[sakai2-tcc] TCC and votes
David Horwitz
david.horwitz at uct.ac.za
Wed Aug 25 06:32:00 PDT 2010
The voting has the benefit of making explicit the support or lack
thereof for a proposal - in many cases I have found this it the problem
with previous systems - if one proposed something it was nigh on
impossible to tell whether it was accepted or not.
D
On 08/25/2010 03:25 PM, Steve Swinsburg wrote:
> Hi Seth,
>
> This all sounds good. I agree that the 'vote' word is thrown about a bit, even people responding with +1 when really they are just agreeing to something, not a vote per se. So we should tighten the reigns on this practice.
>
> That said, often we do need formal votes just to make it clear for the archives. I think the 72 hour window is perfectly suitable.
>
> cheers,
> Steve
>
> On 25/08/2010, at 1:49 AM, Seth Theriault wrote:
>
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> A few people have contacted me regarding the TCC and votes. These
>> comments and some cloudy weather at the beach this weekend
>> spurred me to think a little more deeply about how "votes" fit
>> into what we are doing.
>>
>> In the debate over voting v. working, I prefer working. It would
>> be shameful if this group just turned into a technical "board of
>> elections" or if people believed that every proposal or thought
>> or idea they had required a vote. I think there is a big
>> difference between keeping people engaged and informed about
>> technical issues and "approving" things.
>>
>> That said, I think we do need formal votes for some things like
>> releases or schedules so that decisions are actually made on
>> big-ticket items. These decisions help us to communicate with the
>> rest of the community so it can be more effective.
>>
>> So how do we balance this?
>>
>> First, our decision-making procedures probably need to evolve a
>> bit. Under cloudy skies, I took another look at the Apache voting
>> process:
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html
>>
>> and compared it to what we have written down in Confluence.
>>
>> I think we have accidentally combined "formal", -1/0/+1 votes
>> with lazy consensus (as defined by Apache). This is the same
>> fatal flaw that exists in Sakai-Dev voting because calling for a
>> vote on Sakai-Dev is the same as calling for lazy consensus since
>> there were no binding votes. But now we have binding votes in the
>> TCC and perhaps we want to exercise them judiciously.
>>
>> To do this, we might want to make a small semantic change in how
>> we operate: Being careful about using the word "vote" in our
>> discussions. For the most part, we just want lazy consensus, not
>> a formal vote, but we need to be clear about it. A good example
>> of this clarity is Chuck Severance's recent dev list message
>> about a Pluto library upgrade. The result was some nice
>> discussion back and forth, and then some work got done.
>>
>> If we do want a vote on something (perhaps a lazy consensus
>> proposal got a lot of questions or there is real disagreement
>> about what to do) we need to be prepared to go through the more
>> rigid process, most notably the 72-hour voting window. We also
>> want to be very clear and precise about what the vote is about.
>>
>> Second, if you think something needs a vote, feel free to call
>> for it and manage it yourself, subject to the requirements. The
>> Chair and Vice-Chair have NO monopoly on deciding what proposals
>> float to the top for votes or approval. They are available to
>> help you administer a vote or even act as a sounding-board if you
>> are not sure what to do (although I think the group is probably
>> the best sounding board).
>>
>> Seth
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sakai2-tcc mailing list
>> sakai2-tcc at collab.sakaiproject.org
>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai2-tcc
>>
> _______________________________________________
> sakai2-tcc mailing list
> sakai2-tcc at collab.sakaiproject.org
> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai2-tcc
>
More information about the sakai2-tcc
mailing list