Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 12:50:56PM +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: Technical hint: subpages syntax in Moin can be quite frustrating, especially for those who do not often edit Moin pages. It might be useful to have some sample (dangling) links for subpages pointing to alternative positions directly in the page template. (Of course I can implement the above changes myself in the wiki, but first I need to know if you agree with them or not :-)) Please do that. I obviously failed to do it with the current wiki setup (the release essay is not a subpage of the Debate page, for example). Sorry for the delay. I've now finished doing that: JessieReleaseProcess is now a subpage of Debate, and AlwaysReleasableTesting a subpage of JessieReleaseProcess, as recommended in /Debate. I've fixed all the links I've found, but redirect pages are in place, so nothing should be broken by the change. I've also created DebateTemplate, with the correct syntax for subpages. In the meantime, it seems that other users of /Debate have gone their way, though :-), with the main essay residing in the debate page, rather than in dedicated pages. This is a bit unfortunate, as it makes more difficult to understand the positions at play, which should have one essay per position, if I understand the approach you were trying to propose properly. I haven't attempted to fix that, though. Hope this helps, Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 04:03:59PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: Sorry for the delay. I've now finished doing that: JessieReleaseProcess is now a subpage of Debate, and AlwaysReleasableTesting a subpage of JessieReleaseProcess, as recommended in /Debate. I've fixed all the links I've found, but redirect pages are in place, so nothing should be broken by the change. I've also created DebateTemplate, with the correct syntax for subpages. Thank you, Stefano. -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130612140821.ga4...@mavolio.codethink.co.uk
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 11:19:08AM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: Question: there are various overlaps from this proposal and DEPs ( http://dep.debian.net/ ). Not only in some of the explicit goals you state (e.g. documenting the state of discussions), but also in the fact that other FOSS communities out there are using DEP-like solutions to address the debating difficulty. Given that Lars has been one of the main proponents of DEPs, I suspect you have put quite some thought on the relationships of the two approaches. Can you share with us what you think are the pro/con of this wrt DEPs? I haven't, actually, spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between viewpoint essays and DEPs, but here's what I currently think: a DEP is good when there is a reasonably clear goal and there's a rough consensus on the goal, but you need to work out the details and plan and track the work to achieve the goal. For example, the goal might be make Jessie provide a backup service for desktop users out of the box, and the DEP can be used to scope and plan the work to achieve that. A set of viewpoint essays, on the other hand, are, I think, a way to keep track of a discussion as the rough consensus is formed. We can't have, say, a DEP on make $INITSYSTEM the default init system in jessie, since there is no consensus at all on which init system that would be. Tracking that discussion, and perhaps making it calmer and more rational, with fewer emotional reactions, by having the various sides write essays instead of writing rapid-fire e-mails, is what the essay initiative is about. So essays and DEPs should complement each other fairly well. About this, it's not clear to me if you actually encourage sign-offs from people other than the original authors or not. I have no strong opinion on it. I'm happy to see what happens and let people work out that kind of detail themselves. * Publish the document on as a subpage of the topic page in the wiki. Add a link to the subpage from the topic page. Technical hint: subpages syntax in Moin can be quite frustrating, especially for those who do not often edit Moin pages. It might be useful to have some sample (dangling) links for subpages pointing to alternative positions directly in the page template. (Of course I can implement the above changes myself in the wiki, but first I need to know if you agree with them or not :-)) Please do that. I obviously failed to do it with the current wiki setup (the release essay is not a subpage of the Debate page, for example). -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130512115056.gq2...@havelock.liw.fi
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 12:06:57PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote: I really like this idea. The only problem I have is: How to know in advance whether a debate might concern a difficult development issue or not. I don't think there's any need to define criteria for when writing essays are warranted. If any participants in a discussion want to write some, they should go ahead. The topic at hand does not need to be difficult. Even completely friendly topics with only one viewpoint can benefit from getting written up in long form, so that all the aspects are captured on one place. Considering this would you agree to turn [2] into a Debate or would you apply further creterions for this? The important part is not whether something is listed on the Debate wiki page or not: that's just a technicality. The important part is that it's clear to everyone what the current rough consensus of something is. Your wiki page for Uscan improvements seems to capture that just fine. -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130512115608.gr2...@havelock.liw.fi
