public? Re: Call for Votes: New OSI-Editors List

[Ben Tilly]

On Nov 27, 2007 2:13 PM, Zak Greant <zak at greant.com> wrote:
> Hey Ben, Greetings All,
>
> On 11/27/07, Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> > I find that if I am paying close attention to a discussion, then I'll
> > have something to say on it.  I'll also be in a better position to
> > summarize it.  Conversely if I haven't been involved in the
> > discussion, I'm generally not paying close enough attention to
> > accurately summarize the points that were made by various people.
>
> I metaphorically hear you - I developed opinions on every issue that I triaged.

I'm not surprised. :-)

[...]
> > Yes, that's a more subtle judgment call.  But it leaves me free to act
> > on discussions that I've been following closely.  And the fact that
> > editing is publicly attributable gives an appropriate check on
> > editorial abuse.
>
> This approach still allows editors to more easily bend the tickets in
> their favor.

The age-old question.  Is it better to have a process that tries to
make abuse impossible?  Or a process that provides a later check on
that abuse?  I prefer picking people you think you trust and then
giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

> For example, if I submit a set of opinions to address all of the open
> concerns for a given issue and then immediately triage them (and
> perhaps even close the relevant tickets), it tends to reduce the
> validity of my opinions - even if they are generally held to be
> correct.

And if I do this with discussion still progressing, I'd expect people
to respond, "Hey!  Discussion isn't closed yet!"  And then by my
proposed rule, I'm no longer allowed to edit and some other editor
should undo the damage.

If I screw up this way regularly, I should expect to no longer be an editor.

> Much worse, it puts the editor in the position of defending a stated
> opinion for the issue that they are triaging. They should be the
> neutral party that collects views, not one of the engaged parties who
> is holding to a position.

We're agreed on the general principle.  Just not on how to draw the
line to avoid conflicts of interest.

> So far, we have 11 editors nominated, accepted and validated; another
> 5 nominated and validated editors just need to accept to bring us up
> to 16 editors.
>
> There should be more than enough of us to triage issues. If one or
> five of us needs discontinue triaging a given issue, it shouldn't be
> that bad - another editor can pick things up.

Note that there is a danger in having too many editors.  Which is that
if a lot of people all think someone else will take care of the issue,
then often nobody will act and things slip through the cracks.

Ben