Community Introspection

Same risks and rewards as for the individual

One of the things I love about being a member of the Plone community, is our capacity for introspection. Like all things, however, it has its place and its limits. I’ve been contemplating how we might find those limits.

At the recent World Plone Day, I had the opportunity to hear Donna Snow’s story in more detail. She was one of the “old school” skinners who was hurt by the Plone 3 changes. She has been assimilated. :) She’s now a stronger advocate than ever. That’s a great example of how the Plone communities’ introspection is an asset. We didn’t flinch, we incorporated.

OTOH, sometimes I think our community could have a bit more patience with the significant though perhaps unsexy transitions that the Plone stack is in the middle of. We’re no longer the new kid on the block and so we lose some of our sex appeal. We’re now a successful project whose greatest challenge now may well be to gracefully manage the history of that success while we continue to improve.

It may not be so scintillating to participate in keeping a successful project nimble as it was to participate in the rise of a shining new success. I know, however, that I at least will be very pleased with my time if I’m now a part of the subtler success of standing up well to new challenges and challengers.

I very much value our community’s capacity to make constructive use of criticism and to be critical of ourselves. I just think it would help morale to also raise enthusiasm while we’re doing so.

Updated on 21 November 2008

Imported from Plone on Mar 15, 2021. The date for this update is the last modified date in Plone.

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