Re: What do you think of the foundation?

[Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org>]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 07:59:47AM +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> reasons why they might happen.

Ignoring the rest, I'll just share my thoughts on ability to discuss
things on mailing lists.

> Let me be as clear as possible:
>
> There are people in our community who are losing faith in the  
> community's ability to have reasoned technical debate and design  
> discussions because of vacuous 100 mail threads, and IRC being dominated  
> by half a dozen people whose principal contribution to GNOME is to be on  
> IRC all the time. Others are being driven away from the community for  
> our tolerance of "he who shouts loudest" politics, flame wars and  
> provocative and offensive blog posts.

I am not a developer, so my view is a bit different, anyway:
- just doing something (infrastructure) is *way* better than trying to
  discuss it on d-d-l. No idea why, maybe because I explain it badly,
  but I view discussing things on d-d-l as a waste of time. Especially
  so if you start a topic and afterwards you're busy for a few days.
  Suddenly a huge thread about something that was just misinterpreted.
- having doap files (mandatory due to a hook) is somewhat ironic to me
  Please don't reply on this specific point though.
- people complaining about the speed of Bugzilla is again 'interesting'
  Again, don't reply on this specific item.
- having a CodeOfConduct is nice to avoid some back and forth
  'warnings'. Meaning: discussion should be focussed around the
  behaviour, not whether the behaviour should've been acceptable or not,
  the CoC defines what is acceptable. Further, the CoC is vague enough
  that if someone doesn't abide by this, it should be easy to tell.
- I like how the CoC is stated on mail.gnome.org ('expected to know and
  follow').
- feels sometimes that discussion on d-d-l is about winning arguments
  and focussing on minor things instead of finding the best solution /
  outcome
- I respond way too often in bike shed topics...
- being on release-team is nice, you read back a thread and make a
  decision about something preferably you didn't participate in, then
  just try to see the real consensus (means ignoring some parts)
- end of thread calls sometimes help

> I believe that these people should have a group that they can turn to,  
> argue their points, and ask for that group to do something about it. I  
> believe that the task is the role of the foundation, and the board is  
> well placed to assume that role now.

For someone to be listened to, they have to be respected IMO. I find it
interesting there is no effort in trying to make something productive
(within the thread). IMO you do(should) not need the board as a start to
change things.

> When I say "do something about it", that may be simply to point out to  
> the people involved that they're not being productive. It may be to  
> publicly shame people for antisocial behaviour. It may be to tell the  

Antisocial seems really strong to me. Further, it doesn't feel like
people are not behaving according to the CoC (every message seems ok,
maybe just the amount of messages). Eventhough I do agree that
discussing things on d-d-l is useless.
Maybe CoC needs to have a 'keep a discussion productive and focussed on
an outcome' or something.

> complainer that they're making a big deal about nothing. But right now  
> if you are being driven away from GNOME forums or from the GNOME project  
> in general, you have no-where to turn. How is that red tape? How is it  
> draconian censorship?

What is meant with GNOME forums? Things like IRC and mailing lists?


PS: Perhaps I overstated things a bit, etc.

-- 
Regards,
Olav