Re: [gentoo-project] Why should you *not* vote on existing Council members

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:16 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2019-06-17 at 13:41 +0200, Thomas Deutschmann wrote:
> > In general, we already have the mantra, "No discussion during meeting"
> > (for topics from mailing list).
> >
> > So regarding agenda items you added (topic 3 & 5):
> >
> > These topics were already discussed on mailing list so they should NOT
> > require discussion during meeting. Therefore you did NOT receive an
> > additional invitation like antarus received for topic 4 where I asked
> > him to participate to report status.
>
> I agree this would be the ideal state.  But as already pointed out
> previously (and it's not just me saying that), the current Council
> as well as past Councils didn't follow this rule through, and repeatedly
> it was necessary for posters to attend meetings in order to avoid
> proposals being deferred for months because of Council's inability
> to resolve their concerns before the meetings.

++

This just goes along with your separate concern along those lines.
When Council members don't state their thoughts ahead of time there is
no way to address them.

Now, if you interact and they disagree, that is just how decision
rights work.  However, decision-makers should certainly give those
making proposals SOME kind of opportunity to have at least a round of
back-and-forth, and IMO being a global organization a list discussion
is WAY more productive than doing it in meetings.  It not only is more
convenient in terms of timezones, but it also lets everybody offer
their best arguments vs just reacting.

> > You are lacking humanity.
>
> Do you really think that's an appropriate way to offend Gentoo
> developers from a Council member, on a topic that's strictly related to
> Council business?

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that this was
perhaps not the most nuanced use of the English language on a list
with many non-native speakers.  If so, I'd suggest a simple apology
might help.  The wording used there was very strong, and I suspect he
was just trying to suggest that you weren't taking into account
mitigating factors and were sticking too strongly to the letter of the
rules.  However, that wording does tend to imply a complete lack of
moral decency/etc, and you were not wrong to detect this meaning in
the text.  The fact that this wasn't the explicit thrust of his
argument suggests to me that it was unintentional, and I reply mainly
to point that out for his benefit as well as your reaction might have
been unexpected if he really didn't realize it would give so much
offense.

Best to try to avoid giving offense, and also to try to avoid taking
it.  As you said elsewhere in your email the substantive matters in
the discussion are serious enough that we should avoid ad hominims.

-- 
Rich