On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 7:39 AM, Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Andreas K. Huettel > <dilfri...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> So, a thread like "Should we enable useflag Z by default" would then include >> "Please discuss here, vote on ..." with a link to the count page (updated via >> cron every 1h). On login to ..., a message similar to the "open elections >> message" could be displayed. >> >> Obviously the implementation does not exist, but this is conceptually simple >> enough so it could be implemented within reasonable time. >> >> Opinions? >> (Yes / No / More discussion needed :D ) > > What's the point? I don't think democracy is the best way to handle > these sorts of things. > > Plus, it leaves out users. Why does that matter? Think about it: > > If what you want is expert opinion then the last thing you want is any > kind of poll of anybody. Put it on the lists, follow the discussion, > chat with experts that emerge on irc/email/etc, and make the best > decision. Is that hard? Sure. But, if your goal is to discover > issues and learn then you won't get that in an easier way. .
The primary complaint was the fact that there is too much email. While I don't disagree with your idea overall; it doesn't solve the problem of essentially too many messages to read, which is a disincentive to even try. This ends up where developers don't read -dev (or skim -dev, or are not even subscribed to -dev.) > > If you just want to get a sense for what people find useful in a case > where popularity really is relevant (like the cups example) then you > really want to poll the entire userbase. A forum poll or something > like that is more useful for that. This isn't used for judging > technical rightness, but purely for assessing popularity. > > If an issue is highly contentious then rather than counting votes it > makes more sense to ask the council. > > Other options include creating choices (that requires a maintenance > commitment though), and this is often facilitated by starting a > project. Then you can have somewhat more organized meetings/etc > around a topic of interest. > > Rich >
