[Python-ideas] A bit meta

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Steven D'Aprano writes:

 > > I don't think treating language design as a participatory democracy
 > > would be a good idea, even if it were practical.

Fred Brooks (The Mythical Man-Month, "The Surgical Team") agreed with
you 40 years ago.  In fact he argued that dictatorship was best for
software systems in general.

 > > Ah, "like" buttons. The way to feel good about yourself for
 > > participating without actually participating :-)

Guido van Rossum[1] responds:

 > And I think it will be easier for new folks to participate than the
 > current mailing list (where if you don't sign up for it you're
 > likely to miss most replies, while if you do sign up, you'll be
 > inundated with traffic -- not everybody is a wizard at managing
 > high volume mailing list traffic).

But as you'll recall Antoine not so long ago no-mail'ed python-ideas
and possibly python-dev because of the volume of participation by
people whose comments were unlikely in the extreme to have any effect
on the decision being discussed.[2]  I don't know how many other core
developers have taken that course, but there certainly was a lot of
sympathy for Antoine -- and IMO justifiably so.  Noblesse oblige can
go only so far, and in the face of "like" buttons....

I agree that reputation systems are very interesting, but in the case
of design channels that need (in the sense Steven described well) to
be dominated by an "elite", I suspect they could make it very hard to
achieve promotion to "elite" status as quickly as python-dev often
does.  I consider the openness of Python core to potential new
members[3] to be a distinguishing characteristic of this community.
It would be unfortunate if potential were obscured by initial low
reputation.

On the other hand, one attribute that you have mentioned (the ease of
finding issues) has a useful effect.  To the extent that StackExchange
makes traffic management easy (specifically filtering, threading, and
linking), it might encourage users to follow links to other threads
where relevant discussion is posted.  In the thread where Antoine
spoke up, the fact that the discussion that led to the main decision
was on python-committers almost certainly had a lot to do with the
fact that most of the posts were unaware that the main decision was
final, and of the reasons for and against the decision that had
already been discussed.  And those reasons were rehashed endlessly!  A
forum that encourages retrieval of previous discussion before posting
would make a big difference, I suspect.  Eg, one with a check box "I
have read and understood the discussions cited and I still want to
post"[4] for comment entry and a "No! He didn't do his homework!"
button next to the posted comment.<wink/>

But an experiment, eg, with core-mentorship or a SIG, would be good.
As Ben says, designing systems involving people is *hard*, and you
frequently see unintended effects.  Unfortunately, those effects are
perverse far more often than not.[5]

Footnotes: 
[1]  The juxtaposition of Guido's words with Steven's is intentional,
though no insult is intended to either.

[2]  I'm sorry about the wording, but I don't have a better one.
Python channels do not ignore *people*.  However, new participants are
more like to make comments that will have no effect, and thus their
comments are likely to be ignored or dismissed with a stock response.
Especially if to the experienced eye the comment has already been
responded to fully in the same thread.

[3]  Every core wants new members who can fit right in.  What makes
Python different from the typical project is effective mentoring of
those with mere potential.

[4]  Like the old Usenet newsreaders used to.

[5]  Which is why my field is justifiably known as "The Dismal Science."