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Thu, May 09, 2013 at 08:45:08PM +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: The executive summary: We'd like to see more thoughtful debates of important Debian development issues, and have created http://wiki.debian.org/Debate as a way to encourage them. Dear Lars and Russ, thanks for this initiative. I applaud the effort and generally agrees this is something worth trying. We've been asking people to summarize discussions in the past, but most often we did so asking new summaries on lists, and that is prone to the lack of a running documentation for a given discussion at hand. What you propose might be a solution to that, aside from having other nice properties. Let's see how it goes! I've a general question here and a couple of more detailed comments inline below. Question: there are various overlaps from this proposal and DEPs ( http://dep.debian.net/ ). Not only in some of the explicit goals you state (e.g. documenting the state of discussions), but also in the fact that other FOSS communities out there are using DEP-like solutions to address the debating difficulty. Given that Lars has been one of the main proponents of DEPs, I suspect you have put quite some thought on the relationships of the two approaches. Can you share with us what you think are the pro/con of this wrt DEPs? * Write a document explaining your point of view. Make it as convincing as you can. If you like, gather a group of like-minded people to help write the document. Add your names to the end of the page so it's clear whose viewpoint it represents. About this, it's not clear to me if you actually encourage sign-offs from people other than the original authors or not. There's no mention of it here, but Russ' answer to Wouter on -project seems to hint at the fact that they would be welcome. (Yes, it's very clear to me that this is not a voting system, but I think sign-offs, possibly clearly differentiated from the essay authors / proposal drivers, might be useful. In fact, I think this is very similar to the proposer/seconds distinction we have in GRs, which I find useful in the initial phase of the opinion formation process.) If this is something you encourage, I suggest adding a Signed-off section to your page template. * Publish the document on as a subpage of the topic page in the wiki. Add a link to the subpage from the topic page. Technical hint: subpages syntax in Moin can be quite frustrating, especially for those who do not often edit Moin pages. It might be useful to have some sample (dangling) links for subpages pointing to alternative positions directly in the page template. (Of course I can implement the above changes myself in the wiki, but first I need to know if you agree with them or not :-)) Thanks again for this initiative, Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
Hi, On Thu, May 09, 2013 at 08:45:08PM +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: We think discussions on Debian development mailing lists sometimes suffer from repetition of facts, opinions, and arguments. During a long discussion of a controversial topic, it is hard for anyone to keep track of what has been said, and so everything tends to get repeated. ... +1 I really like this idea. The only problem I have is: How to know in advance whether a debate might concern a difficult development issue or not. For instance when I wrote my first mail about uscan enhancement[1] I did not expected this to be a complex topic but the various threads afterwards have shown this later. We intuitively followed your suggestion by creating[2] but I'm not yet fully convinced that this is a difficult development issue. Using this example as criterion I'd say we are seeing something that qualifies as difficult development issue if: 1. At least 10 postings on this topic (with on this topic I mean *really* on topic and no troll / fun posts) 2. At least two different threads to the same topic both with at least five postings. I know that the numbers are perfectly debatable but I'm mentally using these. I would not see these criterions as a requirement to enter a Wiki Debate but I would recommend starting a Wiki Debate if the criterion is met. Considering this would you agree to turn [2] into a Debate or would you apply further creterions for this? Kind regards Andreas. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/08/msg00380.html [2] http://wiki.debian.org/UscanEnhancements -- http://fam-tille.de -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130510100657.gg15...@an3as.eu
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
