[xtm-wg] Re : purpose and new members

["Bernard Vatant" <bernard@universimmedia.com>]

I know messages on this list should stay technical, it's its formal
purpose, but I don't think a group or "community" can keep only on the
technical ground, without tackling the human and social questions raised by
its own development. And for now, this list is somehow the only place we
can debate about these problems. But we are indeed facing debates which
could mislead newcomers on this list to understand there is some sort of
"growth crisis" for XTM - well, that is in itself a good sign that it is
growing ;-)

This project/group has started around a core of people knowing each other
quite well I imagine - was not there at the time - around precise technical
tools and objectives. They had the wisdom to set rules anticipating the
group growth, allowing both new people/ideas to come in and keep stability.
The Charter for TopicMaps.org is quite clear on that.
See http://www.topicmaps.org/org/XTM-charter-final-20000610.html ; for
those who did not read it yet, please take time to do it !

Now we are in the stage than more and more people are interested and would
like to participate in what they feel like an open and contributive
project. Yes it is open and contributive, but only "so far". I don't feel
it's "odd" to ask who is "in" and who is "out" the decision-making process,
who has the right to participate and say his word about what, how final
decisions are settled, who is responsible of what etc. All these things
must be crystal clear to everyone involved here, whatever his/her level and
role. Maybe they are not felt or interpreted the same way by everyone, but
at least everyone can and must refer to this same public set of rules.

Asking if this list is the right place for these debates, and if every
internal AG problem has to be publicly debated here is another question. In
fact the growth of XTM universe should lead to replace this tool by
different more on-purpose tool(s). Let alone the question of leaving
egroups, which BTW seems quite in standby, I think we are going to face
more and more various motivations here beside pure specification
development :  business and educational applications, marketing, RDF-XTM
merging etc ...
The "one-for-all" list will not fit all these tasks without being soon
overloaded. But we'll need space for all these tasks anyway.
I imagine we could develop another sort of discussion space, based on a TM
structure - I think we have the tools to do that now - where one could
filter and associate messages and "topics" : people, discussion subjects
etc. Putting access rights on some subjects like "voting for a new member"
would be possible and indeed a good idea. There are 17 voting PM on this
list, and about 200 suscribers, and I understand many of them don't care
about "who is in and who is out", and will get soon fedup with these
debates when they are looking for effective technical work.

I hope we get a bit of time to discuss that point in Paris.

Cheers

Bernard

---------------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
bernard@universimmedia.com
www.universimmedia.com
"Building Knowledge"
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