Thomas Dukleth wrote:
However, the reason that advancing a Koha foundation is being rushed presently is that there have been significant recent problems in the community which some think the foundation may address, not because people have become tired of the occasional discussion over the years. [...]
Speak for yourself - I've been looking to put a sustainable vendor-neutral user-involving community organisation at the heart of the project for years. Yes, the LibLime communication cutback has probably motivated a few more people, but it's not a quick fix for the recent problems and I'm not sure anyone thinks it is.
The general consensus from people on #koha IRC channel which I have noticed had been that there has not been enough discussion on the mailing list about the various options for a foundation with people advocating for and against them. [...]
OK, so what do we do about this? Should we turn the wiki pages into some sort of consultation information brochure?
2. OPEN SOURCE BALLOT DESIGN. [...] Discussion of wording text such as for ballot design needs a longer format such as email in which complete examples can be presented and in which there is the opportunity for due reflection.
I've too much email already. The suggestion of longer emails really doesn't fill me with joy. [...]
Does anyone think that more eyes make bugs shallow does not work for ballot design as well as program code? Why is open source good for the project software and documentation but not good for the ballot design process? Please show me the code.
Well, it might not work as well because it's currently cheaper to test program code than it is to test survey design and this community has many more programmers than statisticians. I think the statisticians here are currently working as programmers, including me. (I gained a BSc with first class honours in Mathematics with Statistics, taught stats in HE and FE for a few years and also took a private sector opinion pollster's field training.) Are there other statisticians here? I suspect statistics is less obvious to most of the community than making a great Library Management System, but I think it's worth posting the ballot design and taking comments into account. I beg everyone to check that any suggested changes have some grounding in statistical theory before posting them, else the review process probably won't work because we'll get overloaded. I wrote http://people.debian.org/~mjr/surveys.html a few years ago which might interest some people. [...]
At Wednesday's IRC meeting it was announced, if I recall correctly, that two weeks would be taken to analyse the previous poll before a final ballot would be presented. That period should give sufficient time for most if not all of my suggestions to have an opportunity to have some effect on the drafting of a final ballot.
I feel that recollection is incorrect. No particular time was suggested, although I'd prefer it not to drag forever. Please check: http://stats.workbuffer.org/irclog/koha/2009-10-07#i_316162 So: 1. do we need information brochure(s) about the options? - who will produce it/them? - who will referee it/them to make sure it's fair? - how should it be distributed? 2. are there other trained statisicians in our community? 3. how do we gather opinions on the survey design nicely? Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) LMS developer and webmaster at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op