[Inpycon] Decision making / Consensus building process. Was Re: Necessity of foreign delegates.

[Noufal Ibrahim]

On Tue, Feb 22 2011, Dhananjay Nene wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Anand Balachandran Pillai

[...]

>>  When I said "uncalled for", this is what I meant. The issue could
>>  have been thrashed out between some of us privately by an
>>  email to a few or a phone call before splashing it widely to the list.
>>  I didn't mean that we shouldn't discuss these things. If I gave
>>  off such a nuance, please excuse me.
>
> I am getting extremely conflicting signals. I am confused.

I'm not exactly clear about Anand's point of view. It's best he
clarifies. 

My own personal stand is that everything should be publicly
discussed. The only exception is for tasks allocated to specific
individuals (e.g. "Anand, can you fix the email thing on the website")
which are not relevant to the general public.

I don't like the idea of privately thrashing out something *before*
putting it on the list. If there seems to be too much fluff on the list,
I'm for having a private, more focussed discussion but that's the second
option. Not the first. We had one or two face to face meetings for the
last two conferences (which was open and announced on the list -
i.e. anyone could attend) and they did help but most of the stuff was on
the list.

>>  I think some of us in this list deserve such a treatment considering
>>  the effort we have taken in organizing many aspects of this
>> conference  last year. As stake holders in IPSS and Inpycon and as 
>> some of the  pioneers and early leaders in this forum and the
>> conference, we deserve  and expect it.
>
> A courtesy many including myself will only be too happy to extend,
> provided we believe this is preferred way of doing things.

Again, speaking for myself, I don't expect (or for that matter want) any
preferential treatment.

Flames, disagreements (sometimes brash ones), helpful people, annoying
people, trolls, time wasters are all fine by me. I'm going to be vocal
about my points of view and my opinions on the work done by others and I
don't mind people being vocal about me either.

Equal treatment is fine as long as the people asking for it understand
that it involves responsibilities and if they don't put up, they're
going to get called out. 


>> I am sorry to say it out loud in this list, but considering
>>  the volume of opinionated emails from those who lend more out
>>  of their vocal cords and typing fingers rather than lending a hand
>>  or a leg on the ground, I felt I had to say it.
>
> Unclear where this is directed. But again, I thought thats a part and
> parcel of the way things get done.

Yup. There's going to be lots of armchair philosophers, consultants,
oracles and others. I *specifically* mentioned this in my "Road to PyCon
India" talk
(http://in.pycon.org/2010/static/files/talks/9/road-to-pycon-india.pdf -
slide 14). 

My general approach is to ignore these people rather than to give them
any oxygen of respectability. If however, they start to drag genuine
volunteers into the ground, it's a good idea to boot them
off. 

> I think it is important to bring this out in the open. Anand, what you
> refer to here is exactly the way I am used to the most historically -
> if I may give that a name, the quiet diplomacy approach. At the same
> time, I am led to believe that the preferred approach is to really
> bring out all the issues in the open and thrash them in the open - the
> loya jirga way. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loya_jirga). There is an
> obvious tradeoff between these approaches not limited to how they
> influence noise, transparency, involvement etc.
>
> Add to that the complete amorphousness of decision making structures.
> While there is transparency, there does remain a lot of ambiguousness
> since there is no specific team in charge of decision making,
> something I am adapting to though have never had to deal with this
> degree of amorphousness ever before.
>
> So my simple question is -> How do we want to handle it going forward.

Your call. 

Speaking for myself, I don't like private discussions and cabals of
decision makes that command a workforce. It does make things "smooth"
but in a corporate, office like way and one of the reasons I hang out on
fora like this is because it's not like that.

You have final say in all matters and have freedom to delegate anything
to anyone you see fit. Sometimes, you'll have to make summary decisions
that might not be the best but which are necessary to make the
conference happen rather than to get it "perfect". 

If you feel it better to have a small group that makes decisions (after
or before a public decision) fine. If you feel that it's better to throw
all things out into the open and then wait for things to converge before
making a decision, that's fine too. 

That's my take. 


[...]


-- 
~noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in