On Tue, Jul 08, 2003 at 10:11:58AM -0400 or thereabouts, Grant Goodyear wrote:
> Replace "settle" with "mediate", as the ombudsman has no actual power
> other than persuasion; it's intended entirely to facilitate finding
> common ground through discussions and negotiations (good phrase; mind if
> I use it?).

Feel free. :)

> > When is it appropriate to use this ombudsman?  How does one contact the
> > person?  Are disputes logged and/or public?
> 
> In principle it is appropriate to use an ombudsman at any time, which
> one can do simply by sending an e-mail to ombudsman@gentoo.org.  A user
> who's ticked because her bug has been sitting on bugzilla for three
> months can send the ombudsman an e-mail, as can developer Y who's
> finally had it w/ developer X changing the ebuilds that Y maintains
> without consulting Y first.  The ombudsman's first job is to listen, and
> then to try to mediate a solution.
> 
> In practice ombudsmen tend not to be overwhelmed because people
> generally have to be pretty upset to go to the effort of complaining to
> an ombudsman.  Of course, it's just those people who are likely to
> create significant havoc if things are allowed to blow up.

This is an area I'm not sure I agree with -- I can see the ombudsmen
quickly and easily getting overwhelmed.  Though, to be fair, I think we're
both trying to envision how this process would work and I'm probably taking
the glass-half-empty approach.

In general, I dislike greasing squeaky wheels because I think it a)
encourages more squeaking and b) solves symptoms of problems, rather than
the more serious underlying issues.

Personally, I'd rather see this role morph (either formally or informally)
into more of a process-reengineering type person.  They listen to users,
developers, etc. to understand what complaints and issues are currently
running through the community and then work to resolve the underlying
issues causing those problems in the first place.

As an example, say Joe User complains because his bug has been outstanding
for three months.  It's easy enough for the ombudsman to badger the
responsible developer into fixing it, but that doesn't stop other bugs from
sitting around for 3 months, either.  

As it stands, I see the proposed ombudsman role as nothing more than a tiny
pressure valve.  It can relieve some of the pressure, certainly, but it can
only do so much before the pressure becomes overwhelming and things blow up
on an even larger scale.

> All that said, ombudsmen are hardly a panacea, since some disputes
> simply cannot be resolved effectively.  Even so, an ombudsman might be
> able to mediate so that the parties affected can go their separate ways
> _without_ rancor, but maybe not.

I agree and I do see some value in having this role.  Often, a pressure
valve can act as a stop gap solution while other folks work on solving the
real problem.  

--kurt