou outros comentários 

[Artur Ferreira da Silva] - questões gerais sobre Espaço Aberto, sobre o Wiki Ibérico do Espaço Aberto e sobre as relações com a comunidade internacional do Espaço Aberto 
[Terence Christian Reis] - questões gerais sobre o Wiki Ibérico do Espaço Aberto e, especificamente, sobre tecnologia Wiki 
[Alexandre Bobeda] - questões específicas sobre a parte em espanhol deste Wiki 
[Veronique Santos] - questões específicas sobre a parte portuguesa deste Wiki 
[Gabriel Pardi] - Experiencia en OS en Bs. As. Argentina - EspacioAbiertoAcaneb - 
Qualquer pessoa que escreva em português, espanhol (castelhano), galego ou catalão e que saiba ou queira aprender a metodologia de Espaço Aberto e colaborar na construção deste Wiki integralmente dedicado a essa metodologia, se pode juntar ao grupo de desenvolvimento. 

7. I am worried about other things as well. The first one that I have already expressed to same members of the OSI/US board is the following: shall we continue to use the expression OSI or not? If one does a Google search for "Open Space Institute" the first and second entries go to this site of an ecological Institute (http://www.osiny.org/site/PageServer) and only the third goes to the site of OSI/US at the osw.org site. The rest of the first page refers all to the ecological institute. Shouldn’t does of you that specialize in Google searches have already noticed that?

8. But if one searches for "Open Space Technology Institute" then all the entries refer to OST (and the first is in Portuguese, btw, and refers to the entry for "Espaço Aberto" ("Open Space" in Portuguese) in the Wikipedia in Portuguese... Don´t you want to change the name for the obvious one and be called OSTI or OS(T)I?

9. The other point is again related with international concerns. Doesn't the OSI/US have still a central, now inadequate role, in the OST community? Isn't it the time to think about a Federation of Institutes or a WWOSTI? (World Wide OST Institute). Maybe something to discuss in Berlin next May.  

10. These points are for me much more important that to criticize someone with disrespect or to develop the perfect site that, as a former SE, I know that can always be developed if we have infinite time...

With respect for all of you, including Kaliya and others that have some behaviors I disagree with

Artur
-----------------

--- On Sat, 11/21/09, Tree Fitzpatrick <therese.fitzpatrick at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Tree Fitzpatrick <therese.fitzpatrick at gmail.com>
Subject: [OSLIST] on contraction and embracing shadow
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009, 4:43 PM

I am disappointed that Kaliya seems to have been hounded with putative non-violent communication.

I am disappointed that some of the people I personally know who are active participants on this oslist do not feel it is safe or, maybe, loving to share their negative experiences with their interactions with Michael Herman and his private website, openspaceworld.org.

So, setting side the issue of website presence and voicing specific experiences with the persons involved, I put a question to this list.

Do you, when working with client organizations, especially when such organizations are facing upheaval and conflict, hold space for dissonant voices?  Do you nurture conversations about shadow or do you suppress them?

I ask because many comments on this list seem to suggest that suppressing shadow is a good thing for open space.

Is it?

-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick  (check out my new address)

. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine, "I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation.  -- Hannah Arendt

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