Open Stack

On 12/08/19 7:18 PM, James E. Blair wrote:
> As I understand it, the sequence of events that led us here was:
> 
> A) Doug (as interim unofficial election official) removed the name for
>     unspecified reasons. [1]
> 
> B) I objected to the removal.  This is in accordance with step 5 of the
>     process:
> 
>       Once the list is finalized and publicized, a one-week period shall
>       elapse before the start of the election so that any names removed
>       from consideration because they did not meet the Release Name
>       Criteria may be discussed. Names erroneously removed may be
>       re-added during this period, and the Technical Committee may vote
>       to add exceptional names (which do not meet the standard criteria).
> 
> C) Rico (the election official at the time) agreed with my reasoning
>     that it was erroneously removed and re-added the name. [2]
> 
> D) The list was re-issued and the name was once again missing.  Four
>     reasons were cited, three of which have no place being considered
>     prior to voting, and the fourth is a claim that it does not meet the
>     criteria.

I'd just like to point out that Rico was placed in a very difficult 
position here - after he generously volunteered to step up as the 
co-ordinator at a time when the deadline to begin the vote had already 
passed, doing so from a timezone where any discussion with you, the rest 
of the TC, or indeed most people in the community effectively had a 24 
hour round trip time.

So when you pointed out that Doug's reason for dropping it from the list 
was not in line with the guidelines, he agreed. It was only after that 
that I raised the issue of it not appearing to meet the criteria. There 
wasn't a loud chorus of TC members (or people in general) saying that it 
did, so he essentially agreed that it didn't and we treated it as a 
proposed exception. Perhaps I gave him bad advice, but he's entitled to 
take advice from anyone and it's easy to see why the opinions of his 
fellow TC members might be influential.

I must confess that I neglected to re-read the portion of the guidelines 
that says that in the case of questionable proposals the co-ordinator 
should err on the side of inclusion. Perhaps if you had been alerted to 
the discussion in time to raise this point then the outcome might have 
been different. Nevertheless, given that each step in the consultation 
process consumed another 12 hours following a deadline that had already 
passed before the process began, I think Rico handled it as well as 
anyone could have.


My understanding (which may be wrong because it all seems to have gone 
down within a day that I happened to be on vacation) of how we got into 
that state to begin with is that after Tony did a ton of work figuring 
out how to get a local name beginning with U, collected a bunch of names 
+ feedback, and was basically ready to start the poll, the Foundation 
implied that they would veto all of the names on the grounds that their 
China expert didn't feel that using the GR transliteration would be 
appropriate because of reasons. Those reasons conflicted with the 
interpretation of the China expert that Tony consulted and with all 
available information published in English, and honestly I wish somebody 
had pushed back on them, but at a certain point there's probably nothing 
else you can do but expand the geographic region, delay the poll, and 
start again. Which the TC did. And of course this had the knock-on 
effect of requiring someone to decide whether certain incandescently-hot 
potato options should be omitted from the poll.

They were of course, and I know you think that's the wrong call but I 
disagree.

IIRC the current process was put in place after the Lemming debacle, on 
the principle that in future the community should be allowed to have our 
fun and vote for Lemming (or not), and if the Foundation marketing want 
to veto that after the fact then fine, but don't let them take away our 
fun before the fact. I agree with that so far as it goes. (Full 
disclosure: I would have voted for Lemming.)

However, it's just not the case that having a culturally-insensitive 
choice win the poll, or just do well in the poll, or even appear in the 
poll, cannot damage the community so long as marketing later rejects it. 
Nor does a public airing of dirty laundry seem conducive to _reducing_ 
the problem. This seems to be an issue that was not contemplated when 
the process was set down. (As if to prove the point, this very thing 
happened the very first time that the new process was used!)

And quite frankly, it's not the responsibility of random people on the 
internet (the poll is open to anyone) to research the cultural 
sensitivity of all of the options. This is exactly the kind of reason we 
have representative governance.

I agree that it's a problem that the TC has a written policy of 
abdicating this responsibility, and we have (mercifully) not followed 
it. We should change the policy if we don't believe in it.


You wrote elsewhere in this thread that all of the delays and handoffs 
were due to nobody caring. I think this is completely wrong. The delays 
were due to people caring *a lot* under difficult circumstances 
(beginning with the fact that the official transliteration of local 
place names does not contain any syllables starting with U). Taking the 
Summit to Shanghai is a massive exercise and a huge opportunity to 
listen to the developer community there and find ways to engage with 
them better in the future, and nobody wants to waste that opportunity by 
alienating people unnecessarily.

cheers,
Zane.