Please create tor-employees mailing list
We would like a private employee mailing list, please. It should be named tor-employees. I would like to be the maintainer/administrator of the list.
Purpose of the list is to have a quick way to email employees instead of manually entering their email addresses every time we need to tell them something about benefits, payroll, etc. Thank you.
Activity
Hi there. Just for the record I very strongly argued against this...
An employee list will further differentiate employees from non-employees by providing a communication channel exclusive to the former. I don't like where I see this going but I've argued against it the best I can. If you want to create the list over my objections then please file a ticket and Jens will do so.This isn't to say we shouldn't do it. Shari has her heart set on this. But if it gets any substantial use or important correspondence this has the very real possibility of driving away volunteers. Me included.
Replying to atagar: Honestly, I can't imagine the list will get that much traffic. Also, communicating directly with the subset of people is not affected by whether we have a list, it just saves us time in manually entering each individual email address.
The list will be used for announcements, not for substantive discussion. If a subject or discussion that would be better suited for the wider community arises within the email list, any person can (and knowing this group, definitely will) remove the conversation to that list.
Hi there. Just for the record I very strongly argued against this...
{{{ An employee list will further differentiate employees from non-employees by providing a communication channel exclusive to the former. I don't like where I see this going but I've argued against it the best I can. If you want to create the list over my objections then please file a ticket and Jens will do so. }}}
This isn't to say we shouldn't do it. Shari has her heart set on this. But if it gets any substantial use or important correspondence this has the very real possibility of driving away volunteers. Me included.
Honestly, I can't imagine the list will get that much traffic.
Great, glad to hear it.
As discussed previously I haven't yet heard a decent use for such a list. Employee announcements presently go to tor-internal@. Even if they're not relevant to volunteers they still can be of interest to us as prospective future tor employees.
The only thing an employee-only list does is ensure volunteers like me don't see... whatever it receives.
That said, Shari's clearly set on this so guess we'll see how it goes. :)
I share some of Damian's concerns about excluding conversations from volunteers and from contractors like myself. On the other hand, I 100% see the need for a way to easily communicate info about benefits, etc. to employees. Maybe this could be set up as an announce-only list in which only a few people are allowed to post to it (e.g., Erin and Shari).
Trac:
Cc: N/A to mcs-
Replying to mcs: Fine with me. :)
Totally +1 atagar. I've always thought one of the purpose of -internal and -project is to keep org transparent to the core community. But maybe things have changed. I understand this is probably how a typical corporate might function. But Tor isn't a typical org, and one of the reasons I've been volunteering at Tor for so many years is because how transparent organization is.
Another point is that I very accidentally found about this ticket. That's not a good sign.
Just my 2cents.
I will +1 atagar here as well.
I do see the usefulness of a broadcast system for boring "new timesheet template" or "Hey, here is the documentation for the health benefits" and other things that only makes sense to employees. But tor-internal@ is what should be used even if few people on the list actually have a use for it, transparency to our entire community is more important and makes Tor much stronger even if it's a timesheet document :).
I'm personally not really happy with the current state of tor-internal@ but we are working towards making it better with our membership guidelines eventually.
Replying to atagar:
Hi there. Just for the record I very strongly argued against this...
{{{ An employee list will further differentiate employees from non-employees by providing a communication channel exclusive to the former. I don't like where I see this going but I've argued against it the best I can. If you want to create the list over my objections then please file a ticket and Jens will do so. }}}
Where is this quoted from? I can't remember reading it before.
For what it's worth (and I don't think my opinion matters as much as those who actually have to do the work), I support making a list if it makes people's jobs easier. It saves time, and makes it less likely than an employee will be left out.
All the criticisms I see here apply just as much to emails which CC each employee, as to a mailing list with employees on it: the core concern is that employees see content that contractors, volunteers, and others do not.
I can't see the harm in sending everything employee-related to tor-internal, but it also doesn't bother me that much if we cut down on the volume of administrative email I (and ~70 others) have to read. And in that case, I trust employees to forward any interesting tidbits to the appropriate forums.
Replying to mrphs:
... Another point is that I very accidentally found about this ticket. That's not a good sign.
Should we update the process for creating a new mailing list so that an email is sent to tor-internal before the list is created? (I'd do it myself, but I can't find the wiki page for it. And it's not solely my decision to add that process.)
Or is your concern that employees are being sent information that isn't available to the core community, regardless of whether there is a list to facilitate this happening?
(Sorry for the multi-post.)