Op donderdag 9 mei 2013 23:40:45 schreef Wouter Verhelst: I do agree that sometimes, mailinglists aren't the best possible medium to hold a discussion. However, I'm not convinced that your proposal is the best way to fix that. I think that with all its flaws, mailinglists (and/or usenet) are still the best option we have for discussing important matters. I believe we're already using the form that Lars and Russ described, in the context of GR's. On the mailinglist, people collaboratively construct a short essay that they think rightly makes the case for their option. Others may construct a complete counterpoint, but there's also the form where you agree with the essay but want to change one aspect of it (an amendment). In the GR process these options are then put to the vote and even votes that didn't read all of debian-vote can make an informed decision by reading each of the options put forth that document the motivations. The proposed system seems to work well, and I don't know why it couldn't equally work well when ported to the non-voting-context of debian-devel. Cheers, Thijs signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Thu, 2013-05-09 at 20:45 +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: This e-mail is jointly from Lars Wirzenius and Russ Allbery. The executive summary: We'd like to see more thoughtful debates of important Debian development issues, and have created http://wiki.debian.org/Debate as a way to encourage them. A very good initiative. I hope it takes off. Looking forward to the posts there instead of at debian-devel. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1368131548.4595.37.camel@PackardBell-PC
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
Hi, On 09-05-13 21:45, Lars Wirzenius wrote: We think discussions on Debian development mailing lists sometimes suffer from repetition of facts, opinions, and arguments. During a long discussion of a controversial topic, it is hard for anyone to keep track of what has been said, and so everything tends to get repeated. Such discussions also often become heated, and fast: those who participate most intensely tend to answer within minutes of each other. Even without repetition, following the discussion becomes a lot of work. This is probably true. However, I'm not convinced your proposal solves more problems than it introduces: - First, I find it extremely difficult to follow a discussion on a wiki page. Yes, there is a diff feature in most wikis (including ours), but that requires you to remember when you last read the position on the wiki page in question; this makes it prone to losing out. In contrast, when I participate in a mailing lists discussion, I simply have new information marked as unread and old information as read. That makes it much easier to figure out what's new and what isn't. - In my experience, when discussing controversial subjects, it is a mistake to believe that the number of 'sides' in a discussion is significantly smaller than the number of participants to that discussion -- or indeed that it is even possible to distinguish which 'side' one is on. I've often experienced during such discussions that I may fully agree with someone else on one detail of the matter at hand, but vehemently disagree with that same person on another detail. With your proposal, this would probably mean we'd either need to write smaller essays, one for each part of the matter at hand, so that people can sign off their own combination of details, or we'd need to write multiple mostly-but-not-quite similar essays. Both pretty much defeat the purpose of your proposal. - Most importantly, if you write down an opinion that multiple people then sign off on, it becomes much harder to change or restructure your opinion as a result of the debate. If you're discussing something in a mailinglist, it's okay to say yes, you're right, you've convinced me, even if some people may (wrongly) see that as losing face. Once you've done that, people will understand that your opinion is no longer what it once was. If you've got an essay form of your opinion, should you then rewrite that? But what about the people who (used to) agree with you? Should they agree with the rewritten opinion, too? Probably not. But you can't sign off on it anymore. Should you then write a new version of that essay? That brings us back to the 2nd problem I pointed out. - Even if that wasn't true, after having put a lot of effort in an essay, I think many people will become entrenched in that opinion. As a result, they may be less likely to consider opposing arguments and change or restructure their opinion based on these arguments. This would result in less discussion, and more flames. I do agree that sometimes, mailinglists aren't the best possible medium to hold a discussion. However, I'm not convinced that your proposal is the best way to fix that. I think that with all its flaws, mailinglists (and/or usenet) are still the best option we have for discussing important matters. There will be exceptions, of course, when people are flaming; but flames are an expression of an inner emotion, one that does not allow healthy discussion; adding structure to the way one performs a discussion isn't going to take that away. Sorry to be so disapproving; I do agree that we can do better, I just don't agree this is the best way forward. Regards, -- This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today. -- http://xkcd.com/1133/ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
