Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Some Feedback From an OpenACS Newbie

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Posted by Tom Jackson on

Closing the thread was, IMHO, a tiny mistake. I want to stick out my neck again and speculate as to the cause: irc narcosis. Yes that is right, or call it email narcosis if you want. I believe that there is general consensus at OpenACS.org that discussion is supposed to happen on the forums so that decisions that are made have a history behind them.

There are a series of recent sitings of irc narcosis. A few months ago, the tagline for OpenACS.org was changing by the hour based mostly on discussions taking place on #openacs. Several times, in bug tracker and on the forums, discussions were included by reference from #openacs. This is kind of like saying "While you were away...", or "We already talked about that...". But the result is a tiny fraction of the OpenACS community convinces themselves that a consensus decision has been made and acts, or just assumes everyone else agrees with them.

I'm not talking here about the OCT which had some kind of quick meeting to discuss the issue. Where else were they supposed to get this done? The proper place was probably on the closed thread. That is kind of like requiring them to meet in a room where the electricity is off to discuss getting the electricity back on. The OCT was elected by the community, so they do in fact represent the community view. The TIP process clearly wasn't designed for this type of issue, but I believe that the OCT definitely was the responsible body for handling the matter. Handling it quickly, actually before any of the participants had a chance to notice, was more important than the exact process involved.