From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 77AB01382C5 for ; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 23:20:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 48AA2E0D21; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 23:20:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pg0-x235.google.com (mail-pg0-x235.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400e:c05::235]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 08BC2E0C38 for ; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 23:20:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pg0-x235.google.com with SMTP id o1so6309778pgn.4 for ; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 15:20:09 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id :subject:to; bh=PK9UjE3FfQOD3HGUnrVwqR3PiXgD6dCZBELDlk7/RZM=; b=IQr+U2QZc26KBTFQdR5FUADyISnTKXyDgjNFQr0e5rPdhJNrZKIru15cq5KQTzENxD 4riKAjKlaKF3hT8tBOhXUdnusLPTrR90FT3p5bdRGdddu55WX6XmD+9RDrEeW9U4V2Yr 58Dl3lOUO5EaQVBclhri52yBCvWpf4RNlmHK++Ra6rgLhwkfQuV9XUEnW8UdtzAAvUsC 6Od1fRkbWAC1PyQFLekHufn1gQ83uGBtGQvt0Bs4NGyecmsE7y93hsQpnDnUK042a+3B 24Vv37gs819yACjf2zhXgqnK+mtuVq9KUlGTIqm4KLFIKWverVHzo2KOX63HcdpTUHUj IzrQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from :date:message-id:subject:to; bh=PK9UjE3FfQOD3HGUnrVwqR3PiXgD6dCZBELDlk7/RZM=; b=ogxmtiA7Py2n7UZxbUD2MKqQrARnp4GynpJBc5X2Fp/HC9ZRK7ZttNYEoP4CVp2JkB Y3aAZZElfwZ0H4fIq7Gb/uU65i0qOsjnae7e5RTdvdRB7PnP1VeTBixdZ5olwMWzqjI4 rig8IWlih06EX5jQRClAUqPZAIiUivgv+Lmvh4ZdrP5m3b0CxW8UwTBT4gxc2ZD6Wck2 tfSh4Z/s5AeFZH6hSNiJHcJKuDSox2+pfqvv8mnEbRUIKNEgL0bFpys7pJfrYi438niC hKn6MknK3qJG9nlkvTEk5256xXFelTfaHip0Wn656G1Gs3bEx/HlP7BkLFPQUZ96RASk bs2Q== X-Gm-Message-State: APf1xPCDsj6VF6Y0j0YLaWz+v7sSHWgbOYECWjGpJi7RWnMlI5+obnLc vopNHGvKYwaM0Lr28Fmdygy8XUg8HFC2nRGl3TuH8g== X-Google-Smtp-Source: AH8x224y/eDoR9oDP+s1EBp83UJolE2TujcO+E1pz3DXbpotkioA8GpF7xh0MGGrO4ZYJqPxtCKXcK03q/UBcKnTcXY= X-Received: by 10.98.166.86 with SMTP id t83mr9718621pfe.80.1518391208527; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 15:20:08 -0800 (PST) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: freemanrich@gmail.com Received: by 10.100.134.1 with HTTP; Sun, 11 Feb 2018 15:20:06 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20180211224234.GB6747@linux1.home> References: <20180211224234.GB6747@linux1.home> From: Rich Freeman Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2018 18:20:06 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: yRTWu4AR4pg5FObxRBil911Ydt8 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: council members and appeals To: gentoo-project Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Archives-Salt: 6031c3db-718a-436b-ba59-a81bfe232155 X-Archives-Hash: 0e145ce4e30ee262d0422c8e8a91fd82 On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 5:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > > I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose > actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt > this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full > council's ability to vote fairly on appeals. > > Thoughts? > IMO while this seems to be a popular sentiment it misses the point of why organizations have appeals, and seems to be based on some kind of incorrect notion that people making decisions automatically have a conflict of interest when hearing appeals of these decisions. The concept behind appeals is that you have a group at the top that is most trusted to make decisions, and they generally set policy, but this policy is first enacted by lower tiers of the organization because it would be impractical to have the most trusted body hear every case. Appeals sometimes reverse decisions because these lower groups are imperfect at enacting the policies set at the top, or they are operating in areas where no precedent exists. These reversals shouldn't be seen as some kind of checks/balances system that adds value, but an inefficiency that wastes time deliberating matters more than once. It is necessary only because it would be even more inefficient to slow everything down to a pace where one small group could deal with it all. So, if there were no QA or comrel, and there were just the council, and it handled everything and there were no appeals at all, this would not lower the quality of decisions, but it would actually raise them (since some incorrect decisions might not be appealed). However, it would come at a cost of a lot less stuff getting done since you'd have reducing the pool of labor. Some organizations find a compromise where a decision might be made by a subset of a trusted group, and then be appealable to the entirety of the group. This is common in appellate courts in the US, for example, where out of the entire group of judges a small panel is chosen to hear each case, with the decisions being appealable to the entire group. In these situations the same judges get to vote again in the full panel despite having already rendered a decision in the previous panel. This isn't viewed as a conflict of interest, because the judges were not motivated out of personal interest in the first place. There is no shame in having a decision reversed because it usually is a result of unclear precedent. On the second hearing a judge is free to either change their opinion or keep their previous one. In an ideal world Comrel and QA appeals would always fail, because the original body made the decision the Council would back. Having Council members on these bodies only increases the odds of this happening, and IMO should be seen as a good thing. The only challenge is for the individuals involved to manage the workload, and that should be at their discretion. -- Rich