[FM Discuss] scribn the bazaar

[chris hofmann]

adam hyde wrote:
> cooool.
>
> yes, i think i would be the FM mother-o-saurus if pushed ...hehe...nice
> point :)
>
> your point: 
>   
>> I think the tools for "ownership" should 
>> not be distinct from the tools for "participation"...
>>     
>
> is very salient...ponder ponder...
>
> so...what if x group wants to be exclusive 'in' FM. they build a manual
> and then actively fend off contributors...
>
>   
actively fending off *all* contributors is a bad path.  that should be 
discouraged.  
the big red baseball bat should be used by the benevolant dictator of FM 
to get people out of this mindset.

actively fending off destructive contributors (in the view of the owner) 
might be acceptable.
even then the role of the FM benevolent dictator is to try and get the 
parties to work together to solve differences

if the differences can't be resloved, then the solution is for the 
destructive contributors to fork

Joshua captured it well with

> that ownership and openness can be compatible.  
> (I think we should make the distinction between 
> effective openness, or encouraging productive participation, and 
> destructive openness, or encouraging all participation, here.)

-chofmann
> adam
>
>
> On Tue, 2009-11-17 at 08:53 -0500, Joshua Facemyer wrote:
>   
>> On 11/17/2009 06:25 AM, adam hyde wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sun, 2009-11-15 at 22:10 -0500, Joshua Facemyer wrote:
>>>       
>>  >
>>     
>>>> Right.  That's what makes it a hard question - because ideally anyone
>>>> can contribute, but realistically some contributions/contributors will
>>>> be so poor as to destroy the content (or at least derail it) if not
>>>> closely monitored.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> interesting discussion. i guess i tend to think that there is nothing
>>> lost by trying it open first (as we do for fm now) - keeping the pathway
>>> open for as many contributions as possible - and then raise the
>>> threshold if problems arise (so far I haven't seen any problems arise).
>>>       
>>  >
>>  > one very real issue is that we don't yet really have the tools to  assist
>>  > this 'variable threshold' since fm is built on the premise that
>>  > everything is open.
>>  >
>>  > im trying to imagine the tools that might enable this...anyone have
>>  > thoughts on this? or do we leave this to the culture of the
>>  > maintainer/or book contributors to moderate this socially/culturally...
>>  >
>>
>>
>> My point was that it *should* be open - that ownership and openness can 
>> be compatible.  (I think we should make the distinction between 
>> effective openness, or encouraging productive participation, and 
>> destructive openness, or encouraging all participation, here.)  Even a 
>> closely monitored project can be very open.  I think FM does this nicely 
>> in many ways (not that things might not be done better - no implications :).
>>
>> For example, Adam, you've got a specific set of ideals that you want FM 
>> to be, and it's important for the main contributors to participate in 
>> those ideals.  If this weren't the case, and you let anyone do whatever 
>> they wanted willy-nilly, FM would cease to be as it was intended to be.
>>
>> Instead, you encourage participation (also without which, incidentally, 
>> FM would cease to be :) but direct the contributors to the original (or 
>> modified) goals that will make FM according to the ideals.  But even in 
>> that formation of ideals and direction, you have left things open for 
>> discussion/change/improvement.  I suspect, however, if someone hijacked 
>> FM for a different purpose, you'd defend her like a mother FM-o-saurus. 
>>   Or at least you'd try to persuade the hijacker to stop doing bad things.
>>
>> So, to bring the point to it's conclusion, FM's ideals are both quality 
>> and open participation (both which should inspire the other), and we've 
>> already got a good start.
>>
>> Jumping off from that point, I think the tools for "ownership" should 
>> not be distinct from the tools for "participation", and there should be 
>> both social/cultural tools *and* technical tools for these ends.  Of 
>> course, the technical tools are mainly in question here, though the 
>> discussion can't realistically separate them from each other.
>>
>> Personally, I'd like to see (in some form or another):
>>
>> Statuses/privileges for users (this doesn't have to be much of a 
>> hierarchical thing, just some basic things like the ability to publish, 
>> revert changes, etc, for those who are more involved with a manual.  And 
>> an override/impeachment process by contributor vote could be built in, 
>> if necessary, though ideally there would need be no such thing.)
>>
>> Task lists that are tied to chapters/manuals and are assignable.  An 
>> aggregation of all pages' tasks for the manual would be nice too.
>>
>> Better versioning control for easily seeing changes, comparing and 
>> possibly reverting.
>>
>> Community discussion pages that can be used to help organize, possibly 
>> integrated with a wiki-type documentation structure/markup?
>>
>> I know some of these things are in the works and have been discussed. 
>> I'm just working things out for the discussion...my temporary conclusion 
>> being that we may not need much more than what is already going to 
>> happen.  I guess, overall, the idea of maintainers is important, and 
>> giving them tools to easily do the things they need to make sure a 
>> manual stays on track - both by encouraging participation and seeing 
>> that the changes that are made improve quality.
>>
>> JF
>>     
>
>
>