[Overload-sig] Experimenting on real-world groups with potential solutions

[Kevin Ollivier]

On 6/26/16, 10:55 AM, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:





>Kevin Ollivier writes:
>
> > Yes, but all of that served no purpose if they were debating a fix
> > to a problem that we haven't even proved exists, much less is being
> > experienced in the wild.
>
>None of the protagonists questioned that both problems (a security
>problem and a performance problem, depending on whether the 3.4
>behavior or the 3.5.1 behavior is adopted) exist.  The entire
>discussion revolved around which problem should be fixed in 3.5.2.  So
>as far as I can see, your analysis that there was no problem has no
>bearing on the social dynamics, even if you are correct -- everybody
>else believed otherwise throughout the thread.

Yes, but we all believe incorrect things all the time, a fair amount of it intuitively and unconsciously. The fact that a whole group of people might do it is not evidence of its correctness. 

Facts and data help us sanity check ourselves and keep us from letting unchecked assumptions take us down rabbit holes. I don't see the problem with asking a project to rely more on hard data.

Thanks,

Kevin 

>Steve
>