SUMMARY Members of the Perl6 Language list produce summaries discussions of proposed features of the Perl6 language. These summaries will improve the signal to noise ratio for Larry and his lieutenants as they try to keep up with feelings in the list. See http://www.idocs.com/perl6/ for the first example of a summary.
DETAILS With Damian taking a break from the list, I've become concerned that ideas generated in this list will become buried in the volume of messages. If Larry, Damian, and other members of the core team have to read through every bottomless thread just to find out the ideas and opinions of the list members, they may never be able to keep up. Therefore, I propose that members of the language list provide summaries of the discussions in the group. Each summary describes a proposed idea feature of the language, then summarizes the list's feelings on the idea. Different opinions will be presented. The summaries will also attempt to provide a feeling for the weight of opinion, e.g., "most people felt this way", "some people felt differently", etc. The summaries will also link to the original threads so that readers can peruse the raw data. Although these summaries will be necessarily subjective, the authors will attempt to be journalistically objective. The authors will be clearly identified. If the authors participated in the thread, that fact will also be identified. Finally, anybody on the list who chooses may add a note that they concur with the summary (sorta like in science journals where "authors" are simply people who agree). Dissenting opinions (i.e. people who think the summary is innaccurate) might also be presented, but I'd rather just incorporate those opinions into the summary and reach a consensus that the summary correctly summarizes the thread. See http://www.idocs.com/perl6/ for the home page for the summaries and one example summary. -miko Miko O'Sullivan Programmer Analyst Rescue Mission of Roanoke
