1 |
Okay, It's been about a week since I sent my Ombudsman GLEP out for |
2 |
comments, so it's time to summarize the comments so far. The original |
3 |
GLEP may be found at http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep. So far there |
4 |
have been comments only by tberman, klieber and, indirectly, seemant. |
5 |
(For the existing thread, see |
6 |
http://news.gmane.org/onethread.php?group=gmane.linux.gentoo.devel&root=%3C1057613345.3127.3.camel%40localhost%3E. |
7 |
|
8 |
|
9 |
Kurt noticed that the GLEP fails to accurately document the role of the |
10 |
ombudsman, which is to "mediate" disputes, not "settle" them. The |
11 |
ombudsman has no actual power other than persuasion; his or her role is |
12 |
to facilitate finding common ground through discussions and |
13 |
negotiations. |
14 |
|
15 |
Kurt asked about when it is appropriate to use the ombudsman, to which I |
16 |
replied that the ombudsman's services may be used at any time simply by |
17 |
sending an e-mail to ombudsman@g.o. I gave examples of |
18 |
user-developer and developer-developer conflicts that might occur, and |
19 |
suggested that the role of the ombudsman is first to listen, and then to |
20 |
try to mediate. |
21 |
|
22 |
Kurt also addressed the issue of logging or making public disputes, to |
23 |
which I suggested that disputes should be logged, but not public unless |
24 |
all parties wish it to be so. (I also clarified that the ombudsman's |
25 |
role is to handle interpersonal disputes, not policy disputes.) |
26 |
|
27 |
From tberman we have the helpful suggestion that the ombudsman should |
28 |
rotate every 3-to-6 months, with the backup ombudsman taking over from |
29 |
the current ombudsman. Todd also suggested g2boojum and absinthe as the |
30 |
first ombudsman and backup omudsman, respectively. I have mixed |
31 |
feelings on the idea of rotation. I agree that for an ombudsman |
32 |
position to be effective the ombudsman has to be considered impartial |
33 |
(and by having a backup one can avoid most conflicts of interest), but |
34 |
I'm not sure that regular rotations actually help that cause. If we |
35 |
should find a dev who's already well regarded as being impartial, |
36 |
keeping that dev as an ombudsman may be more useful. |
37 |
|
38 |
Kurt also had a number of worries about the ombudsman proposal. |
39 |
Summarizing, he feels that the ombudsman is likely to get overwhelmed, |
40 |
that having the position encourages whining more than fixing problems, |
41 |
and that ideally the ombudsman should really be listening to people and |
42 |
then proposing big-picture fixes. After a lot of reflection, I think |
43 |
Kurt may be correct, but that none of his worries are actually _bad_ |
44 |
things. If the ombudsman gets overwhelmed, then that _is_ a sign that |
45 |
things need to be fixed, and I have no problem adding to the GLEP a |
46 |
section documenting that one of the roles of the omubudsman is to look |
47 |
for trends in interpersonal conflicts and work on finding more global |
48 |
solutions. As for encouraging whining, I still tend to think that the |
49 |
requirement that the person with a complaint submit a written complaint |
50 |
to the ombudsman will help to set the bar high enough that most of the |
51 |
disputes will be more than whining. Assuming that nobody objects, I'll |
52 |
add a comment to the GLEP stating that e-mails to the ombudsman may be |
53 |
rejected outright if they are not well-written or they contain an excess |
54 |
of vitriol or abuse. |
55 |
|
56 |
Seemant has proposed an ombudsman subproject to the devrel project |
57 |
(http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel), so if people have comments on |
58 |
this proposal it would be very helpful to make them soon. Please feel |
59 |
free to reply to this message (to gentoo-dev@g.o), and I'll |
60 |
cheerfully put together another summary if needed. |
61 |
|
62 |
Best, |
63 |
g2boojum |
64 |
-- |
65 |
Grant Goodyear <g2boojum@g.o> |