[opensolaris-summit] [ogb-discuss] My comments (very subjective) on proposed Summit topics

[Shawn Walker]

On 25/09/2007, Peter Tribble <peter.tribble at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/25/07, Stephen Lau <stevel at sun.com> wrote:
> > Joerg Schilling wrote:
> > >
> > > I believe there are two problems: missing visibility of the OGB and missing
> > > power of the community.
> >
> > Why do you perceive the former to be a problem?  Visibility of the OGB
> > is a double-edged sword.  Yes, we want people to know there is an OGB so
> > that they know there is a path of appeals and such; but we don't want
> > the OGB to be so visible to the point that it is "in-your-face"[1].  The
> > OGB has taken the view that the community is to be self-governing.
>
> But does the community know that it's supposed to be governing itself?

Given our voter turnout, and the problems we had in getting leaders to
communicate about their community, one could conclude they are
strangely not aware (or apathetic).

> I suspect that most members of the community simply don't understand
> what powers, rights, and responsibilities they have, nor how to exercise
> them.

I think part of the problem is that most people's eyes are going to
glaze over once you start talking about those things. Unless you can
sum them all up in a few bullet lists, most folks are going to ignore
them...

> So how do we encourage communities and individuals to take up the
> reins of governance?

A better user-based web portal with tools to ease that process with
short-and-to-the-point summaries would go a long way...

-- 
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
binarycrusader at gmail.com - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/

"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. " --Donald Knuth