openstack team mailing list archive

[Soren Hansen <soren@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

2011/11/24 Lloyd Dewolf <lloydostack@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Soren Hansen <soren@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 2011/11/24 Lloyd Dewolf <lloydostack@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>> A. As my former boss, as of this week, Matt Mullenweg [1] would so
>>> often remind us, "don't be so negative" -- he literally reminded my
>>> VIP Services sub-team of that last week -- it's natural when you are
>>> deep in the trenches. Instead use "Words that Work". [2]
>> This is not marketing material. It's not meant to sell anything or
>> convince anyone of anything. It's supposed to accurately convey what
>> this team is and what it isn't. If you want to rephrase it, knock
>> yourself out, but being unambiguous trumps "sounding good". You don't
>> see legislation being rephrased to make it sound better either :)
> Hi Soren,

Hello.

> I may be misreading, but both your response and part of ttx's reads to
> me as a straw man argument -- you give back a single unrelated phrase
> as opposed to demonstrating the value of all three phrases.

I have no idea what you're saying here?

You complain that the text in question sounds negative. I point out that
its purpose doesn't warrant putting lots of effort into phrasing it any
differently just for the sake of it and give another example of a type
of text where the same holds true.  I then move on to suggest that if
you think it's important, you go for it. I'm not sure what it is that
you're referring to as "unrelated"?

> I'm frustrating by your mention of "marketing material" and ttx's
> posslbe fallback of "technical page". What is the context of that?

The context? I'm again not sure what you're asking. As I said, the page
does not exist to convince anyone of anything. It's not a piece of
marketing or recruitment material. Its purpose is to explain what has
been agreed.

> If I were to guess where you are coming from, which I hate doing, my
> response would good communication is accessible to many audiences,
> encourages participation (is positive!), translates well (hard!), and
> still meets the needs of us pendantic fools.

To be blunt, I think that's a waste of time. As long as it accurately
explains what it's meant to explain, it can be harsh, negative,
humourous, sad, happy, prosaic, poetic, whatever. I don't care, as long
as it's not at the expense of unambiguity.

> Second, unambiguous? That doesn't ring true to me. One sentence, the
> first sentence, is about what the list is, followed by a whole
> paragraph on what it isn't? Maybe, let's start with fleshing out that
> first paragraph.

My point is that if you want to rephrase it because you find it too
negative, that's fine, *as long as it doesn't negatively affect its
accuracy/unambiguity*. If it's already ambiguous, please explain how, so
that we can address it.

> Three times a lady? [1]

?!?

> I think there is an opportunity to be concise, eliminate the seeding
> of fear of immaturity and unprofessionalism, (translate better), and
> get on with focusing that OpenStack has dedicated, profession
> participants.

Great. Go for it.

> Future-me will be proud that we have a robust solution (which I feel
> like you guys are challenging me to brainstorm on) and that we've
> never had a premature disclosure.

We're not quite a point yet where I'd consider that last point any sort
of success. To me, it's kind of like celebrating that the shuttle hasn't
exploded yet when the spaceship is still on the launch pad.

> How can we get your fantastic expertises humoring me by exploring
> solutions rather than throwing down spike strips. Nothing is worse
> than the new guy also offering "solutions" [3] when the relevant
> issues have already been well considered, often multiple times, and
> where the participants likely already have some other solutions that
> might be voted up by the context of additional considerations.

So far, this conversation hasn't been about the contents the wiki page
in question. It's been about its language. I'm at least as much of a
language nut as the next guy, but I don't get paid to be a copy writer.
I can't justify spending time making sure our policy documents are
phrased in a specific way.

Don't get me wrong. I think there are lots and lots and lots of text
under this project's purview where these concerns are paramount. That
page just isn't it.

-- 
Soren Hansen        | http://linux2go.dk/
Ubuntu Developer    | http://www.ubuntu.com/
OpenStack Developer | http://www.openstack.org/