Hi everyone!
Tarragon has recently informed me that he wishes to step down as the
leader of the Style Council. Given that he declared his tenure to be
temporary when he helped us emerge from the SG5 debacle, this is not
really a surprise. Tarragon: Thank you very much for your time and
helping us out in a time of need. Should I ever get myself down
to .au, I will buy you a fine dinner and a few rounds of drinks --
your efforts and support of this project have been phenomenal and I
deeply appreciate everything you've done for MusicBrainz.
Don Redman and I have been discussing the style council over the last
couple of weeks and how we should proceed from here to fill the very
large shoes left behind by Tarragon. We feel that Tarragon's work on
the ChecklistForStyleChanges wiki page and the adoption of Trac for
style issues has provided more structure for us to work out style
issues. Given these two changes and the nebulous nature of the Style
Council, we believe that it is time to iterate the concept and see if
we can establish a system that is a little more decentralized and
thus hopefully more scalable.
From here on out, we would like to try a two-tiered approach that
consists of these two roles:
1. The Elder: This person will make decisions when the community
cannot reach consensus. The Elder will read mb-style and generally
keep up with style happenings, but generally not get involved in day-
to-day operations. Ideally the Elder will not act until the Secretary
calls upon the Elder to act. When the Elder is called upon to act on
an issues, the Elder may ask the proponents of a style issue to
present their arguments for their approach and against the countering
approach. These arguments should summarize the issue at hand and
distill the essence of the issues in a concise manner that will allow
the Elder to become informed of the nuances of the issue and make an
informed decision. In essence, the Elder is a benevolent dictator.
The position of the Elder is a permanent position. [1]
2. The Secretary: This person ensures that the style process moves
forward and continues to work. The secretary remains neutral on style
issues and will work to foster consensus on style issues. Should
consensus not be reached, the secretary calls on the Elder to make a
decision on a style issue. The secretary will play the role of the
Elder's right hand in all style issues and will ensure that style
rules are being followed and adjust style rules as necessary. This
person will require people to check the ChecklistForStyleChanges,
open and close issues, give final "yes"es to style changes if the
community reaches consensus. Most of this will be administrative work
and this position will rotate every three months.
As the benevolent dictator of MusicBrainz, I hereby abolish the Style
Council and assume the role of Elder. I choose Don Redman as my
Secretary for the next three months.
Thank you for all the folks who have participated in the Style
Council in the past, but its time to move on and attempt a different
structure that we use to deal with style problems. We hope that over
the next three months we can set a number of precedents that match
our actions here on the style mailing list. Our new Secretary, who is
very well versed on social issues in all forms, says that our guiding
principles should be: "Make rules by making things work along them.
Never invent rules before things work. Rules should follow practice,
not lead it."
In the coming week Don will start by tackling open issues, resolving
some and passing some on to me to decide.
Mr. Secretary: Thank you for accepting this new job -- the stage is
yours!
Thanks!
[1] Don and I are using Konrad Adenauer, post-war Germany's first
chancellor as the example for the Elder. Adenauder had little to no
precedents (or they were all really poor precedents) to follow when
he started his job. Adenauer set many precedents for all of the
chancellors to follow -- many of which are still in use today. More
on Adenauer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Adenauer
--
--ruaok Somewhere in Texas a village is *still* missing its idiot.
Robert Kaye -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mayhem-chaos.net
_______________________________________________
Musicbrainz-style mailing list
Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
