replying in-line here:
CCing Jeff on here so he remembers this. :) The rest is a response to the actual content.
oh, damn, sorry... if already bugged the hell out of him. that wasn't meant as a poke, just an example!
so, while the aaron/thayer amendment to the proposal (or is it a separate proposal?) provides a couple useful new statistical measures, i don't see that it would actually generate better statistics. several ideas have been floated to solve this particular problem, like download statistics. those all need more consideration and development, though.
If others think it is a good idea, then they must at least help out with the work.
granted. and i don't think i have the skills to make that happen. but i think there are others who've proposed alternatives who might.
it seems to me that there won't be any real consensus on a concrete proposal to regulate [community] until there's a mechanism for generating accurate, reliable usages statistics. i would anticipate a close vote; given the furor that's surrounded this proposal, i would also anticipate a lot of bad feeling on both sides arising from a close, binding vote.
if i were a tu, i'd move to table this proposal and form a working group to study the social and technical problems of generating good usage statistics. it would put off a resolution to the resource consumption problems, but i feel that, sometimes, "now" is not better than "better."
This sounds like way more bureaucracy (man, I can never spell that word) than we need or want. And with regard to your now/better point: I think it'd a good general rule that 75% now is better than 100% a year from now
<rant type="anarcho_nerd"> avoiding beauraucracy (neither can i) is essential, so that the system doesn't start running the users. but sometimes effecting social organizations/algorithms is necessary to keep some users from running other users. i think the latter is one of the underlying-if-unspoken concerns afloat in this discussion. that's why i'm pimping formal consensus processes here. they take serious engagement, commitment to collaboration, trust, and time. my experience, though, tells me that the benefits--collective buy-in and global conflict resolution--outweigh the overhead. arch is getting bigger and bigger social groups need to emerge *some* form of internal structure, or they fracture into smaller groups that can be self-managing without those structures. <rant type="anarcho_nerd"> dog, we're gonna have to change the subject-line *again*! -kludge