Re: More metaproblem

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 06:41:47 -0500
>> From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>
>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> 
>> > > The barrier to the documentation change is when people see senior devs
>> > > pointing to etc/CONTRIBUTE as a fine place for dev documentation and
>> > > think "Oh, so the project thinks that's okay?  They point to that as a
>> > > solution, rather than as a problem?  I guess I'm in the wrong place."
>> > 
>> > I have not seen anyone (other than you) state this.
>> 
>> Potential developers look at things like this and they see a project
>> that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since before 1996.
>> 
>> No one thing like this is a dealbreaker for any single person. It's
>> the accumulation of such details that acts as a KEEP OUT sign.
>
> Slogans.  No real data to support that.

It's an impression.  That is real data.  It's not like we have anything
better to offer: even being able to point to projects that have a
not-just-for-old-fogies web presence (by the way, anybody who can point
to some significant project maintaining its web pages in AsciiDoc?) is
anecdotal evidence since that does not detail the work that needs to get
invested to get to a similar level starting from the current situation
of Emacs.  And it does nothing to figure out how hard it is to recruit
the people actually doing the work.

However, we are not going to come to a useful discussion when people
assume that the only reason other people may come to different
conclusions is because they are mentally inferior even while
acknowledging that one has not even bothered looking at the data they
suggested as supporting their conclusions.

In that case, there is simply no base for consensus since consensus
implies agreement about the same things.  Which is different from
electing a leader in the expectation that he will get himself educated
in due time for making or following through with decisions, or shoulder
the consequences.

In this case, this approach is simply not an option since the
consequences can't be borne out by a single person.  It's just too much
work for that approach.

There is, if at all, a shortage of workers rather than of saviors.

-- 
David Kastrup