On 06/11/13 12:57, Erik Moeller wrote:
However, Brion, Tim and Mark are not infinitely scalable, nor are they immortal (except in our hearts). They can’t be in every conversation, know every part of Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem, review every RFC, etc.
Well, we can't be in every conversation, but I think we could probably review every RFC, on some level of detail.
Obviously we can't identify every potential technical issue in every RFC. RFC review should be a process of gathering comments from people with relevant technical expertise, and then making a decision on the basis of the consensus of those experts. Personal judgement should rarely be required.
There is obviously a need for people to drive the process -- and since driving the process is time-consuming, the people who do it will probably have time allocated for the purpose by their managers. This is the reason for the current connection between RFC review and WMF management.
I'm not sure if I'm the ideal person to organise meetings, solicit comments, ensure that action items are completed, etc. It hasn't traditionally been my core competency. But I'm sure that the amount of time required could be met by a very small group of people.
We also have many other deeply talented technical contributors, including some who have many years of experience in our technical context specifically -- not just at WMF. Beyond just making technical decisions, architectural leadership creates opportunities for mentorship, modeling and nurturing the kind of behavior we want to foster in our technical community.
I think the best way to respect technical talent is by consensus decision making -- that is, objections made by actively involved, technically competent participants should be addressed by modification or rejection of the proposal.
Leaders are still needed, to evaluate consensus, and to make a decision as a last resort in the case of intractable conflict. Such leaders should have the respect of the community. An RFA-style process would be one way to ensure that leaders have that respect.
I understand from comments in this thread that an RFA-style process is generally not a popular solution. An alternative is to have WMF carefully choose people to lead the RFC process, taking into account the amount of respect the community is likely to have for them.
-- Tim Starling