The Goldfish Chronicles

At the heart of the great mass that is the Apache Software Foundation, there lies an old mechanism, the binary vote (I have no clue what the official term would be). Yes/No, thumbs down/up, black/white token. And now…. +1/-1. It’s on t-shirts, mugs but thankfully not thongs.

It’s interesting that it’s not a firm binary. Yes/No is a simple answer to a closed question. +1/-1’s intepretation is dependant on the community conversation in which it is being used. This leads to the important philosophical discussions of our day:

* Does +1 imply that you are showing simple favour to the subject, or that you are prepared to get involved and help tem out?
* Does -1 imply a veto or simply a muttering under the breath?
* What do +0 and -0 mean, and is there any point in them?
* Is the person who said +1 or -1 a voter of consequence - ie: is their vote binding?
* Are summary executions for people using +1000 allowed?

Number 4 is of interest. A little bit of time goes into checking whether the vote is binding (a PMC member), because binding votes represent an oversight path to the ASF as a whole and not just the tiny subcommunity sharing the conversation. It’s really just fakery though, a binding vote is one which is listened to. On the +1 side there’s a bit of bookkeeping to ensure there were enough +1s to state oversight, but an officially non-binding -1 is just as binding as an officially binding one; if people listen to it.

After a fair period of laissez faire +1s; there definitely seems to be an undercurrent that says:

* If you say +1, I’m expecting you to help out.

I’m not sure it’s as much an undercurrent, but another good thing is to say -1 more often. -1 is not so much a veto of no, but an indication that something is wrong and it cannot continue until it is fixed. -1 should always be accompanied with a reason (which if overturned successfully should see your -1 become a +0).

Say -1 more, +1 less. If you want to show favour, use +0.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Family etc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.