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List:       incubator-general
Subject:    Re: Discussion is goodness (was veto stuff)
From:       Ted Husted <husted () apache ! org>
Date:       2002-11-08 11:29:02
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11/7/2002 8:38:04 PM, Ben Hyde <bhyde@pobox.com> wrote:
>Historically we attempted to avoid voting in HTTPD, and still do 
>to a large extent.  Even in Robert's Rules of Order voting is the 
>end of debate, and since we have tended to find the discussion 
>useful some of  us have tried to lean toward less severe devices;
>such as: "This is making me uncomfortable, can we discuss it some 
>more?"  [this one almost always works] or "Damn, I don't like >
that can you back it out?" [sadly that one rarely seems to work].
>
>Veto, and even votings, are pretty crude, cooperative groups shun 
>them.

I think this is a very important point. Polite emails that use a 
lot of IMHOs and conditional language, like "I would tend to" and 
"I would probably be", are condusive to a healthy community.

In many political bodies, there are accepted ways of addressing 
other members which are designed to create a sense of decorum. 
("My honoured colleague" and so forth.)  

I know on Struts we rarely take formal votes on matters of code. 
We just brought several new committers on board, some of whom 
started posting [VOTE] messages. But we are seeing less of that as 
they see the "elder" Committers come to decisions through 
interactive discussion. 

We are also gently teaching them the queues. We start out saying 
things like "I would not rather not ...", and if they don't take 
the hint, then the clear talk of -1s come out. 

Something I might like to work on would be a "simulation" area, 
where we walk through some hypothetical scenarios (perhaps based 
loosely on real events), and show goodness and badness ways to 
steer development. A "mock" project, perhaps.

-Ted.



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