[OSM-talk] New Logo in the Wiki

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 05/02/11 12:22, Thomas Davie wrote:
>> Discuss on this forum instead of IRC. It's self recording of
>> *everything* that's said&  allows *all* to contribute at *all*
>> times.
>
> But causes discussions that could be had in 10 minutes to get spread
> out over 10 weeks ;)

Dave is right about the advantages of asynchronous discussion; I usually 
prefer that as well. But things being dragged out endlessly really is a 
serious disadvantage, and not acceptable in many cases.

In an IRC meeting you will usually have a small number of people and all 
of them are (or are at least expected to be) "there", i.e. they will 
read and participate, and you can get a quick idea of what the majority 
thinks.

On IRC if someone comes up with a stupid idea, someone can say soemthing 
like "motion to ignore Fred's stupid idea and get on with our agenda", 
and then everyone will say aye and Fred is expected to accept that. That 
kind of discipline is necessary if you want to make decisions 
efficiently and not waste everyone's time - precious time, I might add, 
since for many the weekly hour on SWG IRC is not the only recurring 
meeting they attend.

On a mailing list, and certainly not on this mailing list, you do not 
have that discipline. Someone comes up with a stupid idea, is told by a 
bunch of others that his idea is stupid, but nonetheless continues with 
posting after posting.

It's ok to have a forum where people can air their views ad infinitum, 
but it is not suitable for making decisions. Maybe it is possible to 
find a combination. SWG usually announce their agenda well ahead so 
community is free to discuss that on the list beforehand (at the SWG 
meeting someone could then say "mood on list seems to favour this/that", 
of course SWG could still decide otherwise). Problem is that, being 
conducted by humans like us, SWG meetings do not always follow the 
agenda strictly. Might be necessary to add discipline to SWG meetings in 
form of "don't discuss stuff that wasn't on the agenda - put them on 
agenda for next week", then again that would cause more bueraucracy 
overhead and reduce usefulness...

Bye
Frederik