In my article „Last time I’ve used network-manager“ I made a claim for which I’ve been criticized by some people, including Stefano, our current (and just re-elected) DPL. I said that a certain pattern, which showed up in a certain thread, were a prototype for discussions in the Debian surroundings.
Actually I have to commit, that this was a very generalizing statement, making my own point against the discussion point back directly at myself.
Because as Stefano said correctly there has been some progress in the Debian discussion cult.
Indeed, there are examples of threads, were discussions followed another scheme.
But to my own advocacy I have to say that such changes are like little plants (in the botanical sense). They take their time to grow and as long as they are so very new, they are very vulnerable to all small interruptions. Regardless of how tiny those interruptions may seem.
I’ve been following Debian discussions for 6 or 7 years. That scheme I was describing was that which had the most visibility of all Debian discussions. Almost every discussion which were important for a broader audience followed that scheme. It has a reason that Debian is famous for flamewars.
In a way its quiet similar to the network-manager perception, some people have. Negative impressions manifest themselves. Especially if they have years of time.
Positive impressions does not have a chance to manifest themselves as long as the progress is not visible enough to survive small interruptions.
I hope that I didn’t cause to much damage with my comment, which got cited (context-less) on other sites. Hopefully the Debian discussion cult will improve further to a point where there is no difference between the examples of very good, constructive discussions we already have in some parts of the project and the project-wide decision-making-discussions which affect a broad audience and often led to flamewars.
