[datalad-devel] +0

[Michael Hanke]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 12:02:23PM +0100, Matthias Riße wrote:
> Some things aren't quite clear to me, but also not critical blockers:

Thank you for the thorough reading!

> First:
> 
> > In order to initiate a discussion about a new idea, they should send an
> email to the [development mailing list](../communication) or submit a patch
> implementing the idea to the issue tracker (or version-control system if
> they have commit access).
> 
> I see some overlap between initiating a discussion about a new idea on the
> mailing list, and opening an issue for a new feature on the issue tracker,
> but without immediately making it a PR (something which isn't mentioned in
> that excerpt). Is the mailing list then preferred to propose new features,
> or should the preferred path still be the issue and PR trackers of each
> repository?

I want to put upfront that I am not confident that we would want to be
more specific in the governance docs.

Personally, I would want to see the mailing list to become the central
communication channel. I believe that it is often non-obvious to new
(and even past) contributors, which place would be best to put a
feature. Having the discussion on that happen in a central place and be
archived should be both educational, and efficient. When we are talking
about a new feature for some topical extension package and everything is
clear, then a contribution can go there directly, of course. In this
case no regulation could improve this, hence we should not regulate.

Obviously, if a PR simply pops-up in a repo, nobody would reject it just
because a person did not ask for advice before.

Maybe others can chime in too, whether we want to encourage prior
coordination more strongly.

> Second:
> 
> > The Chair [...] has the casting vote when the project fails to reach
> consensus.
> 
> and:
> 
> > However, in case of a tie between choices in the outcome of a vote, the
> external PMC member is asked to select one of these options as the winner.
> 
> Maybe I am misunderstanding, but to me this sounds like both the chair and
> the external PMC member are tie-breakers, which obviously wouldn't work if
> they disagree on how to break the tie. How is that meant to work?

Thanks for catching that! I agree it makes no sense. From my POV it
should say:

	If there is no external PMC member that can function as a tie
	breaker, the Chair [...] has the casting vote when the project fails
	to reach consensus.

The proposed setup that is subject of this vote has a named external
PMC member. Adding this conditional clause would remove the casting vote
privilege from the PMC chair -- which would be me, if adopted. I can say
that I am OK with this change, and as a proposer of this text, I think
we can go ahead and just make the change.

Best,

Michael


-- 
Michael Hanke
GPG: 4096R/C073D2287FFB9E9B
http://psychoinformatics.de