Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-council] A Little Council Reform Anyone?

[Richard Freeman]

Doug Goldstein wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Ned Ludd<solar@g.o> wrote:
>> Meetings will likely go back to one time per month and be +m with +v be
>> handed out per request with open chat pre/post meetings.  The reason for
>> this is to keep the meetings on-track. I won't engage in endless
>> discussions. Facts can be presented. They will be reviewed on merit,
>> technical and social.
>
> Thank you again. I tried the +m/+v thing a year ago and received a few
> pieces of hate e-mail from mostly non-developer people.

Please do go to +m.  I usually just read council summaries - when I've 
tried to read the actual logs it is a COMPLETE mess.

In most organizational board-like bodies the board meeting is NOT the 
place to have open discussion on topics.  The open discussion happens 
everywhere BUT the board meeting.  It happens on the phone, on mailing 
lists, in newspapers, on TV, on talk radio, etc.  During the board 
meeting people who want to make a statement can do so within a limited 
amount of time, and then the board casts its vote.  95% of the time the 
way the vote will go is known before the meeting happens.  The meeting 
is just a formality.

If there is to be a 300 line argument over proposal-A vs proposal-B, do 
it on the mailing lists, or on IRC.  Council votes should be 
straightforward matters.

If we want to have more interaction - how about this idea:  Formal 
council meetings happen once per month, and they are the ONLY place 
votes take place.  However, the council will try to meet more often for 
less formal discussion.  +m/+v may be imposed at any time if there is a 
large turnout just to keep things somewhat orderly.  Attendance is not 
mandatory for these meetings, but is encouraged.  You could also 
schedule them at a variety of times - again, you're not missing any 
votes so if only 1/3rd of the council makes any particular meeting it 
isn't a big deal.

As far as having two council members temporarily approve items goes - it 
isn't a bad thing to have in general, but it should really only be used 
in emergency situations.  I'm not sure if we even need it - I suspect 
that groups like infra will "do the right thing" most of the time if 
there is an emergency (dev starts committing "rm -rf /*" scripts all 
over the portage tree - infra suspends cvs access first and finds devrel 
later).

Maybe a quick way to assess developer opinions on issues would be forum 
polls?  The votify system is potentially good as well, but I'm not sure 
how much work it requires on the part of infra to gather/tally the 
votes.  We really don't need the full rigor of votify for most issues 
(though it probably should be used if there are true referendums on 
serious matters).  And, of course, there is always the "measure the 
noise on the mailing list" approach, but I'm not a big fan of that 
(though I am a fan of lists in general).