On Feb 16, 2014 4:01 PM, "Steven Walling" steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Greg Grossmeier greg@wikimedia.org
wrote:
See also: The general rule among many engineering departments at WMF is "If it didn't happen on the list (or somewhere similarly public and indexable) it didn't happen."
Wikitech is great for discussing things with a wider audience especially where we need to seek opinions of developers outside the staff. But most decisions people make are documented on a wiki, Bugzilla, and/or their preferred project management tool. A mailing list is quite bad at reaching a consensus decision on something, as evidenced by the fact that we hold RFCs on a wiki, and not here.
No one is suggesting that we should make all decisions via teleconferencing.
And I'm not saying the opposite. I'm just referring to the communication of those decisions (see subject ;)). The end reasoning and decision part (at least).
Tangentially, I very much disagree with the sentiment that email = bad for group discussion. There are so many counter examples where it is good for discussion, and notably in technical discussions where details/quoting is important.
End rant :)
Greg (from phone)