Resolving conflict in technical debates in an ideal world

[James Westby]

[Sorry, I accidentally sent the mail before it was finished]

On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 12:00 +0200, Daniel Holbach wrote:
> I'm not suggesting that we move away from mailing list discussions or
> bug reports, but that in cases where we're deadlocked, we try other,
> more direct, forms of communication.

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for bringing up the topic, it's an interesting and important one
to discuss.

I have seen several times proposals to use wikis for these sorts of
debates. Each side creates a page outlining there arguments, and then
they can be discussed, possibly going through several iterations of
updating the pages.

I think the idea is to allow each side to explain their position
without having to phrase each post in direct opposition to something
someone else says. Also, explaining your point in a wiki page, rather
than trying to squeeze it in to a mailing list post can give you more
time to think about it and mean that you may be able to make your point
more convincingly.

I'm not sure how it would work in a case such as the current one,
where there aren't so much two conflicting proposals, but a single
proposal and opponents of it (to my reading).

Does anyone have any experience with using wikis for conflict 
resolution?

Thanks,

James