[ruby-talk:6500] Re: about proposals and organisation. Was "Batteries Included" Distribution

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000  21:37:15 +0900, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:
> > META: This thread discusses something orthogonal to Conrad's post.
> > 
> > > First, a little introductory background 
> > > (http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/fellowsd-bin/TIP/):
> 	[...]
> > > # TIP stands for Tcl Improvement Proposal. A TIP is a design document
> > 
> > Now this is something I'd really like to see for Ruby (e.g. RAP / Ruby
> > Augmentation Proposals, analogue to RRFC / Ruby Request for Comments).
> > 
> Do you mean have both of these?  
> If so, how are they to differ?

I didn't mean to say that. A formalised RAP mechanism would probably
supercede RRFC's.

> > This solution begs another question (of course): how are we going to
> > setup responsibilities? There's always Matz as our benevolent dictator
> 
> I'd see him as having final say, as well as any input he likes along the 
> way of course.

Agreed.

> > (Linus:kernel ~ Matz:Ruby), but do we need/want an organisational
> > structure (like Debian? voting?) to handle these things? We might want
> 
> I don't know debian structure.  I would not simplify this to a vote --
> I'd suggest a process of peer review like the way science should work.
> (OK, science can get very political, but so can any system).  The
> difference between voting and peer review is "positions supported by
> reasoning".  At least, that's what I'm thinking here.  This seems to
> be the way internet standards are created as well, AFAICS.

Peer review is good, I'd be the last to argue with that. I even think
the current list-culture approaches it. The voting bit is more related
to organisational issues, sorry for mixing these up.

So, we need a way to build a more structured persistent collective
memory and a means to facilitate its use.

> Would RWiki help with such a procedure?  I've not used it yet, but it
> would help in logging decisions made, provided the decision structure is
> not drowned in the discussion.

A WikiWeb would be great (and needs some kind of organisation too).
Like c2.org, you'll see threaded discussions, followed by refactoring
cycles. I'd propose that the originator takes on the responsibility of
refactoring his/her RAP page.  (rampage? ;)

A problem with a WikiWeb is the extra channel. How do we synch up the
mailing list discussions with the Wiki pages? E.g., have our usual
talks over here and promote something into the WikiWeb at a certain
moment. I'm not sure about that either, as it could hamper discussions
at the WikiWeb... Phew.

	Michel