From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NmhKk-0000gU-Mr for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:41:23 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 32851E0B24; Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:41:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E09E4E0B24 for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:41:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 757691B41E2 for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:41:08 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -1.939 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.939 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=0.660, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id zN5JXrC6bNVj for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:41:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-wy0-f177.google.com (mail-wy0-f177.google.com [74.125.82.177]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76FDF1B425E for ; Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:41:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wyf23 with SMTP id 23so552888wyf.36 for ; Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:41:00 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; bh=HU13iKfpWrih/DvkFMDoOQLspeRwdvOfuY014tQnYvs=; b=NPu6rc01J8JXjWwQFlJ+r+dyjjvyayP8LdJTKv3O27WuQPgEu2eEIHe+k9mtOT32+o fJFnlXbCRoPsiW/6Nzbd2QdgxaZohx8Zl6YbpD/y2WHmk7VACSOXsmHCIvAQOBEh44pT /bfob99TDHfsF41MHZ2AP3r4LsI9P/o9oSu7I= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; b=ZNyKMXgCJGHqORFEXSYOAUFHiYpQykPBnW2H6SmId09m746HyxndxF+Bd1QNUFDu9X opMLBdNsxx9emlOLLBqSc7kOxKeaKVTsZXBumUWxdGLevrK1hbfx6KjhKoDn+CAOQEZl q0I4xDvVhodPwPai03DY1kinNLx2pJL1aQl7A= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-council@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: denis.dupeyron@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.166.75 with SMTP id f53mr631449wel.126.1267594860199; Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:41:00 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <1267521478.3088.0@NeddySeagoon> References: <1267457872.3867.12.camel@homer.ob.libexec.de> <1267521478.3088.0@NeddySeagoon> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 22:41:00 -0700 X-Google-Sender-Auth: ace309e7b995df57 Message-ID: <7c612fc61003022141r10f28761h1ecef6190dfef73e@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-council] Voting by mail From: Denis Dupeyron To: gentoo-council Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Archives-Salt: 8cac6a3c-854c-46b7-bc78-341481739e96 X-Archives-Hash: dceb2d451d30e9c7ba0bee4506cc4cf9 On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 2:17 AM, Roy Bamford wrote: > Voting before the meeting suggests that the council members mind is > closed to any discussion that happened, or may happen at the meeting > itself. Personally, I don't like the sound of that. Letting people vote afterward doesn't encourage them to be present or active during the meeting. People who are missing or are not really paying attention do not participate in discussions anyway. This comment might seem odd but whenever I chair a meeting (which happens often) I keep track of who speaks on what topic. I use a pen and a paper for that but that tool is damned effective. The original intention was to make sure everybody had the opportunity to talk before skipping to the next topic. When I see somebody not participating to one topic I will often highlight his name to wake him up. Quickly though it gave me an idea of who was actually paying attention to discussions and who wasn't. And the result is I sometimes feel lonely during meetings. > However, if the council members wish to vote entirely by email > and announce the vote result (no discussion) at the meeting that's > fine, as the vote happened after discussion was done. How this started was when solar once sent his vote in advance because he wasn't sure he could make it to the meeting due to work. Then for a later meeting Tobias sent his vote also before because he wasn't feeling well and didn't know if he'd be in shape at the time of the meeting. We didn't accept any of them, and they wouldn't have changed the results (I checked all votes), but I thought that was a shame since both solar and Tobias went all the way and researched the issues, discussed them and gave us a rather detailed opinion. I'm not sure I could say the same of all in-meeting votes. Anyway, my point is we didn't originally intend to make all votes outside of the meeting, but it can definitely be discussed. That's where Petteri's app comes into the picture. > In summary, votes must only be cast after discussion is done. There's two kinds of discussions. Those that occur during meetings are of poor quality due to time constraints and amplified by the fact that typing isn't as fast as talking, and also by the attention factor above. Those that occur on lists before the meeting are of better quality when we can make people interested in actually participating. You might have noticed that I try to animate those discussions to prevent them from dying. I have a few tricks for that like making a summary for a rather long or old thread, nitpicking on something in order to revive interest, or talking about these issues on irc and bringing ideas back to the thread pretending that I understand what is being discussed. It works, but it's a lot of work. Overall though, my opinion is that list discussions are of infinitely more value than meeting discussions. I never count on the latter for more than last minute remarks. The only exception was during the last meeting when we had an open discussion on VDB. In order for it to work though I had to prepare a number of questions prior to the meeting and throw them in the discussion one after the other, like I wanted to keep a fire alive. In the end it almost looked like I was a reporter doing an online interview of solar (thanks btw). I'm obviously caricaturing but you get the idea. > That can be all by email, some at a meeting, others by email after the > meeting. What's the point of having a meeting then? In an ideal world we'd discuss topics thoroughly before meetings, only topics that had been enough discussed would make it to the agenda, only last minute remarks would be accepted during the meeting, we wouldn't mind occasionally receiving votes by email before the meeting, and in case there was significant discussions/remarks on a topic and the email votes could change the outcome then we'd ask those who voted by email to confirm their votes within, say, 48 hours. In the end the real problem is of motivation, not of process or tools. Denis.