Re: [gentoo-dev] Democracy: No silver bullet

[Dominique Michel <dominique.michel@citycable.ch>]

I am new in this list and waiting at my mentor come back from vacations.

It is often the problem with democracy. Every one will have its word said, even if he or she know nothing about the issue. What I think is at the only mean to deal with this problem and still be democratic, is to organize the democracy.

For a subject that concern a herd, only those in the herd can vote. After voting, they send the result up in the hierarchy. The hierarchy accept it as it or do some remarks, and the process in the herd can continue, or take in account the proposition from the hierarchy with a new discussion-vote process if needed.

For a general subject, the votes must be done in the herds, and when all herbs are done with the vote, some herds representatives can discuss the issue to take a decision. The result can be at a new discussion-vote process is needed in the herds, or at it can go up. After, when it go up, it is the same as with one herd only subjects, it goes up in the hierarchy and down again.

In all cases, I think at an absolute majority is needed at all level. If it is a proposition with 3 or more possible choices, but at only one can be chooses, it is imperative at, in all level, it is at least 50% of the votes for the chooses one. By that way, herds will come with strong proposition and it is an insurance at they must stay in focus in case of disagreement.  

I think at a such democratic structure have many advantages. This list can stay on focus with development issues. The herds can focus on what they have to do at the first place. The discussion can stay on focus because it is easier to discuss in a little structure as in a big one. The democracy is preserved. All levels can say their words. The head will still be in control, and that control will be democratic.

I know at no one politician will accept such a process, but we are not doing politics. And it is just what I think.

Dominique

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:17:17 -0700
Donnie Berkholz <dberkholz@gentoo.org> wrote:

