Hi everyone,

I really wish I didn't have to write this.  I try to avoid community drama, but my hand has sort of been forced by this blog post by Gerald titled "Ruboss Hijacks Vancouver Ruby/Rails Meetup": http://vanrb.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/community-building-anti-patterns/.  This wouldn't be a problem if this was just on Gerald's blog, but Gerald has things set up so that everything he publishes goes to a few aggregators (http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=238234, for example).

To clear the air, I thought I'd add some context to Gerald's post.

The really short version:
http://skitch.com/peterarmstrong/itj4/geraldbauermisquotingpeterarmstrong

The short version:
1) Peter is and always has been the organizer of the Vancouver Ruby/Rails meetup
2) Yesterday, Gerald sent some pretty insulting e-mail to me about Peter and Ruboss
3) Peter consequently decided that he didn't want to work with Gerald as an assistant-organizer of the meetup anymore, and removed him from the mailing list.  He had only recently added Gerald as an assistant organizer as a (completely unprompted) token of appreciation for his blogging.
4) Gerald posted a rather one-sided and misquoted (to put it charitably) version of the events on his blog.
5) Peter is still the organizer of the Vancouver Ruby on Rails meetups.  Ruboss hasn't hijacked a thing.

Full disclosure: I work with Peter at Ruboss.  He's technically my boss.

Here's the long version:

Last year Gerald and I worked together to put on RubyCamp.  It was, in my opinion, a great success and a lot of fun, and I wanted to do it again this year.  A few days ago, Peter was talking to Dane at workspace.  He asked about available days in January for RubyCamp, found that the 24th of January was available, and booked it.  I wanted, of course, to include Gerald in the organization of RubyCamp again, so yesterday I sent the following e-mail to him:

=====================
Hey Gerald,

Peter has booked Workspace for January 24th for RubyCamp.  We asked them and found that the date was open, and decided to go for it before it got booked up.  Peter also negotiated a better rate for us since we're WorkSpace members. 

We've created the EventBrite page already: http://vancouverrubycamp.eventbrite.com.  We linked to rubycamp.wordpress.com on EventBrite.  Let us know if you want a link to geraldbauer.ca on there.

We want to announce the date tonight at the Rails meetup.  Peter has been approached by some people regarding sponsorship already, so hopefully that side of things will be easier this year.  Peter is willing to take care of that, so that's one less chore for you and I.

I'm assuming and hoping that you want to help organize RubyCamp again this year.  Are you interested in doing the evangelism that you did so effectively last year again?

See you tonight hopefully,

Scott
=======================

Here is Gerald's response:

=======================

Hello Scott,
  Great initiative. Let's hope we can settle our differences and make
it work for everybody. So far it all has been more or less a one-way
street and looking at the eventbrite page it all looks like a
promotion for Ruboss and Peter (e.g. let's change the hosted by to the
Vancouver Ruby/Rails group and turn Ruboss in a sponsor - gold,
premium or otherwise).  Approaching me in the last minute doesn't
really build trust either. Anyway, let's try to make it work (I'm
ready to forgive) and open for Peter to "take care of" sponsorship as
long as there's accountability and we know where the money goes and it
doesn't go into Ruboss pockets.

 Cheers.

--
Gerald Bauer - Internet Professional - http://geraldbauer.ca

===========================

Personally, I was a bit mystified at the response.  I had no idea that Gerald and I had differences that needed to be worked out, and it certaintly wasn't my intention to approach him at the last minute.  I'm pretty sure there's a few months to go before January 24th.

Peter was, understandably, upset at being accused of conniving to take the sponsorship money into his pockets.  Just to be clear, last year we raised exactly $1000 in sponsorship.  Our only cost was for the rental of WorkSpace for the day, which conveniently enough cost $1000.  This year, we were hoping to raise enough money to provide lunch and (if we got tons of sponsorship) maybe rent a place to have some beers on the Friday before RubyCamp.  Not exactly enough money to run off to Mexico with.

We decided to take down the EventBrite page, as we didn't want to announce anything last night, so you won't be able to see that.  It did say that Ruboss was the organizing sponsor of the event.  It was and is our intention to put other sponsors on the page as they sign up.

Peter decided that he had had enough of Gerald, and removed him from the mailing list.  Here's the text of the e-mail that Peter sent through Meetup (Meetup gives you the option of receiving a copy of the messages you send):

====================

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Meetup <[address removed]>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 23:29:20 -0400
Subject: You've been removed from the The Vancouver Ruby/Rails Meetup
Group Mailing List
To: [address removed]

(As you requested, below is a copy of the email you just sent.)
Quick note to let you know you've been removed from The
Vancouver Ruby/Rails Meetup Group Mailing List by the
Organizer.
------------------------------
=============================

Here's what Gerald quoted in his blog post:
=======================
You're no longer welcome to the Vancouver Ruby/Rails Meetup and I have taken you off the Vancouver Ruby/Rails Meetup list. I do not want your monthly newsletter postings. — Peter Armstrong (Ruboss)
=======================

Just for fun, here's  a comparison of the 'quote' from Gerald's post and the e-mail that Peter sent: http://skitch.com/peterarmstrong/itj4/geraldbauermisquotingpeterarmstrong

Again, I'm sorry for filling your inbox with this.

Gerald, I kindly ask you to take down the blog post before you do any more damage to the Vancouver Ruby Community, Peter's reputation, Ruboss's reputation and yours.

Scott Patten

--
Scott Patten
[address removed]
[masked]
http://spattendesign.com