Re: HERESY: *ONE* mailing list

At 09:41 AM 7/26/00 +0900, Simon Cozens wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 25, 2000 at 08:35:04PM -0400, Adam Turoff wrote:
> > The one idea that I left the p5p meeting with is that we need *more*
> > responsibility, *more* chairpeople/pumpkings and *more* direction.
>
>You cannot manufacture order out of chaos by adding managers. :)

I'll disagree. The whole point of managing *is* to manufacture order out of 
chaos. When the number of people needing direction exceeds the capabilities 
of the folks giving direction, you get chaos. Adding more managers can, in 
some circumstances, get and keep things orderly by fostering the bits of 
order that always arise in a group, as well as encourage order in and of 
themselves.

This does assume *real* managers, not the Dilbertesque PHB type that seem 
to be all over the place. (Something I'm blissfully free of at the moment. 
Nyah! :)

> > In this manner, p6p can exist much like p5p, with a chosen few watching
> > the list slightly more closely than everyone else to make sure all
> > important concerns behind Perl6 are met.
> >
> > Of course, this doesn't rule out mjd's idea of small mailing lists
> > that are created quickly and disbanded quickly.  Such rapid evolution
> > would aid the creation of an RFC or two, with the mailing list timed
> > to die when the RFC was released/accepted.
>
>*nodnod*. This is kinda like the idea I floated a few days ago, with
>groups spinning off the debate the real technical end of an area, then
>throwing back summaries and picking up comments from the main list.
>It's vaguely how Linux works.

I'd still split it into several main lists--language design is mostly 
separate from embedding API design, which is mostly separate from 
PR/advocacy issues, which is mostly separate from QA things. Not 
independent, mind, but separate, and deserving of separate lists for the 
most part, with overlap where warranted. I do like the summary concept--the 
targeted lists should do summaries to their overview list, which should do 
summaries to a master list.

Whether this is feasable is another issue entirely. Arguably it's not, 
especially on a mostly volunteer effort like this. In which case the master 
list with targeted sublists is probably the best alternative, though it 
does mean folks will actively have to hold their tongues on the master 
list, otherwise we'll end up with another p5p. (Which, while not a problem 
for some people, is an amazing pain for others)

					Dan

--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
[email protected]                         have teddy bears and even
                                      teddy bears get drunk