Mark: How about if we get .. a person to fill the role of FAQ-Clerk? This person will be the writer/keeper/editor for the official FAQs that are associated with this endeavor. It could be sorta like a secretary. Alain: Good idea. Any volunteers? Mark: The archives are great, but we need to make the discussions and then refine and boil down the outcomes in summary documents. The FAQ documents would be the visible "OUTCOMES" of these discussions, our legacy that is more of a welcome to new arrivals and reviews rather than the mailing list archives. Alain: I couldn't agree more. Adrian: I also think we need one person to tally votes etc, and this role would probably extend to managing votes etc as Mark suggests. Alain: Tallying votes will be done automatically by the voting CGI program(s) when we finally get a handle on that situation. A human vote-counter is only necessary if we vote with un-structured tools like E-mail. Mark: I think we need to build upon these FAQs to make serious progress. Adrian: Yes, this is something that has been missing. The web site tried to do this, but never worked exceptionally well. Perhaps a text-based FAQ which is also on the web would work well. Alain: Some have pointed out to me, from time to time, that a Web-based interface was sometimes a hassle when compared to E-mail. It's a cost issue, I think. But the problem with E-mail is that it is so un-structured. Lots of extra (manual) work will thus be required to make our infos "digestible". Mark: How about then if we get .. a person to fill the role of community-clerk? This is sorta like a "voting organizer" or a clerk's office that one might have in a city-council office. This person would be the house-keeping boss and rule on all decision making issues on HOW to put the decision making process into action. This person would be the one to call for a vote -- determine what should be in the vote, the rules for the voting, the collection of the votes -- etc. Alain: The community-clerk idea is a good idea, Mark, if you limit the scope of his responsabilities. You are giving much too much power above. The clerk organizes the entire voting process AND tallies all of the votes, for example. I say the clerk should merely take care of the logistics of voting, leaving the political agenda to the group, or to a subset of the group if you favour Representative Democracy. > Mark: Then the decisions of said votes would be > recrafted and put into a FAQ too. Alain: Cosmetically edited for readability, but the gist of the vote should not be denatured (of course). Adrian: If all the failed decisions went into the FAQ it would quickly become very unruly. Alain: Why would we do this? Adrian: Perhaps we could have a FAQ for the major points that people keep bringing up .. Alain: This is indeed coherent given the obvious fact that FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Adrian: ... and "minutes" for everything that is voted on and the results and things that are hotly debated - basically a summary of the mailing list archives. Alain: Good idea. Reminds me a little bit of the minutes of the meeting that are required when one operates as a corporation. Adrian: This would probably require a different person to the person managing the FAQ as the job will be quite big. Alain: Agreed. Mark: As I see it, we don't need lots of votes. But, when we do, we need to have them done in a smooth fashion so that our delicate ideas and personalities can stay at ease. We can't turn people off with the votes -- or we'll have no community. Alain: Not many votes, but a lot of informal polling. Mark: In the real world, the FAQ will be able to ramble along growing by leaps and bounds just by input -- some small discussions -- more input. Alain: We could have our FAQ in the form of a searchable database. Furthermore, each record could contain an attribute that counts how many times a particular question-answer pair has been consulted. We could then sort the questions descending by frequency of usage. Mark: Then from time to time, we'll hit a sticking point. Enter the "community-clerk" to figure out how to resolve sticking points and avoid any choke points. Alain: This is political, not logistical, so I would NOT attribute this to the community-clerk only. Mark: Note, these are collaboration roles and have nothing to do with the keepers of the code. I'm sure we'll need a few "code-dictators" as well. I think that most of the code decisions are going to be obvious, refinements might come -- but they'll be tested and held to a standard by those who are in the know. So, I'm not expecting any votes when it comes to real code issues. Alain: When it comes to the code, the results are the final arbitrator. The best code will win. The evaluation of what is best will nonetheless have to be widely discussed, particularly when strategic tradeoffs must be decided by several experts at once. Programmers may not always agree on the goal and/or the means of achieving them and/or the coding style ... Adrian: Many votes will come from code issues - things involving syntax for OpenTalk, trading speed for functionality etc, etc. Alain: Yup! Mark: And, FWIW, a community-clerk's duties go way, way beyond the writing of a cgi to make secure votes. It isn't only a technical challenge. And, the technical part of it can be fixed with a little extra manual labor. Alain: Mostly administrative and facilitating I would say. The political stuff is another matter. Mark: I could collect the early votes via off-line email to a voting POP email account. Then I could bounce back the votes for confirmation to each person before giving out the final outcome. Alain: I guess that this is what happened. Mark: Then, if someone spoofed you (the worst of all crimes) you'd know it. Even a use of PGP keys for votes to make sure you're you would be easy to do. Alain: Not a concern for us yet. Mark: A tally sheet (given less than 100 voters) is easy to keep without fancy server scripts. Alain: I am kicking myself for not having completed the voting CGI in time. Mark: Here is my pitch: I'd like to assume the role of "community-clerk." Alain: We will first have to define what that role is. Mark: I want to see this venture proceed and make some real progress. Alain: Hear! Hear! Mark: However, I'm not the one you want to handle the code. Alain: Nor am I. Mark: I'm mostly neutral on what specific pathway gets taken. Alain: Given the fact that you are neutral, how will you resolve difficult issues when voting is split 50-50? Mark: I'm more of an advocate for getting to the heart of the matters, making the options clear, nudging things along. Alain: Welcome aboard, Mark. Mark: If necessary, I'd propose a vote. Alain: Just as anyone else in the group can. Mark: Then those of you out there would make your cases for your choices (politics) Alain: OK. Mark: and I'd set up the rules, and determine the outcome based upon the feedback. Alain: This is too much in my opinion. Adrian: We want to set up a set of rules for voting that will stand for every vote and this is one of the things that has been discussed and is being discussed. Alain: Well-said. Adrian: We do need someone to tally votes at least, but I'm not sure I'd like to see someone "in-charge" of voting as this makes our group structure take on a pyramid form instead of the flat form that we currently have. Alain: This is my opinion too. Mark: Staged polling where the worst ideas are abandoned in early rounds helps too. That is more like elimination voting. Alain: I like this approach. Adrian: Yes, but multiple rounds of voting would be a nuisance and preferential voting isn't really what we want in this .. Alain: What is so annoying about voting? ===== __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