> I just posted this to my blog [1], but I know you don't all read it so I
> wanted to post it here as well. Do read all the way through. I very
> rarely write anything this long, and when I do, it's something I feel
> very strongly about.
> 
> I started my fourth year as a Gentoo developer in June, and Gentoo's
> changed a lot since I started back in 2003. We've become a drastically
> more democratic organization. But the question remains ___ _Is this a good
> thing?_
> 
> When I think about where Gentoo was when we turned into a democracy
> years ago, and where Gentoo is now, I don't see much of a difference on
> the large scale. We lack any global vision for where Gentoo is going, we
> can't agree on who our audience is, and everyone's just working on
> pretty much whatever they feel like.
> 
> When I joined, Daniel Robbins was in charge, period. Seemant Kulleen and
> Jon Portnoy were basically his lieutenants. What Daniel said was what
> happened, and woe to anyone who angered him. This generally worked out
> pretty well, but _as Gentoo grew, it didn't scale_. Everything
> significant still had to go through Daniel for personal approval.
> 
> Shortly after I finished training and became an "official" developer,
> Gentoo gained its first real structure via Gentoo Linux Enhancement
> Proposal (GLEP) 4 ___ "Gentoo top-level management structure proposal".
> The GLEP process itself was quite new then; GLEP 4 was really only the
> second proposed GLEP (the first two were details related to the GLEP
> process) and the first one that was accepted. _Its goal was to improve
> communication and coordination as well as increase accountability_.
> 
> GLEP 4 formalized a hierarchy of so-called "top-level" projects ___
> between 5 and 10 major areas into which everything in Gentoo could be
> divided. Daniel appointed the original project managers, who served
> under him.
> 
> Democratic elections entered Gentoo when we realized that we needed to
> create a new top-level project for all the desktop work, because it
> didn't fit into any existing project. Since managers already voted
> amongst themselves on GLEPs, it seemed like a natural extension for them
> to vote on a new manager. The call for nominations is archived online.
> I'd been a developer for around six months at this point, and by then I
> was the lead X maintainer. Brandon Hale was active in maintaining window
> managers and other miscellaneous applets and such. Turns out that the
> vote tied, so we became co-managers.
> 
> I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of a very
> slippery slope.
> 
> Gentoo used to be a courteous, friendly development community where
> nobody was afraid to speak his mind for fear of insult and injury. I see
> a clear correlation between the growth in democracy and the departure of
> courtesy. Once people are empowered to vote on every decision, rather
> than just having their discussion taken as input in a decision, they get
> a lot more vehement, argumentative and forceful about getting their way.
> _Flamewars and loud arguments going on for hundreds of posts have become
> commonplace, despite the occasional outcry_. Here's one such outcry, on
> March 20, 2006, to the private developers' list:
> 
>  What I've seen for the last 18 months or more is a general degeneration
>  in the attitudes of developers for their fellow developers. When I
>  joined, the attitude of people was friendly and welcoming. I screwed
>  up a couple of times. I didn't get my ass handed to me. I got picked
>  up, and comforted. And taught and tutored. ...
> 
>  So, we split from the Gentoo Technologies company, to a community owned
>  Gentoo Foundation. And now everyone was empowered. Everyone has a
>  voice. Some louder than others. The unfortunate thing is that with
>  this empowerment came a bit of assholishness. With rare exception,
>  we're pretty much all guilty of that. Someone makes a spelling error in
>  a commit, and that leads to flamefests on irc and mailing lists and
>  blog entries. And so on, ad nauseum.
> 
>  Frankly, I'm sick of it. It's burning people out. We're burning
>  ourselves out by being this way. It's time to stop this shit. To
>  everyone reading this, you've arrived at the important bit. From now,
>  please try this little thing. When you're on the mailing lists or the
>  fora or irc channels or in /query or somehow in the gentoo 'verse,
>  please try, just try, to be a little bit nicer to the people with whom
>  you're interacting. That's all. Have a little respect (even if not
>  deserved!). Listen a little. Hold back the snide comment, the
>  sarcastic remark. I don't mean to get all Oprah on you all, but I hope
>  you see my point -- just be nice for a change.
> 
> The vocal minority often gets its way, despite 99% of the other
> developers being happy with any given situation.
> 
> The problem got so bad that our Developer Relations team wrote up an
> etiquette guide. Unsurprisingly, the same vocal minority that generally
> behaves like an ass and violates said etiquette guide erupted in flames
> over it, and it ended up fading into an existing but largely irrelevant
> piece of writing.
> 
> Around the same time, more cries of "Democracy!" and "Eliminate the
> cabal!" forced developer relations (devrel) to come up with a huge,
> bureaucratic, court-like system for disciplining pretty much the same
> group of people again. Everyone treated it like a world of extremes of
> good and evil, where democracy is absolutely good and purity, and
> anything other than that is evil. This added bureaucracy has essentially
> rendered this side of devrel powerless, meaningless and useless.
> 
> All in all, the vocal minority has done a splendid job of becoming more
> influential, crippling Gentoo's ability to do anything at all about its
> members, their flames, their outstanding work at ruining people's fun
> and enjoyment of Gentoo, and their waste of everyone else's time.
> 
> How can we do anything about this? As people such as Mike Auty have
> pointed out, the problem could be with the increasing barrage of rules,
> regulations and policies to which we're expected to adhere. Take a look
> at the FreeBSD committers' rules. Rule one is "Respect other
> committers," and rule two is "Respect other contributors." Take a look
> at the importance of courtesy and care to avoid creating long-term
> disagreements in rule one:
> 
>  Being able to work together long term is this project's greatest asset,
>  one far more important than any set of changes to the code, and turning
>  arguments about code into issues that affect our long-term ability to
>  work harmoniously together is just not worth the trade-off by any
>  conceivable stretch of the imagination. ...
> 
>  First calm down, then think about how to communicate in the most
>  effective fashion for convincing the other person(s) that your side of
>  the argument is correct, do not just blow off some steam so you can
>  feel better in the short term at the cost of a long-term flame war. Not
>  only is this very bad ___energy economics___, but repeated displays of
>  public aggression which impair our ability to work well together will
>  be dealt with severely by the project leadership and may result in
>  suspension or termination of your commit privileges.
> 
> Or how about the Ubuntu Code of Conduct? The first two rules are "Be
> considerate" and "Be respectful." Again, note that these rules are
> actually enforced. As has been pointed out on the Gentoo development
> list, you can have respect without courtesy. But Gentoo needs both! One
> just isn't good enough.
> 
> But what about Gentoo? We don't have any overriding principles like this
> from which all of the standards for behavior derive. Instead, we have a
> large document explaining specifically and in detail what's allowed and
> what isn't, and even that is ignored. Because of the bureaucracy and the
> lack of respect for devrel's role, we're effectively powerless to do
> anything when people behave in a way for which the FreeBSD project's
> leadership would kick them to the curb.
> 
> I'm not the only one to suggest that a democracy isn't the most
> productive way to run Gentoo. When people wanted to change in how Gentoo
> was run, democracy was the only option considered, rather than simply
> changing the leaders. There's an ongoing assumption that if problems
> exist, it must be somewhere in the structure rather than in the people.
> 
> If I could go back in time a couple of years and prevent this democracy
> from ever happening, I would. If I could fix these problems myself, I
> would. But it requires buy-in from the entire Gentoo community if we're
> to do anything about it.
> 
> Thanks,
> Donnie
> 
> P.S. -- if you want the links, you can get them from my blog post.
> 
> 1. http://spyderous.livejournal.com/80869.html
> 

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