Size vs. Organization

According to Russ Allbery:
> Chip Salzenberg <[email protected]> writes:
> > We can't afford the social impact of a group growing beyond the
> > point where peer pressure is effective.
> 
> I haven't seen many problems that strike me as problems of size;
> most of the problems that I've seen have been problems of
> personality clash, and those are always going to be with us
> regardless of the size of the development group.

You may be right about that.  Perhaps size doesn't matter.  [hhos]

Maybe the 'fights vs. productivity' conflict is less about scale than
it is about modularity (which we need more of) and coupling (which we
need less of).  With everyone in a single virtual room, one argument
caused by one personality conflict disrupts *everyone's* activity for
the duration.  If more work went on elsewhere, the effects of a given
blowup would be reduced.

> The point about the pumpking having to read everything is well-taken,
> though.  That strikes me, at least in part, as more of a problem of lack
> of delegation than a problem of scale of the mailing list.  If you had two
> or three people who volunteered to read through p5p and collect things
> that needed pumpking attention, wouldn't that solve that problem?

Aha!  The first job arises for the not-yet-hired Pumpking Support
Staff!  I knew that the pumpkings would need a Support Staff -- in
fact, have needed for some time; I need a staff even when I'm not
pumpking, but that's a separate rant -- but I didn't have a good list
of jobs for them to do.  Your suggestion makes a good start.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg              - a.k.a. -              <[email protected]>
"I wanted to play hopscotch with the impenetrable mystery of existence,
    but he stepped in a wormhole and had to go in early."  // MST3K