[Fedora-marketing-list] Fedora usability : a new project?

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 18:31 +0530, Rahul wrote:
> > It's possible that you're missing the point of this particular
> > discussion.  It wasn't that I don't understand the potential goals of a
> > Usability initiative (I do), nor that I don't understand a need for it
> > (I do), nor that I didn't understand Nicolas' comments (I did).  The
> > entire problem -- and you will see the threads on fedora-advisory-board
> > to this effect -- is that announcements are being made about "official"
> > Feodra projects without any prior discussion about those needs, setting
> > concrete goals and objectives, and so forth.  I came back with some
> > comments intended to raise issues about possible duplication of effort
> > and get people talking about it.  I don't mind being wrong, but the
> > discussion needs to take place.
> 
> Sure. We definitely did expect discussions to take place. Wider set of 
> announcements depend on fedora-announce list mails being moderated and 
> we need to make sure we dont end up announcing things without the right 
> ideas in place. When a new sub project is being announced, it gets a lot 
> of attention and we would do better to explain things properly and give 
> plenty of room for potential contributors to work their magic.

Yes, and part of that magic includes having answers to the real
questions, such as "What measurable objectives can you reach?"  We're in
agreement here, I'm pretty sure.

> > My final comment was intended to point out that I hadn't seen any of
> > this discussion, although there was a possibility they were being held
> > somewhere that I hadn't seen them.  Those should be community
> > discussions like RFCs where interested parties can hash them out before
> > bringing them to the proper venue for backing.
> > 
> > I haven't missed your comments in board meetings, but they don't
> > constitute public discussion either, AFAICT.
> 
> They arent public discussions as such but I wasnt expressing a 
> fundamentally new idea. See the problem is not that we dont know the 
> issues involved but that our priorities have been elsewhere and arguably 
> misaligned but unless there is more people going to contribute and fix 
> the issues announcing a new project isnt going to change things. The 
> immediate reactions I see to a new project discussion involve is people 
> listing their favorite alleged issues and that wont get us very far.

Also agreed.  Again, discussion before announcement is the key.  No one
should be hesitant to bring out new ideas, but as you say, it has to be
more than saying, "We're going to solve this with a new project," or
simply listing complaints (valid sa they might be).  Having a set of
goals, objectives, and methodologies is key.  I would say the
methodologies part is incredibly important when you talk about issues as
potentially divisive as usability.  Without clear unbiased standards and
methodologies that can pretty much dissolve into a lot of disagreement
over trivial details.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
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       Fedora Project Board: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board
    Fedora Docs Project:  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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