FWIW, +1. Alex
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 7:36 PM Nathaniel Smith <n...@pobox.com> wrote: > [tl;dr: We need some ground rules, because uncertainty makes it hard > to think straight. But if we get sucked into a complicated meta-debate > about the ground rules then that defeats the purpose. My proposal for > a Minimum Viable Ground Rule: let's all agree not to finalize any > governance decisions before October 1.] > > We're in a constitutional crisis, and that's scary. There's no map and > none of us know what to expect. It feels like anything could happen. > You look at the mailing list and see people making big proposals -- is > one of them going to suddenly be adopted? If I look away for a few > days, will I come back and find out that something's been decided? > What are we even talking about? Do I need to jump into that thread > RIGHT NOW? It's scary. > > People don't do their best work when scared. When we're scared it's > harder to listen and build up common ground with others -- but that's > exactly what we'll need to do to get through this. And also, like... > being scared sucks. I would prefer to be less scared. > > So: can we do anything to make this less scary? > > One thing that would help is if we had some ground-rules for how the > decision itself will be made. Knowing what to expect makes things less > scary. There's another thread going on right now trying to do that > (subject "Proposal on how to vote"). But... if you look at that > thread, it turns out deciding on how to vote is itself an important > decision with lots of subtle issues, where we probably want to give > people time to think, brainstorm, critique. Heck, in the end we might > decide a vote isn't even the best approach. So I'm not saying we > shouldn't be having that discussion, we definitely should, but... it's > also giving me a new source of anxiety: that we'll all be so eager to > get *some* certainty here that we'll end up trying to force a decision > prematurely. Kind of a catch-22: the decision about how to make > complex decisions is itself a complex decision, which is what we don't > know how to do yet. > > Is there some way to avoid this loop? Can we come up with some ground > rules simple enough that we can agree on them without a big debate? > Well, there's one thing I am pretty sure of: this is a big decision, > there's a lot to think about and talk about, and that we won't regret > taking some time some time to do that. And besides, trying to force it > to happen faster will make people more scared and dig in their heels. > > So here's my proposal for an initial, Minimum Viable Ground Rule: we > should set a date and promise that no actual decisions will be > finalized before that. Until then we are just talking and > brainstorming and gradually converging on points of consensus. (And to > be clear, the point of this is to give us breathing room, not set a > deadline -- we shouldn't dawdle, but if we get there and it turns out > we need more time, then that's OK.) > > What would be a good date? The core sprint is coming up Sept. 10-14, > and this seems to be a likely topic of conversation there. And then > after the sprint, those who aren't present will need time to catch up > with any discussions that happened at the sprint. So to make things > concrete, I propose: no governance decisions finalized before October > 1, 2018. > > Probably this is what will end up happening anyway, but if we make it > explicit in advance and tell everyone, then at least we'll all know > that it's OK to stop refreshing our email constantly and redirect that > energy in more useful directions. > > What do you all think? > > -n > > -- > Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org > _______________________________________________ > python-committers mailing list > python-committers@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers > Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ >
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