Re: decision making [was Re: default theme consensus]

[Ryan McDougall <NQG24419 nifty com>]

On Thu, 2004-19-08 at 09:11 +0100, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 2004-08-19 at 02:56, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> 
> > And for the last time, I will disagree, and state that consensus is
> > good/necessary but the buck needs to stop with someone when the thread
> > dies. There is no such thing as 100% agreement, but where do 10+ people
> > draw the line of "good enough" on the same issue?
> 
[snip]

Thanks for writing such a detailed response Mark. I enjoyed reading your
thoughts.

> That person picks a small
> but varied group of people whose opinion on this he feels will be really
> valuable. He then opens it up to the masses for discussion and tries to
> steer things to a consensus. When he feels there's a rough consensus -
> e.g. the small group of people and most everyone else agrees too - he
> makes it known that he feels the decision is made and everybody moves
> forward on that basis.

Then we are basically in agreement, since thats all I wanted to say! The
buck stops with that guy. :)

> 
> 	I guess all I'm saying is that people who feel strongly that a decision
> should be made about something should take responsibility for driving
> the process from beginning to end.

I agree with you. But if a guy like me sticks his head out, and *tries*
drive things a little then it seems like I shouldn't have bothered
because I'm not a developer and therefor have no clout.

To me consensus is also about realizing when to submit to a decision
since arguing or stalling isn't helping. When you summarized the modules
discussion, many could have maintained their stance or continued the
debate, but didn't for the sake of progress.

In theory we aren't in disagreeance, but in practise our decision making
needs work. :) But as I said above, this is my final complaint about the
problem.

> 
> Cheers,
> Mark.
> 
> [1] - http://developer.gnome.org/gep/gep-0.html

ps. Yeah the document listed looks a little (a lot) over formal.

Cheers,
Ryan