New roles in the Ubuntu IRC team

[Melissa Draper]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Juha Siltala <topyli at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:57, Melissa Draper <melissa at meldraweb.com> wrote:
>
>> If we need to have appointed representatives to ensure that topical
>> issues get heard, then there is something wrong with the IRCC itself.
>> Indeed, we have already had people taking responsibility for promoting
>> certain issues to the IRCC and attempting to ensure the following up
>> of said issues, self appointed champions of a cause so to speak.
>> They've come away disappointed.
>
> There is indeed something wrong with the IRCC, both generally as an
> institution, and with the current IRCC in particular. This is evident
> from the simple fact that stuff gets left undone or gets done very
> slowly (and by a precious few people).
>
> This proposal is an attempt to fix the former, institutional problem
> which will remain regardless of the composition of the Council if we
> do nothing. The upcoming elections might fix the latter by installing
> a better set of councillors, unless people are too afraid to run for
> such stressful positions (again, assuming we do nothing now).

My point is that I'm not in any way convinced that this is going to
fix the institutional problem that exists at all, and on the contrary
I believe it will make the institution more tedious to deal with.

> I'd like to see other, positive suggestions if this one seems
> insufficient. "No" alone is not a very constructive approach,essentially

I'm pretty sure I used more than 2 letters in my response.

I explained my concerns with the proposal and indicated what I think
ought to be done instead.

My Concern: The proposal adds another layer of bureaucracy which is
likely to further alienate people. It should not be necessary to
appoint spokespeople for the IRCC to listen to the Ops.

My Alternative Suggestion: Change the IRCC itself.

> especially as you don't seem to have any concrete worries about this
> suggestion doing any harm either. Your greatest fear seems to be
> "nothing will get done in the future either."

Actually this is not my greatest "fear". My concern is that it's
adding another layer of bureaucracy which people will need to
navigate.

Before:

Op has thoughts/concerns -> op raises thoughts/concerns with Entire
IRC Team/IRCC.

After:

Op has thoughts/concerns -> op raises thoughts/concerns with
"champion" -> champion essentially decides whether the issue is taken
to The Entire Team/IRCC

I see this as being quite problematic because the potential is there
for perfectly valid concerns and ideas to never make it to The Entire
Team's attention unless the originating Op has exceptional self esteem
to circumvent the "champion" position altogether, in which case,
what's the point of it? Even if it doesn't get to that point, I feel
it is also problematic because it takes the voice away from the
originator of an idea and places it in the hands of someone who does
not have the same motivation for it.

>> We should be listening to all our operators input, not just the ones
>> who are appointed to special roles.
>
> Indeed this is the case presently, and will be the case in the future.
> How does this suggestion make things any worse? The proposal is not
> "let's stop listening to all but a handful of ops." It's "let's
> improve our chances of hearing eveyone."

If it's the case presently that all ops are listened to, then why is
it being proposed to create special spokesperson roles? How exactly
how would spokespeople make everyone get heard more?

The only change I see coming from this is that it creates a leaky pipe
situation and consequently the IRCC gets out of dealing with stuff,
which is really not an admirable goal.

> --
> Juha Siltala
> http://ubuntu.com
>