[gentoo-project] Re: Re: Re: Re: Plan, then communicate (no-list)

[Steve Long]

Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2008 10:07 PM, Steve Long  wrote:
>> Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>
>> > On Jan 23, 2008 7:23 PM, Steve Long  wrote:
>> >> Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
>> >> > "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation
>> >> > with the average voter." - Winston Churchill
>> >> >
>> >> > s/voter/user/
>> >> >
>> >> Churchill also said democracy is the worst form of government: apart
>> >> from all the others.
>> >>
>> >> He also questioned why anyone should worry about Arabs being gassed in
>> >> Mesopotamia, so maybe you can just speak for yourself; would you
>> >> prefer to live under Saddam, Amin or Hitler than a democratic
>> >> government?
>> >
>> > These statements on governance are completely irrelevant here.
>> Er I didn't bring them up. TBH it was only an aside to the main issue of
>> how to involve users. The rest of the discussion has in fact been about
>> governance, so I am puzzled that you think it "completely irrelevant."
>
> The statements you made about Saddam, Amin and Hitler are irrelevant
> here. The rest of the discussion is not.
>
I asked *one* question wrt the preferred mode of governance (I did not make
a series of statements). Clearly everyone here prefers some form of
representative democracy (feel free to chime in if you don't.)

It wouldn't hurt to add the occasional "imo" btw. You seem to enjoy making
generalised pronouncements of your opinions as if they are accepted truths,
which believe me, they are not.

>> > `Responsibilities` is in quotes because you cannot really "police" an
>> > organisation that works for free in it's free time.
>> >
>> Hmm and there's no such thing as forum moderators or irc ops?
>
> You're mis-interpreting my statements. Perhaps I need to give a bit
> more context to the words I use.
>
No I'm really not: if I'm misunderstanding your meaning, it's because you're
using the wrong words.

> Policing in the sense of forcing devs to work on things they do not
> want to work on.
>
Er that's not policing, it's coercion. It might be what drobbins proposed,
but it's not what I am arguing for.

Policing in the sense of enforcing acceptable behaviour guidelines when they
have *clearly* been breached is something that all of us would accept, I
hope, as the only way to ensure harmonious (or at worst civil) interaction.

> When you're being paid to govern (as in the case of politicians) it's
> their job, and they have to do it no matter how much they dislike it.

That's not true; they can quit too, and in fact usually have far more
options available to them than the average worker who has to take crap at
work or lose their wage.

> Not so in open source.
> Of course, devs "behaving" is something that is a social necessity,
> and is currently handled well in Gentoo.
>
In your opinion; others feel the dev m-l has been out of hand (I personally
feel it's a lot better than it was, but there are still too many flames,
characterised by 2 or 3-line snipy posts that shed no light on anything)
and also that some devs are arrogant and supercilious, especially on
bugzilla.

I don't myself run into the latter much, since I know a few devs personally.
It's only happened once in the last 6 months or more, and that dev simply
won't be getting any more bug-fixes from me, however critical they might be
to his/our project. Such is life, I'm afraid: if you're nasty to people
they get turned off helping you; blather on about meritocracy all you want,
you've simply shown you're actually not that great a developer.

>>
>> > The basic tenants of democracy of "equality" and "freedom"
>> > have no meaning whatsoever in this context.
>> Again, in your opinion. How can the "basic tenants of democracy" have
>> nothing do with it if one is using "a combination of meritocracy and
>> democracy"?
>
> You're not understanding how I meant this combination of meritocracy
> and democracy works. Meritocracy to choose the "leaders" (devs), and
> Democracy between them. The users don't come in the picture at all.
> If the devs wish to listen to the users, well and good. If not, no
> one's forcing the users to stay. It's nothing like a country where
> you're tied to the place you're living, and you have no choice.
>
Agreed that a distro is not a nation-state. So the tenets of democracy /do/
have some place in your vision? Good.

I totally disagree that users are irrelevant; Gentoo would not be running
without its users, some of whom provide the infrastructure it runs on. And
think about this for a second: why does every other distro apart from
debian actively chase users?

Users are *critical* to the survival of a distro. Or do you believe a couple
of hundred devs can possibly do all the bug-reporting and fixing that users
currently do? What about the support to other users so that they can keep
their machines running?

Please note: I am not advocating user votes to determine technical
direction. The question raised was "how do we aggregate user concerns that
we may address them?" The only answer that makes any sense is voting. If
that requires 2/3 or 3/4 majority for it to be seen as valid, then so be
it. But there really is no other method that I can think of. Can you?

>>
>> > In fact, I'm tempted to invoke Godwin's Law at this point.
>> >
>> puhleez.
>
> You showed as though the opposite of democracy is a gruesome
> dictatorship led by people such as Saddam, Hitler, and Mussolini.
Hmm what form of governance would you call "the opposite of democracy"?

> You're telling me that isn't an application of Godwin's Law?
>
No, I don't think it's an application since Godwin's Law is more about
people using the "you're a fascist" argument when they have no rational
response. In this case, philanthrop specifically stated that he thought
democracy to be useless, and forms of governance were the topic.

> Godwin's Law:
> "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
> involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
>
Yeah I know what it is, thanks; that's why I said "puhleez". It doesn't add
much of substance does it? (It is, after all, a joke.) Treating it like a
scientific law with an "application" is nonsensical imo, and frankly
foolish in this instance, since democracy vs some other form of governance
was the (sub-)topic.

>> > This is a *completely* different situation, and one simply cannot make
>> > generalisations such as you have.
>> >
>> I didn't; you inferred and generalised an awful lot all on your own ;)
>
> Perhaps the phrase "wrong place to use these examples" instead of
> "generalisations" would've worked better?
>
Not really: see above and recollect I didn't start the whole "democracy is
crap" argument. You inferred an awful lot about what I was saying, and
generalised it to match people who say "fascist!" to their parents.

Can we declare this sub-thread dead please? I feel like we're getting into a
cyclical argument about a minor aside atm; I'll answer any points you want
to talk about wrt user-involvement, but I'll be ignoring anything about
Godwin's Law as I think it's a non-starter and drifting off-topic. (Just a
heads-up.)


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