Open Stack

On 04/10/2017 04:41 PM, Chris Dent wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2017, Matt Riedemann wrote:
>
>> This might also tie back in with what cdent was mentioning, and if the
>> flurry of conversation during a TC meeting throws people off, maybe
>> the minutes should be digested after the meeting in the mailing list.
>> I know the meeting is logged, but it can be hard to read through that
>> without one's eyes glazing over due to the cross-talk and locker-room
>> towel whipping going on.
>
> Aw, you beat me to it. This is part of what I was going to say in
> response to your earlier message. I think there are at least three
> things to do, all of which you've touched on:
>
> * Alternating the meetings, despite the issues with quorum, probably
>   ought to happen. If the issues with quorum are insurmountable that
>   may say something important about the TC's choice to be dependent
>   on IRC meetings. Is it habit? Doesn't most of the real voting
>   happen in gerrit? Can more of the discussion happen in email? I
>   think we (by we I mean all of OpenStack) can and should rely on
>   email more than we do expressly for the purpose of enabling people
>   to include themselves according to their own schedules and their
>   own speeds of comprehension.

Oh god. I feel like I'm going to start a vi-vs-emacs here ...

(Before I do - I agree with alternating meetings)

Email has similar but opposite problems- in that in email the lag is 
often too long, rather than too short. This can lead to:

- person A says a thing, then goes to sleep, because it's 1AM in their 
timezone.
- 1000 people start a flame war based on a poor choice of phrase in the 
original email while person A sleeps
- person A wakes up and is horrified to see what their simple sentence 
has done, begins day drinking

Now, as you might imagine the specifics might vary slightly - but I say 
the above to actually suggest that rather than it being an either/or - 
_both_ are important, and must be balanced over time.

Email allows someone to compose an actual structured narrative, and for 
replies to do the same. Some of us are loquatious and I imagine can be 
hard to follow even with time to read.

IRC allows someone to respond quickly, and for someone to be like "yo, 
totes sorry, I didn't mean that at all LOL" and to walk things back 
before a pile of people become mortally insulted.

Like now - hopefully you'll give me a smiley in IRC ... but you might 
not, and I'm stuck worrying that my tone came across wrong. Then if you 
just don't respond because ZOMG-EMAIL, I might start day drinking.

>   Email and writing in general is by no means a panacea. We don't
>   want any of email, IRC, voice or expensive international
>   gatherings to be the sole mode of interaction.

Blast. I argued against the first part of your email before I realized 
there was a second part that agreed with me already.

> * People who are participating in the TC meetings can be much more
>   considerate, at least during critical parts of the meeting, about
>   who has the speaking stick and what the current topic happens to
>   be. Sometimes the cross-talk and the towel whipping is exactly
>   what needs to be happening, but much of the time it is not and
>   makes it all very hard to follow and frustrating. We see a lot of
>   behavior in the channel that if we were in person or on the phone
>   would be completely unacceptable. Each communication medium
>   affords different behaviors, but we still want to manage to
>   understand one another. As you say, Alex does a great job of
>   making the nova api subteam meeting work so there's probably
>   something we can learn from there.

While I'm blathering - I'll just go ahead and apologize for my frequent 
distribution of pies, wet animals and other similar virtual gifts. I do 
have a problem shutting my mouth, even when I'm not using it. If it's 
any consolation, I also make inopportune jokes in serious business 
meetings in person too.

> * Digested minutes of the meeting and any pending business
>   in gerrit can give an additional way to stay in the loop but they
>   are more about providing an invitation or encouragement to
>   participate. It shouldn't be a substitute that's there because the
>   real grind of participation is inaccessible. Participation needs
>   to be more accessible.

+1000

At the heart of all of this I could not possibly be more in support of 
making all of these things accessible.