One disadvantage of the spreadsheet is that it's not as transparent as the other mechanisms we use for this committee (email and github). It should probably be visible to all and linked from the docs on github?

I wasn't really suggesting that a committee member can say absolutely nothing, and simply update the spreadsheet with their vote; rather, they should say (as now, by email) "I support" or "I am lukewarm but will not stand in the way" or "I don't like this" -- or (new) "I recuse myself".  But in addition take 30s to record that result in the spreadsheet.

In short, zero impact on transparency.  All I'm after is a way to see the status quo on one page, rather than by composing a zillion deltas.

Simon
 

On Mon, 11 Sept 2023 at 10:48, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, 11 Sept 2023 at 10:46, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
I think Simon intends the spreadsheet to be the source of truth for votes by committee members, because he wanted something more explicit than just silence to indicate "I have no strong views on this proposal". FWIW I think it's reasonable to expect *some* action by committee members for each proposal. I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the spreadsheet because it's another thing separate from github and email, and it's a bit manual for my liking, but happy to go with it if that's what people want.

One disadvantage of the spreadsheet is that it's not as transparent as the other mechanisms we use for this committee (email and It should probably be visible to all and linked from the docs on github?

That should have read:

One disadvantage of the spreadsheet is that it's not as transparent as the other mechanisms we use for this committee (email and github). It should probably be visible to all and linked from the docs on github?
 

Cheers
Simon

On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 03:36, Moritz Angermann <moritz.angermann@gmail.com> wrote:
Simon,

I think this is a good idea!  Is my understanding correct that this is for record keeping by the shepherd only? It is not sufficient for steering committee members to go over the proposal and just fill out accept/reject/recuse in their respective column? Emails are still the authorative events?

Cheers,
  Moritz

On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 at 10:07 AM, Simon Peyton Jones <simon.peytonjones@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear GHC steering committee

Re GHC proposals I was talking to Simon M about
  • Making the shepherd's job easier and quicker
  • Providing a way for members of the committee to say (explicitly) "I don't have an opinion about this proposal" and thus recuse themselves.   Explicit recusal is better than "silence means assent" because silence can, and often does, mean "I'm under water and not listening".
With that in mind, I want to revive my suggestion of running an online spreadsheet to describe the state of proposals that are in our active purview.  That is, I'm not proposing to show proposals that are under discussion by the community, or accepted etc -- just the ones that are in our inbox, where the next action is ours.

That makes it much easier to see our current inbox, without looking back for Jocahim's last email and then adding deltas for all the emails since -- which I cannot do in my head.

Specifically, I have a column for each committee member's vote.  That should make it easy for the shepherd to see who is yet to express an opinion, which I always find difficult.

As I say above, I am very uncomfortable with "silence means assent" for any but the smallest proposals.  I suggest instead that if there is a proposal where you feel unable to offer an opinion, due to lack of expertise, or lack of time, you can say "recuse" meaning that you explicitly want to stand down from this particular proposal.   (Somehow "abstain" carries a connotation of conflict of interest or something, but it amounts to the same thing.)  If you are too  under water to even recuse yourself, maybe it's time to step down.

So in columns F to O we should see explicit responses from every committee member, in a timely way.

Joachim doesn't like spreadsheets like this because they can easily get out of date.  But it must be better than manually trawling email. And it is up to each of us (not Joachim) to fill in our own column for proposals in our inbox.

If we don't like it, we can change it.  You all have edit rights.

I have populated it with data from Joachim's message of 2 Sept, but there has been some action since then, so shepherds please update it.  This is not Joachim's task!

Thanks

Simon






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