also sprach Allison Randal <alli...@lohutok.net> [2015-10-21 09:16 +1300]: > I'm good with that description from 2011. No idea how we ended up > where we are today from that point, it was so sane and sensible.
IIRC: The 2011 delegation stems from efforts to help make DebConf recognised as an official Debian event, hence integrating it into the Debian chain-of-commands. You'd have to ask Zack for detailed background. Zack's delegation was succinct and wise. However, even though it didn't give explicit decision-override or veto powers, it made three people responsible towards the project, which had much the same effect as giving them more weight in decisions than others. Since then, we've seen a spectrum of problems, from the team unable to make decision constantly deferring to the chairs and burning them out, to there being a divide between chairs and some of the team, bringing focus to the powers attributed by the more explicit delegation put forth by Lucas. The chairs have resigned, but things are fortunately moving along smoothly *knock on wood*. If they weren't, we'd stall. The DPL might be able to arbitrate an issue or two, but that wouldn't be sustainable — dc-orga isn't something s/he can consistently make good decisions about without getting much more closely involved. In the past few weeks, Debian's CTTE has been quoted in the context of dc-orga sundry times. The Debian Constitution explicitly gives the CTTE arbitration powers, not the DPL. Why should it be any different in DebConf? (Except that DebConf decisions are hardly ever of technical nature…) The second proposal in Daniel's mail¹ leaves the protection of the Debian reputation in the hands of the trademark team, who wouldn't need to clear every decision as long as what we're doing helps Debian, and this should be the default assumption with a motivated team. A body similar to the CTTE ensures emergency decision-making, and a checkpoint is put in place to ensure that the money we collect from our sponsors towards DebConf is used to carefully to organise a conference (a) in DebConf spirit and (b) fulfilling external promises and contracts. ¹) https://titanpad.com/DC16-draft-delegation-proposal-alternative One benefit of this proposal is that the only thing we need now is to appoint the DC17 committee (which we have to do anyway). We can otherwise fully focus on DC16, rather than more meta-orga discussions. Another benefit of the committee as proposed is that it's elected by the team for every DebConf anew, rather than installed top-down by the DPL, which is something many people took an issue with in the past. Having been elected for a given conference, the committee furthermore has interests align, as they don't want to be called in to arbitrate decisions all the time. Therefore, they'll be motivated to try hard to decide on a proposal by a team they deem respectful of Debian's reputation, and capable of working with the everyone else towards the conference. A respectful ambience in the team will mean that plenty people will stick around to offer advice and oversight, without throwing new people into bureaucratic swamps or getting too hung up in procedures otherwise. In closing, I think creating a new delegation or reinstating an older one isn't going to make the problems go away that caused us to get to where we currently stand. Instead of a top-down perspective on DebConf orga, we should embrace a lean organisation, and trust and enable people to help Debian through their work. -- .''`. martin f. krafft <madd...@debconf.org> @martinkrafft : :' : DebConf orga team `. `'` `- DebConf16: Cape Town: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16 DebConf17 in your country? https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf17
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