Re: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council
Finally found the time to reply to your mail. On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:39:26 +0200, Beth wrote: Okay, there's little way I can reply to this without my normal ugly [beth] comments. Yes, they really are ugly. Especially since my mail client does not support them. [beth] I'll jump in here... one of the biggest frustrations I have is those that aren't currently doing edits/voting/actively working with the database veto things, and do so without being clear on what they are vetoing. (Don, yes this is directed at you partially, but it's also in general) Robert and Don neither actively edit/vote/work with the data as much as other active moderators. This has been admitted by Don. Though, they are the two making final decisions. I think this is a somewhat concerning practice. I am not making style decisons. I am moderating the decision process. Everytime I come near to making a decision there is an uproar, which I am very thankful about. As for Robert, he is the maintainer of MusicBrainz. If you are unhappy with him, you can take the data and the code and do your on project. I know that is a harsh reply, but it is the truth. Potential solution? Find someone that is actively deeply involved, and trusted to start overseeing final decisions. As well those that are more actively reading the discussions. (no, I am not suggesting myself)[/beth] I think you are forgetting something very important here: _Continuity_. People who are not active editors any more but know the history of the project are important. What would the SC be if noone was there who could step in and say We had a two weeks debate about this just half a year ago. Please do not dig this out again unless there is a really good reason to? It would change direction following the group of newbs that shoult loudest. One thing that might have gone unnoticed is that many of these oldtimers have left the council in the last half-year. This is as much of a challenge to the project as the growth in new users. I do not agree with your solution, becuase I think your description of the problem is wrong. In terms of kybernetics the SC needs three things: vaiation, selection, and stabilisation. - Variation is how new ieas and new issues come in. - Selection is how those that are not helpful get sorted out. - Stabilisation is how the decisions are kept so that they become history. Our problems are mostly in the realm or selection and partially with stabilisation. We do not have the most basic means of filtering an uninformed newbies comment out of a style disucssion. And by We I include the newbie himself. How should they know that going off on tangents is a bad idea? Nobody ever told them. This last point is very important, because most people who go on tangents are _not_ cluesless newbs. They are intermediary users, but still they do not know what kind of behavior is expected from them (that is what I gathered). Stabilisatin is an issue, too. People are joining and leaving the project at a pace that many informal decisions are likely to get lost. I realised that this is part of the secretary's job, too. Now a solution might be to make more explicit decisions and to have a form of automaically archiving them. I am not talking about more formalization! This is where we just came from half a year ago, and I do not want to go back. I will dig into the way the real RFCs are done over at the internet engineering task force. I surely can learn something from them. DonRedman -- Words that are written in CamelCase refer to WikiPages: Visit http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ the best MusicBrainz documentation around! :-) ___ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
Re: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council
On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:53:32 +0200, joan WHITTAKER wrote: No sooner do we seem to have agreed than someone goes off at a tangent, and at least a third, usually those against the original proposal, following suit and trying to turn the debate. Yes this is a serious problem. It would be possible to ignore some newbie who starts a tangent, but it is difficult to ignore a person with whom you have been debating once they too get on that tangent. We seem to be lacking the most basic method of filtering out noise. I do not know of tools that would do that, but a few _techniques_ come to my mind: - Ignoring it. Actually this is a lot of work. You have to decide that the debate has left the path of wisdom and stop to take part. You still have to watch if it returns to another path of wisdom. And when it has finally ebbed out, you have to read all the confuse stuff again, post a summary and issue a RFV. Even then people might start new tangents. This is _really_ annoying, but in fact easier to ignore. You just have to watch for one word: veto and can ignore all the rest. I have done this in the past, but I need a weeks break before I can 'ignore' another debate this way again. This really is a lot of hard work. Unfortunately starting tangents is not :-( - Bullying. I do not mean this in a negative sense, so bullying is the wrong term, I just don't know a better one. What I mean is that people who start a tangent lightheartedly would get a clear reply: DON'T DO THAT! This is a matter of culture. I know that there are other projects in which the mailinglist are pretty rude, the barrier to entry is relatively high and newbies are requested to listen a lot, to ask whether they are well informed and all that jazz. I do not know whether this is a sollution. There is some really good input from some more-or-less-newbies here and we would loose that too. Maybe these two techniques can help if they are applied the right way. For example it might help to send a mail that says IMO this has lost the focus of my original request. I will ignore the remainder of this thread. If you think something sensible came out of it, feel free to send me the results in a private message. Or instead of saying DON'T DO THAT we could say DON'T DO THAT HERE and ask people to start a new thread with a different subject. Again you could say: come back to 'my' thread if you have serious results. This notion of 'my' thread might help too, although it is dangerous when the debate is heated. And if I would push a valid argument out of 'my' thread, then I would surely reap a veto later. Anyway these are just a sociologist's thoughts about the situation. Perhaps the hackers have some more straightforward ideas DonRedman -- Words that are written in CamelCase refer to WikiPages: Visit http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ the best MusicBrainz documentation around! :-) ___ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
[mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council
On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:55:32 +0200, Stefan Kestenholz wrote: 1) the style council does not exist, for a long time now already. everybody who speaks here (except rob and don) are community members like everybody else. I call the body that makes the decisions about style issues the Style Council. And since it seems to work (more or less well, but it works) I suppose that it must exist. :-) (no offence meant) 2) the reason i wrote that statement before is because jan said if i had a say here which, if you read between the lines, speaks for a frustration with the ongoing processes to always take the discussions on tangents rather than discussing towards a solution which satisfies the majority of member of the community. Well, then it would have been nice to clearly speak of this problem. Your reply contained as much frustration between the lines that it sparked this (IMO rather unnecessary) debate about who has how much weight. If you feel frustrated about the way the Coucil works, then *please* speak up. but please do so explicitly. What is it that frustrates you? What could be done about it? I, too, find these tangents wearisome. I have the impression that people here jump on tangents too easily. Although sometimes they are important. I think I would be happy with a more conscious way of closing tangents and turning back to the main topic (like (ok, that was a bad idea of mine. This leads us back to...). Maybe people should think twice before replying to a mail that _starts_ a tangent. 3) now if you take my statement literally, it does not do the issue justice. if you look at the big picture, the major contributor idea is not related to the number of edits a person made. its just a side-effect for the big commitment someone undoubtfully has for the project.why does everbody back down suddenly on the meritocracy aspect, 2 weeks ago there was a consensus that this is how MB works. Because what you describe is not meritocracy. As I said in my other post, meritocracy means that you earn respect in the areas in which you have done good work. Respect is something that you earn, you do not claim it. It does not give you power over other people, because they can (and will) disrespect you if you do not do them justice anymore. This means it is possible to be very laborous and do a lot of stuff but not earn any respect at all. It also means that you cannot transfer respect, firstly because you cannot claim it, second because respect is tied to the context in which you earned it. It might spread over to other domains, but it does so very slowly. Now back to the bloated discussions. I feel that with your post you were cutting off a discussion by claiming more weight for a person whose position would end the debate in a way that you liked. I do not say that you *meant* to do that, I say that this is the impression that *I* got. I got the impression of an attempt of exercing power. Now I believe that this is just a misinterpretation of two succeding frustrations between the lines, but the other reactions showed that other people got similar impressoins. Power is not a way to make bloated discussions tighter. But maybe signs of 'disrespect' might help. What if the the proposer wrote IMO this is a tangent that does not deal with my proposal anymore. The person could still reply Well, IMO it has a lot to do with it and here is why. DonRedman -- Words that are written in CamelCase refer to WikiPages: Visit http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ the best MusicBrainz documentation around! :-) ___ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
RE: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council
Okay, there's little way I can reply to this without my normal ugly [beth] comments. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don Redman Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 4:35 PM To: MusicBrainz style discussion Subject: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:55:32 +0200, Stefan Kestenholz wrote: 1) the style council does not exist, for a long time now already. everybody who speaks here (except rob and don) are community members like everybody else. I call the body that makes the decisions about style issues the Style Council. And since it seems to work (more or less well, but it works) I suppose that it must exist. :-) (no offence meant) 2) the reason i wrote that statement before is because jan said if i had a say here which, if you read between the lines, speaks for a frustration with the ongoing processes to always take the discussions on tangents rather than discussing towards a solution which satisfies the majority of member of the community. Well, then it would have been nice to clearly speak of this problem. Your reply contained as much frustration between the lines that it sparked this (IMO rather unnecessary) debate about who has how much weight. If you feel frustrated about the way the Coucil works, then *please* speak up. but please do so explicitly. What is it that frustrates you? What could be done about it? [beth] I'll jump in here... one of the biggest frustrations I have is those that aren't currently doing edits/voting/actively working with the database veto things, and do so without being clear on what they are vetoing. (Don, yes this is directed at you partially, but it's also in general) Robert and Don neither actively edit/vote/work with the data as much as other active moderators. This has been admitted by Don. Though, they are the two making final decisions. I think this is a somewhat concerning practice. Potential solution? Find someone that is actively deeply involved, and trusted to start overseeing final decisions. As well those that are more actively reading the discussions. (no, I am not suggesting myself)[/beth] I, too, find these tangents wearisome. I have the impression that people here jump on tangents too easily. Although sometimes they are important. I think I would be happy with a more conscious way of closing tangents and turning back to the main topic (like (ok, that was a bad idea of mine. This leads us back to...). Maybe people should think twice before replying to a mail that _starts_ a tangent. [beth] Sorry, I know I did my own tangent chasing.