On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 9:06 AM Phake Nick wrote:
> Given the proportion of opposing comment being raised, I would say "more than
> what have been discussed", as barely anyone raised the point during the
> discussion. The only two remotely relevant mentions about it during the
> discussion process was 1. one user who think there should be a new parents
> tag that cover both regular taxi and motorcycle taxi, and 2. another who
> incorrectly assuned "motorcycle taxi" is a combination of two different
> features just because the term come with a space. That clearly indicate
> discussion was not sufficient and that the proposal should restart the
> discussion process.
Our 'yes/no' voting on proposals leads to a pathological phenomenon
that I've seen happen several times.
Someone wants to map a particular feature, and floats an idea for a
tag 'A' on the list.
Several other people counter-propose incompatible tags 'B', 'C', 'D' -
each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
None of these tags garners a clear majority of commenters.
Either the proponent abandons the idea, or else falls back on 'any
tags you like', or actually bites the bullet and makes a formal
proposal, calling the vote.
In the last case, which is already uncommon, the vote fails, because,
if for instance, 'B' becomes the final proposal, all of the supporters
of 'A', 'C', 'D' vote against the proposal.
Any of the other schemes would also have been rejected.
Do we need to refine the system to something like: supermajority that
the feature should be mapped, and preference voting for how to map it?
I will concede that I've never called for a vote on any proposal,
because after testing the waters on this list, I've taken the cowardly
option of falling back to 'any tags you like'. Even though there
appears to be a consensus (recall that consensus is not unanimity!)
that things like 'access=permit' or 'protection_class=*' are small
steps in the right direction, there was clearly enough controversy
over the details that it became obvious to me that a vote on either
proposal would fail.
In many cases the failures truly are ones of metaphysical
understanding. For a taxi service, is the vehicle (car, motorcycle,
pedicab, rickshaw) the essence, and 'for hire' a mere accident, or is
'passenger service for hire' the essence, and the choice of vehicle
the accident? In typical tagging discussions like this one, I often
see several other attributes being proposed as essential, and the
attempt to fit the entire world into a taxonomic tree fails because
nobody can agree which attributes are generic and which are specific.
That inevitably comes of using Platonic tagging to approximate an
Aristotelian understanding of the objects being tagged. Tagging will
always be approximate. The map is not the territory.
I have little sympathy for those who cannot be troubled to comment on
a proposal in progress and then pop up with new objections after the
vote is called. I consider that to be obstructionist behaviour. While
it does not necessarily negate the technical value of the objection,
it is annoying in the extreme. It can also serve as a presumptive (not
determinative!) measure of the technical merit; people with a deep
technical understanding of the issue tend to involve themselves in the
process in a timely manner.
--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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