Re: Question: What would you like to see {more,less} of?

[Enrico Zini]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 04:04:22PM +0100, Chris Lamb wrote:

> Therefore, what would you like to see *more* of from a Project
> Leader? What would would you like to see less of?

Hello Chris, thanks for asking.

I'd like the DPL to provide more vision for the project, by occasionally
publicly expressing an opinion on the current state of Debian and where
you'd like it to go.

I wouldn't want the DPL to express their opinion with the expectation
that everyone should agree or follow their lead, but more with the idea
of giving a sense of direction, to unlock situations that are stalled
because there isn't one clear way forward.

Sometimes there is a growing itch that might be scratched in several
ways, but it's unclear which of those ways is The Debian Way. If I were
in the position of doing something about scratching such an itch, I'd
probably not do anything because, I don't know, maybe what I'm thinking
about is the way forward, maybe nobody cares.

With a DPL opinion/vision/hope expressed somewhere, one could say
"'s what the DPL said, and it sounds sensible to me, I'll do
that", and it might help congealing a sense of direction and purpose.

In general, I think that having a prior DPL opinion on a topic helps
preventing an issue to escalate to a flamewar if/when it finally becomes
urgently relevant. When the energy builds up and there is no clear way
forward, I think the energy gets focused on arguing about the way
forward[1]. When instead there is a general idea of a way forward, I
think it's more likely that the energy gets focused on making it happen.


Enrico

[1] when in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout
-- 
GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini 


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Re: Q: NEW process licence requirements

[Joerg Jaspert]

On 14994 March 1977, Adrian Bunk wrote:

> Since Debian distributing whatever random people upload to salsa
> is fine for you, I fail to see the point why you would consider 
> distributing what is in the DD-only NEW a huge problem.

It is not fine. But I've chosen to not go down the road that would be
needed here. I've got enough on my plate, I can't put this on.

If someone does go down the road, then any project creation on salsa
would possibly end up needing to be vetted by an admin (or a new team
doing this, or a combination of new team and NEW handling, as parts of
this surely could be merged then).

Right now, the handling of stuff on salsa follows what was done for
alioth "It may have a .debian.org, but its not run by Debian, so the
project chose to ignore parts of the problems with it". And implicitly
either put it onto the shoulders of the alioth admins, or the individual.

There is an argument for this having changed now, with the new setup,
yes, but following that opens such a big can, I don't want to do this.
Thats something the DPL might want to get some informed (ie. lawyers)
opinion on, how free that service can be.

I would love for the outcome of that to be something like "It's fine if
open, as long as there is a contact that quickly disables reported
$legalfoo violations".

Also, in a way we do assume people NOT intentionally putting bad stuff
up, though the current system does make it farely easy to play bad here.

-- 
bye, Joerg

Conflict resolution (was: Re: Question: What would you like to see {more,less} of?)

[Chris Lamb]

Bdale Garbee wrote:

> So, Chris, given Lars' assertion and my kind-of-a-rebuttal, I suspect
> we'd both (all?) be interested in hearing you say more about how you
> think about conflict resolution

I don't have many thoughts from "first principles" on conflict
resolution (and am in no way claming to be an expert on it) but I
have found that most of the successful resolutions I have been a
part of as the DPL have involved some element of private discussion.

I suspect that this is due to some combination of not requiring a
public loss of face, not needing to "perform" or play a role to an
audience, and the very context of a private chat implicitly frames
the situation as something a little more important than normal. I
would therefore be unlikely to ask the dramatis personae to make
public announcements or apologies as you suggest and would probably
not even dream of asking in the vast majority of cases…

However, whilst I accept the point that public intervention can steer
a conversation away from flaring up, I would go further in that this
can not only help that specific instance, over time it can shape the
attitudes of a community and make it more far enjoyable and rewarding
to be a part of.

Some nuance and judgement must obviously be applied — not only do I
have a strong dislike of "social engineering" when applied to myself
there are many concrete examples I can think of where it would be
completely retrograde or inappropriate to do attempt a resolution in
public (but surely nobody was really suggesting this anyway).

In terms of what I might do differently in a second term: I would
continue my slowly-growing trend over my first term of being more
confident to make congenial public checks on sub-optimal behaviour
that I see around the project which I might previously have done
privately or even considered below some "badness" threshold.

Whilst not all of them have been successful (and some have backfired
badly), I believe the net result when I have got involved has been
positive, often confirmed by bystanders or even (ironically enough,
by private mail) by the people directly involved.


Best wishes,

-- 
  ,''`.
 : :'  : Chris Lamb
 `. `'`  la...@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
   `-

Re: Question: What would you like to see {more,less} of?

[Bdale Garbee]

Lars Wirzenius  writes:

> I'd like to see more overt, public intervention when conflicts, "flame
> wars", happen, and even before things flare up.

This has been a persistent meme for a long time (I'm pretty sure it's
one of the big reasons I failed to be re-elected DPL 15 or so years
ago), and for some classes of conflict where a bit of "public shaming"
might help shift the project's overall mood or behavioral patterns in a
positive direction it might be a good idea... but be careful what you
wish for! 

In my personal experience, most conflicts are best resolved through
quiet interactions, out of public view.  If they can be resolved that
way and one or more of the key "antagonists" are allowed to make the
public pronouncement about the resolution, that seems to lead to a more
congenial atmosphere in the project generally, which I think is
desirable.

The hard decision, often, is how and when to decide that approach isn't
working and a more overt, public approach is required.  This matters a
lot because letting conflicts fester is so detrimental to all involved.

So, Chris, given Lars' assertion and my kind-of-a-rebuttal, I suspect
we'd both (all?) be interested in hearing you say more about how you
think about conflict resolutions generally and what if anything you
think you might do differently in your second term?

Regards,

Bdale



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