Sam Hartman writes ("Re: Bug#741573: #741573: Menu Policy and Consensus"): > If the TC found itself coming to a different conclusion than an informed > rough consensus of debian-policy, it should carefully consider whether > that is the right course.
I have a very different view. The membership of the policy mailing list is very self-selecting, and not necessarily selecting for the properties we would want. For example, people interested in getting involved in debian-policy are likely to have a disposition towards trying to make things uniform, rather than towards valuing diversity. They are also likely to have a disposition towards contributing by discussing rather than by coding. Discussions (and thereview the view of "consensus") are easily dominated by those who have much time and many opinions. > I think the key area where we differ is that I would give preference > other things being mostly equal to upholding the work done in > debian-policy. As I understand it, you would vote for the option you > thought technically best. I wouldn't do that because I think the social > costs are important and because I recognize a real chance I might be > technically wrong. I'm not sure precisely what social costs you are referring to. Perhaps you mean disappointment on the part of people who have spent effort to build consensus in debian-policy in order to make progress in a controversial area. But if there are serious objections, which a participant wishes to take to the TC, it seems to me that such a consensus (if it exists) has probably been achieved by wearing down the sceptics rather than by convincing them (or perhaps by the absence of the opponents to begin with). Or perhaps you mean disappointment on the part of the policy editors. But the policy editors have adopted[1] a system led by process rather than own judgement. The policy process avoids the policy editors making the primary judgements on proposals and thus becoming invested in them. You would be suggesting that the TC should perhaps avoid overturning a decision reached via the policy process, on the grounds that this might upset the policy maintainers. That would mean that no-one would actually be taking responsibility for the content of the decision! To put it another way: the policy editors have cast themselves as referees, not judges or designers. For the TC to do the same would mean that - when the question is controversial and has a strong political element - the actual decision would be simply be based on which side has the most effort and best tactics in a mailing list flamewar. Not only does that result in bad decisions, but it rewards behaviours which are effective at generating apparent consensus on mailing lists. I'm sure it will be obvious to you that there are many behaviours which are very effective for that but which are also very harmful (indeed, which work _because_ they are harmful). In Debian we normally mitigate this problem by arranging that someone or some group is in charge of the decision and applies their own judgement. Finally (and at the risk of sounding like one of those people who quote the Social Contract at every opportunity) I would like to point out that your view seems contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. The Constitution does of course say `may', so the TC isn't required to determine the content of policy. But that is just the language used when determining the powers abnd responsibilities of every constitutionally defined role. Ian. [1] Note that there is nothing saying that the policy editors have to do things this way. When I wrote and edited the policy manual I did so according to my best judgement. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org