Dear list, Franz has said most of what my situation was as well.
My suggestion to avoid a similar situation next time is: - announce the contest pretty early, so that we do not run out of time (could be done with the release of Wheezy and with Wheezy+1 in testing) - place the constraints on that wiki page, such as time-line (proposals have to be nearly ready with freeze - it's obvious to me now, but it was not when I started working on my proposal) - place any call for help etc. on the same wiki page, so that late comers (like me) have a chance to step in Dietmar (aka Drahtseil) PS: Anyway, thanks for the nice theme - I am looking forward to seeing it on my desktop Am Dienstag, den 03.07.2012, 11:42 +0200 schrieb Franz Gratzer: > Hi Stefano, > > thank you for the explanation. In my opinion it was important an helps a > lot to limit frustration. > > Unfortionally it looks like I joined the desktop list just to late. I > didn't learn that there was nobody caring for the voting process until > Paul stepped in. > > I joined the desktop-list because I saw the call for artworks on debian > news and thought it would be great be involved in the realisation of the > new look and feel of the next debain release. > > If I knew right away I might have tried to step in to help with it. (On > the other hand I'm possibly not very qualified since I know little about > the whole process and who is involved in different ways.) > > I completely agree that it should be coordinated much better next time > and that it is absolutely necessary to remember what happened to avoid > the same issue with the next release. > > Since I can't ensure, that I will be around then because it will be > years in the future, I strongly suggest to place two notes on the > wiki-page: > > 1) Tell (very shortly) what happened. > > 2) Suggest publishing the responsible people for the process (directly > on the wiki page) next time and state that the same thing might happen > again if nobody is prepared to volunteer for this tasks. (It might help > as well to publish a timetable with deadlines for the necessary steps.) > > I could try to write something like that - if the members of this list > agree on that... > > Best > Franz > > > On Mon, 2012-07-02 at 14:47 -0600, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > > ,,, > > Before looking at the details, let's ask ourselves while we (partially) > > failed: because nobody picked up the job of organizing the selection > > process. Yves-Alexis, who did the job for the Squeeze, made it very > > clear that he wasn't willing to do that again. And that's a very good > > start actually: stepping down considerately is very helpful for other > > team members. But that's not enough to find someone else doing the > > job. Which is why I've been calling repeatedly for volunteers, both on > > this list and on debian-devel-announce, willing to do the job. Finding > > no one. So I did try to cover it up myself, one step at a time, but at > > each step I made it very clear that I didn't want to step on anybody's > > toes and that I'd have preferred if some of the people active on this > > list pick up the remaining tasks. (Still finding no one.) > > > > So, what did work well? My answer: the call for help went well. We sent > > out a PR on it and we got 24 submitted proposals for Wheezy. If the wiki > > pages are to be trusted on this, we got only 4 for Squeeze. This is > > massive improvement! No matter which decision process we choose and its > > flaws, proposals are what allow to make a decision in the first place > > and all artists who contributed a proposal have helped with that, even > > if they haven't been chosen. > > > > And what didn't work well? The timing and the (meta-)decision on how to > > decide the artwork. Even if I didn't really want to do this myself, I > > "gladly" take my share of responsibility on these two. I didn't really > > realize (out of naivety) that a good deal of the theme should've been > > ready for the Freeze. I was (implicitly) counting on freeze exceptions > > and I didn't know theme-related exceptions had caused RC bugs in the > > past. > > > > Then there's the meta-decision. I did mention surveys as a possible > > mechanism for choosing the theme, but actually never committed to it. > > Originally, I wanted to discuss how to decide on this list. But more > > recently, discussing with people who worked on this in the past, I got > > convinced of doing it differently: nominating a group of people (a > > "committee", if you want) that would've taken the decision. Given no one > > else was doing the job, I thought it would've been legitimate to do so, > > possibly (DPL) delegating the committee members to take the decision. > > > > In fact, the day Paul picked up the task, I was looking for committee > > members, starting first with informal /query-ies, as I often do for this > > kind of stuff. I didn't have much luck with that either; of the people > > who I contacted, only Yves-Alexis was willing to participate (thanks!), > > although only as a fallback if I was short on candidates. I would've > > escalated the call for team members to this list, but Paul stepped in > > first. > > > > In the end, that final timing part is no big deal, the problem is that > > we were too late anyhow. Yes, that sucks, and I'm concerned because what > > happened gets in the way of the ability of we, Debian "packagers", to > > work with Debian "artists". I'm really sorry. But that's what happened. > > I think it happened that way because we have been unable to find, for > > more than 1 year, someone willing to coordinate the decision process. > > That kind of "management" contributions are as useful as packaging > > contributions and artistic contributions; we really need to find a way > > to attract them. > > > > Could we do better next time? Ulrich is right to have doubts, given he > > has been dissatisfied with how the process went with Squeeze already. > > My answer is that I've no idea. It could go better if: (1) we remember > > this and (2) someone steps in and do the coordination work with > > sufficient time advance. Either way, I think we should keep in mind what > > went well (the call for artwork) and repeat it. > > > > Thanks for the time you all put in making Wheezy a nice-looking release. > > > > Cheers. > > > > > > PS I think one specific criticism mentioned by Ulrich in this thread is > > not particularly fair, the one about (paraphrasing) "I've submitted > > on a proposal and I now feel I wasted my time". That specific problem > > is not related to how we made the decision, it's a more general > > problem of calling for several artworks and choosing only one of > > them, be it by vote, committee, of benevolent dictator ruling. In > > part, I disagree it's wasted time all together; as I mentioned above > > we need different proposals to make a choice, that's useful > > contribution already. On the other hand, we should (and could) > > minimize the sensation of wasted time, by shipping alternative > > proposals and make it technically easy to change theme, distro-wide, > > in a given Debian release. > > >
