Re: Team Charter

On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 01:12:49AM -0600, Colin Snover wrote:
> I think this is a good idea. I have found on other projects that a short
> document describing goals and expectations, which gets revised from time
> to time, can do a lot to promote mutual understanding and give
> transparency and confidence around the “why”s and “how”s of everything.
> I hope I can provide useful feedback and that we can all come up with
> something great together.

Thanks for taking the time to reply :)

> If I understand correctly what you are trying to do here, I think it is
> important to communicate up front that making a bunch of changes is not
> the goal here. Instead, the goal is simply to get an open conversation
> going so we can actually figure these things out together and write them
> down. Is this correct?

Exactly, I would like everyone to participate so that everyone can be heard.

> One thing I noticed is that the quoted email from Max seems to speak
> more about a code of conduct than a direction.

Yes it was only meant as a starting point for the conversation.
This is one of those things that can't be based on a single (former) member.

> I think having guidelines
> like these can be really valuable, and, based on the lack of response so
> far (and my own feelings), I wonder if this is too big and overwhelming
> to start with.

Yes I was mildly surprised that there was no response.
My first thought was that people didn't have time or are not reading -devel.
The other thread getting traction made this less likely the case.

My next thought was that maybe people don't think it is safe to do so.
A handful of people have privately expressed that they withhold their thoughts
and opinions from -devel and #scummvm because they don't want to start any
drama. I figured starting with a code of conduct would increase the safety.

> Could you clarify what kind of specific feedback are you
> looking for here, and when you would like it by? I also have a
> suggestion for a place to start which may be more tractable, if you are
> interested.

I am looking for general thoughts about the idea itself
e.g. "This is a good idea, here are my suggestions ..."
  or "This is a bad idea because [reasons]"
  or "Here's what I think about [concept]"

I am also looking for review of the actual points. Some of them might have been
relevant back when Max wrote them. We are now almost 7 years later. Things may
have changed, invalidating some of it. I am also looking for new ideas.
e.g. "We should think twice before we post to -devel becasue [reasons]"
  or "We should only do code reviews in situations where ..."
  or "It is totally ok nowadays to [one of the listed bad behaviors] becasue [reasons]"
  or "We also should explicitly mention [unlisted idea]"

> It would also be helpful for me if you have some examples of these sorts
> of documents from other OSS projects which you feel are particularly
> eloquent or useful in guiding this discussion. I would be interested in
> seeing what others come up with too, if they know of any.

This isn't inspired by other OSS projects, so I don't have any handy.
This is solely based on my observations about team communication and behavior.

Thanks,
Tarek

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