[/beth] 3) now if you take my statement literally, it does not do the issue justice. if you look at the big picture, the major contributor idea is not related to the number of edits a person made. its just a side-effect for the big commitment someone undoubtfully has for the project.why does everbody back down suddenly on the meritocracy aspect, 2 weeks ago there was a consensus that this is how MB works. Because what you describe is not meritocracy. As I said in my other post, meritocracy means that you earn respect in the areas in which you have done good work. Respect is something that you earn, you do not claim it. It does not give you power over other people, because they can (and will) disrespect you if you do not do them justice anymore. [beth] In my opinion Jan/Zout does have that earned respect in the discussion. Jan/Zout is an active moderator and voter and knows what is currently actively being done. I as well feel Jan/Zout realizes the impact and is considering it, just as Nikki is.[/beth] This means it is possible to be very laborous and do a lot of stuff but not earn any respect at all. It also means that you cannot transfer respect, firstly because you cannot claim it, second because respect is tied to the context in which you earned it. It might spread over to other domains, but it does so very slowly. [beth] I see that it was giving zout the recognition of knowing what he was talking about. Not giving respect to zout that was undeserved.[/beth] Now back to the bloated discussions. I feel that with your post you were cutting off a discussion by claiming more weight for a person whose position would end the debate in a way that you liked. I do not say that you *meant* to do that, I say that this is the impression that *I* got. I got the impression of an attempt of exercing power. [beth] Perhaps more of these long winded discussions need to be cut off?[/beth] Now I believe that this is just a misinterpretation of two succeding frustrations between the lines, but the other reactions showed that other people got similar impressoins. Power is not a way to make bloated discussions tighter. But maybe signs of 'disrespect' might help. What if the the proposer wrote IMO this is a tangent that does not deal with my proposal anymore. The person could still
Re: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council
I do not intend to get into this whole argument over meritocracy until I have had a chance to read up on all the correspondence so far. What I will say is that having brought a subject Net Releases to this forum, I have become very frustrated indeed at the seeming inability of a failure to come to some consensus. No sooner do we seem to have agreed than someone goes off at a tangent, and at least a third, usually those against the original proposal, following suit and trying to turn the debate. I have even had to post to the list asking people to come back to the topic at hand and not get side-tracked. Whilst I agree that this is, and should always be, a democracy where everyone can discuss a topic, what good will that do us if no-one ever reaches a decision. Nothing will ever be implemented. If we have a Style Council then they should ultimately be the ones to draw a discussion to a close and adjudicate on whether the proposal should be implemented or not. If they do not do this, then what on earth is the point of it all. Joan - Original Message - From: Beth [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'MusicBrainz style discussion' musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 12:39 AM Subject: RE: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council Okay, there's little way I can reply to this without my normal ugly [beth] comments. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don Redman Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 4:35 PM To: MusicBrainz style discussion Subject: [mb-style] Meritocracy and the Style Council On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:55:32 +0200, Stefan Kestenholz wrote: 1) the style council does not exist, for a long time now already. everybody who speaks here (except rob and don) are community members like everybody else. I call the body that makes the decisions about style issues the Style Council. And since it seems to work (more or less well, but it works) I suppose that it must exist. :-) (no offence meant) 2) the reason i wrote that statement before is because jan said if i had a say here which, if you read between the lines, speaks for a frustration with the ongoing processes to always take the discussions on tangents rather than discussing towards a solution which satisfies the majority of member of the community. Well, then it would have been nice to clearly speak of this problem. Your reply contained as much frustration between the lines that it sparked this (IMO rather unnecessary) debate about who has how much weight. If you feel frustrated about the way the Coucil works, then *please* speak up. but please do so explicitly. What is it that frustrates you? What could be done about it? [beth] I'll jump in here... one of the biggest frustrations I have is those that aren't currently doing edits/voting/actively working with the database veto things, and do so without being clear on what they are vetoing. (Don, yes this is directed at you partially, but it's also in general) Robert and Don neither actively edit/vote/work with the data as much as other active moderators. This has been admitted by Don. Though, they are the two making final decisions. I think this is a somewhat concerning practice. Potential solution? Find someone that is actively deeply involved, and trusted to start overseeing final decisions. As well those that are more actively reading the discussions. (no, I am not suggesting myself)[/beth] I, too, find these tangents wearisome. I have the impression that people here jump on tangents too easily. Although sometimes they are important. I think I would be happy with a more conscious way of closing tangents and turning back to the main topic (like (ok, that was a bad idea of mine. This leads us back to...). Maybe people should think twice before replying to a mail that _starts_ a tangent. [beth] Sorry, I know I did my own tangent chasing.[/beth] 3) now if you take my statement literally, it does not do the issue justice. if you look at the big picture, the major contributor idea is not related to the number of edits a person made. its just a side-effect for the big commitment someone undoubtfully has for the project.why does everbody back down suddenly on the meritocracy aspect, 2 weeks ago there was a consensus that this is how MB works. Because what you describe is not meritocracy. As I said in my other post, meritocracy means that you earn respect in the areas in which you have done good work. Respect is something that you earn, you do not claim it. It does not give you power over other people, because they can (and will) disrespect you if you do not do them justice anymore. [beth] In my opinion Jan/Zout does have that earned respect in the discussion. Jan/Zout is an active moderator and voter and knows what is currently actively being done. I as well feel Jan/Zout realizes the impact and is considering it, just as Nikki is.[/beth] This means it is possible to be very
