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[Debconf-team] On finding a decision and IRC moderation



Hi,

I wanted to write a mail about these two topics and my idea on howto better 
find a decision (than the current process) was something like "not to try to 
find a consensus between anybody randomly (or not) hanging out on 
#debconf-team, but only the ones who have been involved in previous debconfs 
except for the "competing" local teams (and if that fails (and as a last 
ressort) the delegates should vote))". But I wasn't too happy with this idea 
anyway and was happy to read a better idea on IRC this "morning":

mooch/Jesus suggested to let the competing venues decide, like this was done 
for "Vienna vs. Helsinki". Actually I think the idea is great, because it's 
simple, doesn't waste _everybody's_ time and won't result in mud-throwing, 
because the parties have to agree with each other. 

I'm not sure what should happen if the "competing teams" don't find a good 
solution themselves. Either no debconf that year (which would certainly give 
them a good incentive to find a solution because if they cannot agree they 
would show that they are more interested in harming debconf+debian than in 
helping), or a delegation based decision. 

(BTW, I'm not too happy with this delegation based system what we have this 
time as it already led to what I feared it would lead to: some people are 
more important and equal than others. I liked it, when I (maybe wrongly) had 
the impression debconf was organized by a team.)

Anyway, I'm throwing this idea into the discussion, so it can get improved, 
not because I think it's complete.


The second topic is about moderation/voice on the irc channel, not the lists. 
(_I_ find the latter much less problematic as I know there is a team of 
moderators whom I trust to let the sane messages thru in a timely fashion - 
but I do strongly suggest to either disable this moderation again soon - 
if we dont learn to manage to talk with each other, we have lost already. (And 
I do acknowledge that learning has some costs and is sometimes painful, but 
OTOH without learning it's more painful & expensive in the long run.)

This believe, "if we dont learn to manage to talk with each other, we have 
lost already", is also one of the reasons why I disliked the moderation of 
the last meeting. Which I wouldn't call moderation, for a start. For reasons 
how it was done, technically and by the moderator, Aschwin, with whom I 
discussed the following proposal already.

So here the proposal goes: 

1. set +m on the channel, so that only channel ops and people with voice can 
talk.

2. give everybody voice, who (beforehand) agrees to behave and to follow the 
moderator_s_ advice/demands. (Maybe restrict $everybody to people who have 
been active within debconf-team before.)

3. agree that the moderator_s_ are fine with "flooding" the channel by 
repeatedly saying "slower please", "only $nick1", "only $nick1 and $nick2 
atm", "shut up except $nick", whatever. While repeatedly saying stuff 
normally is annoying, it is also an effective way for a moderator to steer a 
discussion. (And it's useful to agree on this beforehand to avoid this 
discussion during the meeting.)

4. If people repeatedly don't behave, remove voice from them. And give it back 
to them, if they state in a believable way, that they learned the lession and 
wont mess up the discussion again. If they misbehave again, voice is taken 
away for the rest of the meeting.


I'm not sure if this should be established for tomorrows meeting already (and 
if it does, the moderators should be choosen before the meeting is about to 
start), but I would like to use this in future for sure. To be honest, I 
don't see how tomorrows decision can be made in a sane and pleasant way. :-(

If you keep this meeting moderated like it was planned when everybody except 
the delegates were muted, I'm likely to spend my time in a way that is more 
useful for me (*). Reading irc logs is faster in non-realtime :-P  (And if 
you take this as a threat, then please explain why I should watch it in real 
time...)


regards,
	Holger

(*) but as I have repeatedly wasted my time before :-) I might still watch it 
live - because I still am very interested in organizing DebConf.

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