Re: "unofficial GOP proposal" organization of GLISS discussions

[Graham Percival]

On Sat, Oct 06, 2012 at 02:43:48PM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> Marc Hohl <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Am 05.10.2012 18:34, schrieb Janek Warchoł:
> >
> >> i find it hard to keep up with our GLISS discussions.  I've also
> >> heard that the amount of technical details, digressions and
> >> "multithreadedness" stops some people from participating, as they
> >> don't have enough time to read long conversations carefully.
> 
> I would want to venture the opinion that there is no substitute for
> reading a conversation before putting forward an opinion.

That's why I organized GOP the way I did.  Important proposals are
specially marked; the matter is summarized and relevant history is
given.  I do not assume that the reader has read anything other
than the proposal (they occasionally may include links to
particularly relevant emails).  This is vital for a team of people
as "sparse" (in terms of available time) as lilypond.

A general development mailing list will not have everybody reading
everything.

> >> On the other hand, if we discuss our *problems*, syntax experts can
> >> just answer "it would be reasonable to solve it this or that way" -
> >> and voila! less frustration.
> 
> I don't see the point in discussing discussing all too much.  It spends
> time and does not really lead anywhere.

I agree that unstructured discussions are a disaster for
productive work.  I think the development list should only contain
structured discussions on concrete proposals; it's too easy for
people fall into a trap of thinking that talking about lilypond is
the same thing as working on lilypond.

Unfortunately some people wanted to keep [talk] messages on -devel
instead of sending them elsewhere, so we're in this predictable
state.

- Graham