[gentoo-project] Concerns about low Council member involvement outside meetings

[gentoo-project] Concerns about low Council member involvement outside meetings

[Michał Górny]

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Hello,

I'd like to discuss a problem I've been noticing for quite some time
already.  I've expressed it during yesterday's meeting open floor,
and I'd like to expand on it here.  I figure that most of the voters may
be unaware of it simply because they recognize Council members for
effects of their actions, and possibly from meetings summaries, while
the problem becomes visible if you end up participating frequently or
reading logs.

I don't want to generalize or blame specific Council members but I am
repeatedly getting the feeling that some of them fail to find time to
fulfill their duties outside of monthly meetings.  The degree
of the problem differs but it ranges from delaying feedback on proposals
until the actual meeting to -- in extreme cases -- coming completely
unprepared and reading all the proposals during the meeting.

I believe Council should work (whenever possible) in a transparent way. 
The procedure is somewhat built upon that concept -- you are expected to
publicly discuss your proposals first, then ask for them to be included
in the agenda and the agenda is sent a week before the meeting. 
Ideally, this should provide enough time for everyone involved to review
the proposals, provide feedback and answer feedback.  Then Council
should have all the data it needs for the meeting, and should be able to
quickly decide.  Sadly, this isn't always the case.  I will provide
a few examples now.

The most recent example is GLEP 80.  The pre-GLEP was submitted for ml
review on 2019-03-04 [1], the GLEP was sent for the agenda on 2019-04-02 
[2] and the agenda was sent a week later [3].  So in the best case,
Council members had almost 6 weeks to review it.  In the worst case, one
week.  Nevertheless, during the yesterday's meeting one of the Council
members has provided new feedback, and indicated that he didn't have
time to send it earlier [log not yet uploaded].

I probably wouldn't mention it if I hadn't hit a similar problem with
earlier GLEP 63 update (to v2).  In this case, once again a significant
amount of new feedback was presented during the meeting.  It felt as if
Council members had reviewed the GLEP earlier but instead of submitting
the feedback right away, they saved it for the meeting.  [4]

This is problem not only because it can prolong the GLEP progress by one
month or even more.  This is a problem because instead of having
a transparent discussion with everyone involved prior to the meeting,
the problems are discussed at the last minute.

However, the problem is not limited to GLEPs.  Let's take a look
at 'Forums (specifically OTW)' item from Feb 2019 meeting [5].
The Council has decided to 'defer discussion to mailing lists'. 
However, for two months now Council members have failed to actually
start this discussion, whatever its purpose was supposed to be.

If I go back even further, to the time when I was on the Council,
I recall people asking for time to read the agenda items.  I can
understand that things like that can happen once but I feel like they're
more common than that.

I understand that people may not have a lot of time to spend on Gentoo. 
However, I believe that if one stands for the Council, one simply must
be able to find necessary time to put more time than 1-2 hours a month
during the meeting.  Or -- to put it bluntly -- if you don't have time
to be on the Council, please don't stand for the Council.

As I said before, I believe the main purpose of the Council is to
encourage and facilitate feedback from the community, and make decisions
based on that feedback.  If Council members fail to participate
in Community discussion phase, and instead express their feedback during
the meeting and vote based on that data, they take unfair advantage over
other community members who are prevented from being able to freely
address the new comments.

[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/9177c3c3dd9eacec4f74b8c9cd38131f
[2] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/3561b881d8094b2a7c9e52ba2bc02b1b
[3] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/81126506f08d0f11c5a6d4c0c459baf5
[4] https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20180729.txt
[5] https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20190210-summary.txt

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny


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Re: [gentoo-project] Concerns about low Council member involvement outside meetings

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 9:56 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> As I said before, I believe the main purpose of the Council is to
> encourage and facilitate feedback from the community, and make decisions
> based on that feedback.  If Council members fail to participate
> in Community discussion phase, and instead express their feedback during
> the meeting and vote based on that data, they take unfair advantage over
> other community members who are prevented from being able to freely
> address the new comments.

While I agree with the principles behind most of your email, I also
want to balance them with the fact that in almost any organization the
people who tend to be viewed as having the most wisdom tend to also be
the ones with the least time available for interaction.

I guess a cynic might suggest that being more measured in your
interactions with others tends to cause them to inflate their estimate
of your wisdom.  Perhaps that isn't even a bad thing.  Certainly I've
found that the less I talk the more people pay attention when I do.

There needs to be a balance, and ultimately it is up to devs to elect
the representatives that they want in charge.

I think one issue we get on these lists is endless back-and-forth that
doesn't go anywhere.  I think this tends to drive a lot of people to
just keep their thinking to themselves or just discuss it in private.
If a council member knows that something they object to will get voted
down, why would they engage in a lot of argument on the lists which
takes time and perhaps damages their reputation.  They can just show
up and watch it get voted down.  I don't think this is healthy for the
community, but part of the problem is that we have bad incentives.

I don't think we need more "slacker marks" but I would encourage
Council members to at least:

1. Read agenda proposals before the meeting.
2. Share their thoughts on proposals on the lists.  They shouldn't
feel obligated to get into back-and-forth, but at least get their
tentative thinking out.
3. At least read the general responses to their thinking.
4. Not be bound by anything they previously said when it comes time to
vote.  We want frank discussion at all points, and it is normal for
opinions to change as a result of engagement.
5. Volunteer to chair meetings and issue timely documentation of
summaries, ideally created as the meeting goes along.

On the flip side, I think the community at large and those making
proposals to the Council also need to keep in mind that if you
"punish" people for sharing their opinions, you just won't hear them
in the future.  It is ok to disagree or provide some argument.  Just
try not to make the process so painful or ascribe ill will to a degree
where you're poisoning the well.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-project] Concerns about low Council member involvement outside meetings

[Anthony G. Basile]

On 4/15/19 9:56 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> 
> I understand that people may not have a lot of time to spend on Gentoo. 
> However, I believe that if one stands for the Council, one simply must
> be able to find necessary time to put more time than 1-2 hours a month
> during the meeting.  Or -- to put it bluntly -- if you don't have time
> to be on the Council, please don't stand for the Council.
> 

I was on the Council for several years in a row.  When I first got on, I
was super enthusiastic and always came prepared.  However, after a few
years, I burned out.  I noticed the same in other council members that
slowly petered away during the year.  Since at any given time there are
only a few enthusiastic gentoo devs who would step up to do council
work, and that incumbents tend to be re-elected, I'm not surprised that
this is a chronic problem.

The best advice is to underline mgorny's point and recognize that there
is real work involved and that it is important.

-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
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GnuPG ID  : F52D4BBA