[uf-new] Re: One issue per thread

[David Janes]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> Tantek Çelik wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
>>> Could you please explain why it's better to discourage per-issue threads
>>> on the mailing list and instead direct people to the wiki? Why are we
>>> discouraging one form of recorded communication over another?
>>
>> I have written up a page that explains some of the reasons behind the
>> microformats community's preference for using the wiki instead of
>> email:
>>
>> http://microformats.org/wiki/wiki-better-than-email
>
> I've noted various issues on the page. Most notably that the community
> shouldn't be forcing a particular workflow on community members. Some of
> us can't be distracted by IRC at all times and the people we need to
> talk to aren't always on IRC anyway.
>
> There's much more on the wiki page that I've commented on, so I'll leave
> it at that, I guess.
>
>> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
>>> Tantek Celik wrote:
>>>> Please follow-up on the wiki and also one email announcing a batch
>>>> of new issues is sufficient. Let's try to keep emails to a minimum
>>>> for notification only, and capture discussion/iteration on the wiki.
>>> The reason I put each of these in a separate e-mail is to separate
>>> issues out into manage-able threads of discussion. I do admit that it's
>>> a personal preference, but threaded discussion seems to be a fairly
>>> accepted method of working through spec issues.
>>
>> Email-centric threaded discussion is fairly accepted method in many
>> other standards communities/organizations (W3C, IETF). Per
>> http://microformats.org/wiki/wiki-better-than-email#tradition , this
>> has been different in the microformats community from the start of
>> microformats, and deliberately so.
>
> Tradition, in and of itself, is not a valid reason for doing something a
> certain way. I don't think it should be listed as a "reason" - distill
> out the reasoning that makes the tradition an acceptable practice,
> please. More on this on the wiki page.
>
> -- manu

I'm with Manu with on this one. Tantek and Kevin Marks could also just
walk down the corridor and thrash through ideas back in 2005 and can
probably do the same by meeting at the food court for lunch or
whatever in 2009. For many of us e-mail is a natural way of discussing
ideas, working through issues and so forth; not adding '* +1 my
comment my name' to Wiki pages that will be seen by 6 or whatever
people over its lifetime.

Regards, etc...

-- 
David Janes
Mercenary Programmer
http://code.davidjanes.com