[ubuntu-art] Re: LAST CALL: Art Council Applications 3/3

[Matthew East]

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Hi there,

* Troy James Sobotka:

{snip}

> The Art Council will become an extremely important
> are of the Ubuntu project, so I would encourage everyone
> and anyone who has interest to apply.

{snip}

> PS:  A brief set of questions and answers can be found
> here:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006-July/002422.html

I saw this on the above link and wanted to raise something.

 * What will a member of the "Art Council" be
   responsible for?
   - Recognition of substantial contributors with
     membership in Ubuntu.

I have to say that I think the idea of an "Art Council" for decision
making about art in the distribution is quite a good idea (assuming that
the team finds it difficult to come to a consensus on some questions),
but I have a couple of concerns. I should say that I'm not a member of
the art team, but rather just an Ubuntu contributor who has an interest
in the community in general. So what I say is not necessarily based on
an understanding of the art team, but rather experience with the Ubuntu
community in general.

I think that delegating the task of approving "Ubuntu membership" to a
particular team is something that we should approach with caution. I
think that in the case of core developers, delegating is a good idea
because sometimes people end up waiting for too long before being
approved. However when it comes to individual teams, I think we should
be very careful about this. It seems to me that there are two potential
issues. The first and most important is that the community is getting
larger now, and it is really important to ensure that different groups
within the community know what contributions are going on in different
areas. Having the Community Council approve Ubuntu members means that
there is a central place that everyone can go in order to listen to what
contributions are being made, and I think this binds the community
together and helps ensure that everybody who is interested in the
community knows the people who are new and who are doing good work. The
second thing is consistency - the more delegation that goes on for
Ubuntu membership, the more difficult it is to ensure that the same
standards apply to everyone.

It seems to me that a representative "council" can be a good thing for
the art team because art decisions can sometimes be difficult to come to
a consensus on. However it is important to be careful about designating
the competence of the council: I think that the role of the council
should be limited to what is necessary - where the team struggles to
come to a consensus on an issue, that is a good place for the council to
help. Where the team can take decisions as a whole, it should do so. And
for concepts like Ubuntu membership which affect the wider community,
the Community Council should continue to deal with that.

(my 2 cents)

Matt
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