Wouter Verhelst wou...@debian.org writes: This is probably true. However, I'm not convinced your proposal solves more problems than it introduces: - First, I find it extremely difficult to follow a discussion on a wiki page. Yes, there is a diff feature in most wikis (including ours), but that requires you to remember when you last read the position on the wiki page in question; this makes it prone to losing out. In contrast, when I participate in a mailing lists discussion, I simply have new information marked as unread and old information as read. That makes it much easier to figure out what's new and what isn't. The goal is not to have that sort of discussion on the wiki. The goal, indeed, is to have the wiki pages *avoid* that sort of discussion in favor of more comprehensive statements of position. Frequently, I expect those statements of position to converge on implementable proposals as the discussion continues. For back and forth, while wiki comments are available and may be convenient for some purposes, I expect that most of the real discussion will continue to happen on debian-devel and similar fora. However, the *results* of that discussion, as opposed to emerging nebulously from back-and-forth posts and watching who stops talking first, but rarely being stated outright, can be recorded in this format. My hope is that someone who was interested in the outcome but not horribly interested in the process would be able to skip the debate entirely and just read the resulting statements and still have enough data to make an informed decision. The debate will continue to be important for refining nuance. - In my experience, when discussing controversial subjects, it is a mistake to believe that the number of 'sides' in a discussion is significantly smaller than the number of participants to that discussion -- or indeed that it is even possible to distinguish which 'side' one is on. I've often experienced during such discussions that I may fully agree with someone else on one detail of the matter at hand, but vehemently disagree with that same person on another detail. With your proposal, this would probably mean we'd either need to write smaller essays, one for each part of the matter at hand, so that people can sign off their own combination of details, or we'd need to write multiple mostly-but-not-quite similar essays. Both pretty much defeat the purpose of your proposal. For most of these discussions, we have to, at the end of the process, converge on a single decision. For example, we're only going to have one release process. Therefore, while it's certainly true that each participant starts as their own side, and we need to provide room for that to evolve and change, I would strongly encourage authors to trim out the parts of their proposals that aren't reaching consensus and thereby create proposals that have a broader base of support. One of the advantages of the wiki pages is that they can record what parts of the argument people find essential and keep them separate from the inevitable digressions and debates about surrounding issues that, while interesting, don't need to be taken into account when making a decision. I think it's very difficult to tell, right now, what positions someone holds about a topic after a 50-post debate in debian-devel and (more importantly) which of those opinions they consider essential and which they consider incidental. - Most importantly, if you write down an opinion that multiple people then sign off on, it becomes much harder to change or restructure your opinion as a result of the debate. If you're discussing something in a mailinglist, it's okay to say yes, you're right, you've convinced me, even if some people may (wrongly) see that as losing face. Once you've done that, people will understand that your opinion is no longer what it once was. If you've got an essay form of your opinion, should you then rewrite that? But what about the people who (used to) agree with you? Should they agree with the rewritten opinion, too? Probably not. But you can't sign off on it anymore. Should you then write a new version of that essay? That brings us back to the 2nd problem I pointed out. In this case, I would check with the co-authors and see if they agree, or if you can reach agreement. If not, indeed, I'd remove my name (while leaving the document as-is) and either write a new document or indicate support of a different document, or possibly just bow out entirely, depending on the situation. This isn't a voting system; you don't have to sign any document. The point is to allow for co-maintainers to spread the work, not to have the signatories be an indication of support. Support will be determined by project consensus, not by counting co-sponsors. - Even if that wasn't true, after having put a lot of effort in an essay, I think many people will become
Re: Debating difficult development issues in essay form
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 5:40 AM, Wouter Verhelst wrote: - First, I find it extremely difficult to follow a discussion on a wiki page. Yes, there is a diff feature in most wikis (including ours), but that requires you to remember when you last read the position on the wiki page in question; this makes it prone to losing out. In contrast, when I participate in a mailing lists discussion, I simply have new information marked as unread and old information as read. That makes it much easier to figure out what's new and what isn't. MoinMoin (used by the Debian wiki) offers the ability to subscribe to individual wiki pages and to ranges of pages using regexes. It will send you emails containing diffs of changes to pages you have subscribed to. There is also the option of using the RecentChanges RSS feed if you care about changes across the whole of the wiki. The RSS feed is slightly buggy though. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caktje6fkh5_7c+prnuiy9hocferwwsgx_vzvppp_vcb3tad...@mail.gmail.com
