[maemo-community] Brainstorm: useful?

Tue Dec 15 12:36:23 EET 2009

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:16, Quim Gil <quim.gil at nokia.com> wrote:
> ext Andrew Flegg wrote:
>>> Similarly, there's no chance of persuasion and debate. Mailing lists
>>> are a much more powerful tool, IMHO.
>
> A mailing list can be a powerful to brainstorm about one topic. How much
> an you scale before it collapses, though?

I find it hard to believe that an unthreaded forum can better scale, though.

> Currently the Brainstorm forum has [...]
>
> Threads: 107 | Posts: 1,463
>
> Yes, there are mailing lists that can afford such traffic and much more,
> there are good filtering tactics, and etc. All this tends to a setting
> where a very engaged and qualified minority can handle well the process,
> leaving all the rest outside.

OK, there is a *perceived* higher barrier to entry for a mailing list;
but vBulletin doesn't allow sub-threads, for example. Isn't an engaged
and QUALIFIED minority better than a vocal, superficial, unqualified
public?

Anyway, even Talk would be better than Brainstorm. My problem is that
trying to brainstorm for an undefined period of time, presenting some
half-baked solutions for voting on and then splitting the votes
because the solutions aren't orthogonal isn't going to produce a good
outcome. Unless whomever implements the solution takes Brainstorm as
"guidance". But it's pitched as a community solution provider, not a
community's way for everyone to have a say which then feeds into the
people who actually know what they're talking about.

> I believe brainstorm (even without the Talk discussion) help
> summarizing, where we are. You can forget about a proposal, go back in 3
> months and still get a quick idea of where are we more or less.

Yes, because in 3 months a submission may have a few more solutions;
old ones won't have expired; the votes will be split. It's easy to get
a quick idea of where we are because *nothing will have changed*!

> Instead, if an intense debate in a mailing list goes quiet for 3
> months... good luck with the recovery. You rely on people's memories or
> on your own time going through the thread again.

Indeed. This is where the council's leadership in facilitating and
chairing the discussion can be useful.

> For instance: is it clear for everybody what should we do to improve
> the QA process? Immediate actions for Niels, for instance?

When Niels returned from holiday, Valerio started talking to him about
the actions following the QA meeting on IRC and discussion on the
mailing list.

Mailing list and forum discussions require leadership. I think trying
to crowd-source *practical* solutions through a crude voting mechanism
is doomed to failure. The lack of success stories is understandable if
the features aren't complete yet, so two specific questions:

  * What are the missing features and when will they be complete?
  * Are there success stories from other community's brainstorms? I believe
    we were inspired by Ubuntu's?
  * Is it wise to push so many people with ideas to Brainstorm if it's
    a) not complete and b) we haven't had proof it works?

The last question is a little cheeky, I know; and I'm all for trying
new technologies. However, part of experimentation is re-assessment
and evaluation. I'm just not seeing the value of Brainstorm in
delivering concrete solutions: it's wonderful for getting woolly
enhancement requests like "make it better" out of Bugzilla, I'll grant
you; but so is /dev/null. If, there are people I trust (like you Quim,
the maemo.org gang-of-six[1], the council) who believe that it WILL
deliver concrete solutions, or that I'm panicking needlessly, I'm
happy to believe you :-)

Cheers,

Andrew

[1] Dave, Andre, Niels, Jeremiah, Carsten and Reggie. It's grown quickly :-)

-- 
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew at bleb.org  |  http://www.bleb.org/