[llvm-foundation] Voting

[Renato Golin via llvm-foundation]

On 29 June 2016 at 20:46, Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov> wrote:
> I disagree, and I think this highlights the issue. I suspect that, if we actually took all of the active participants in the LLVM community and forced them to vote (even if that included an option to abstain), we might very well find that we had consensus on the code-of-conduct issues. You can't determine consensus by counting emails on the mailing list, it is just not accurate. There are practical constraints and social disincentives to sending "voting" emails. Some people will send a "+1" on some issues, but many will not. To determine consensus, we need to vote (either directly or via representatives/proxies).

You have exposed the problems in my view, and I accept that. But do
you accept that direct voting, lobbying and campaigning will lead to
fracturing problems, dividing the community just like we see in
Debian, *BSD and others?

The code of conduct was approached twice in the period a year, and
that highlights how people are trying to solve it. I believe that the
second time we had less friction, and I also believe that folks were a
bit more open to my concerns, we had less aggressive and more
constructive responses. The concerns around the language of reporting
were made clearer, and I believe Chandler is aware of why we feel
strongly in that way. I'm confident that, if we keep doing this, we'll
reach consensus.

In this case specifically, "voting" would alienate the minority, which
is *precisely* the opposite of what the code was trying to do.

All in all, the code still wasn't necessary, and I think most would
agree that it won't be for the foreseeable future. All problems that
happened that the code could have helped were dealt with directly and
effectively without it.

Having a code is good, rushing a code, through vote, that *knowingly*
alienates part of the community, is not.


> The other point about voting, which is not to be overlooked, is that Pareto optimal is neither, in general, globally optimal nor strategically wise. This is one reason why leadership is important.

There are many types of leadership, not all of them beneficial. I
again ask you to consider your points in a global setting and
appreciate the falacies it entails, just as much as my views..

So far, our model has worked well. I don't see any glaring issues to
warrant a sudden change, nor I think we should change just because.

--renato