[Foundation-l] Changes to the identification policies and procedures

[Austin Hair]

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> From: Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com>
>> Demanding  answers on Foundation-l is a lot different than the news about an
>> upcoming  change trickling out into the community prior to an official
>> announcement.  The latter does no harm. The former can derail a productive
>> discussion about  a delicate issue before it's ready for public comment.
>
> I could not disagree more strongly. The thing that derails productive
> discussions and inflames delicate issues is gossip trickling about variably and
> the distortions that are inevitable when third hand information is being
> repeated. Not an open discussion on Foundation-l. If it at all seems otherwise,
> it is only because the more common practice among Wikimedians is to only bring
> discussions to Foundation-l *after* they have been well-worked over by the
> gossip network.  I take issue with the implication that you would not object to
> someone spreading this news over IRC, but find it objectionable to it being
> spread here.

Personally, I can't say that I care much about new OTRS
requirements—WMF obviously has all the information it could possibly
want from me, and what's apparently being proposed doesn't offend me
in the slightest.

I have to say, though, that Birgitte put this very well. Favoring
gossip over straight answers doesn't sit well with me, even if it
works better for the staff schedule.

And yes, others have been right to point out that while otrs-en-l may
be the de facto list for OTRS discussion, it's still limited to the
info-en crowd and not really a fair forum for policy decisions.

Speaking only for myself,

Austin