Where is this quoted from?
Hi Tim. Prior to this ticket it was asked for via a private email thread from Erin and Shari.
Should we update the process for creating a new mailing list so that an email is sent to tor-internal before the list is created?
We create quite a few lists. This is the first one I can think of that's contentious so personally I don't think it's worth the noise on the list.
I'd do it myself, but I can't find the wiki page for it. And it's not solely my decision to add that process.
Here's the wiki, though please don't change it without sign-off from tor-internal@...
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/emailLists
but it also doesn't bother me that much if we cut down on the volume of administrative email
It won't receive just mundane paperwork. If that was the case non-employees would be welcome to subscribe. This ticket is about creating a communication channel exclusive to employees.
Or is your concern that employees are being sent information that isn't available to the core community, regardless of whether there is a list to facilitate this happening?
Yes. If they're actually cc-ing all employees individually they're doing it wrong. Making a list simplifies and institutionalizes a bad practice they shouldn't be doing.
and tor employees will not necessarily be included in tor-internal@
Hmmm, think there may be a misunderstanding. Employment with tor subscribes you to tor-internal@. The list has all employees.
Replying to atagar:
...
but it also doesn't bother me that much if we cut down on the volume of administrative email
It won't receive just mundane paperwork. If that was the case non-employees would be welcome to subscribe. This ticket is about creating a communication channel exclusive to employees.
Or is your concern that employees are being sent information that isn't available to the core community, regardless of whether there is a list to facilitate this happening?
Yes. If they're actually cc-ing all employees individually they're doing it wrong. Making a list simplifies and institutionalizes a bad practice they shouldn't be doing.
and tor employees will not necessarily be included in tor-internal@
Hmmm, think there may be a misunderstanding. Employment with tor subscribes you to tor-internal@. The list has all employees.
So how is this different from the team lists? (network-team, metrics-team, etc.) Is it because non-employees will not be welcome to subscribe to tor-employees?
Replying to teor:
Replying to mrphs:
... Another point is that I very accidentally found about this ticket. That's not a good sign. ...
Or is your concern that employees are being sent information that isn't available to the core community, regardless of whether there is a list to facilitate this happening?
So is someone going to tell tor-internal?
Replying to atagar:
...
but it also doesn't bother me that much if we cut down on the volume of administrative email
It won't receive just mundane paperwork. If that was the case non-employees would be welcome to subscribe. This ticket is about creating a communication channel exclusive to employees.
I'd like to know if the leaks from tor-internal had anything to do with either the decision to create this list, or the decision to CC employees rather than using tor-internal.
But in my experience, there have been no employee-related announcements while I was on tor-internal, so either the CC thing has been happening for a while, or the resulting list would be very low-volume.
When we [the first ideas of a formal membership] a bit more than a year ago, I advocated for such a list.
Very minor point: if contractors are going to be on this list, I don't think it's wise to call it “tor-employees”. It could maybe be used against Tor to say that contractors are disguised employees.
The main rationale is to create a communication channels dedicated to contractors and employees: without such a list, you make it automatic that every contractors or employees automatically become members of the project.
I think you shouldn't become a member of the Tor community because you get hired or contracted by Tor the company. Because they work on different time scales, I think becoming a member and getting hired should be different processes. If announcements regarding employees and contractors use the communication channels that are dedicated to project members (who have been through a community-run membership process), you require contractors or employees to be on these communication channels. That would make them exempt of the community process (bad in my opinion) or have special temporary status (bad in my opnion).
For transparency, we might want to consider make this list publicly archived. Subscriptions and posting would be limited to contractors and employees.
Nevertheless, I need to say that with the current trend where, as a volunteer, I have very little idea on what the company is doing, this feels quite worrying. Almost every week there's a new email which makes me think “oh, I didn't even knew we needed to make such a decision” or “oh, I didn't even knew we had an open position”.
So I guess I still support a separate list, but without a company that takes more input from the community, or a way for the community to have better control over the company, this is likely going to reinforce the exclusion of members of the community who are not contractors or employees.
I'd like to know if the leaks from tor-internal had anything to do with either the decision to create this list
I wondered about this too since 'tor-internal@ is broken and we need a more secure place to communicate' is a reasonable argument. According to Shari that is not the motivation. None the less this topic is why I'm now investing time into fixing the list. Clearly the membership document won't be finished or ratified any time soon, so I'll be making a smaller proposal to fix the list once we've agreed on a voting procedure.
Fingers crossed it goes better than last time.
