Re: The request of words matter updated

[Daniel Shahaf <d.s@daniel.shahaf.name>]

> > Once that's established, perhaps someone could arrange for an online vote
> > at one of the websites that do that?  Given no technical change results
> > from any of this, opinion is all we've got, and there's evidently no
> > sign of a consensus.
> 
> This appears to be where we're going.  I'll do some research on this, but
> if anyone has pointers to a good place for an anonymous vote, let me know.
> 

I don't think it's time to vote yet; see
<https://producingoss.com/en/consensus-democracy.html#when-to-vote>.

As producingoss explains, voting is going to leave half the participants
unhappy.  Let's instead try and find a solution we can consense on.

If we do vote, we'll have to decide who will have the right to vote;
whether the votes would be public; and what options the ballot will
have; and agree on a voting system <https://xkcd.com/1844/>.

> Thanks for the various cogent analyses of the points on both sides.
> Beyond that, I don't think anyone has been called a Nazi yet, but there's
> still time.
> 
> I think the ultimate reason this is contentious is it's something of a
> curveball (googly in my terminology; nothing to do with Mountain View,
> if anything still falls in that category) --- it brings in a whole
> heap of things not usually expected on a technical list, so all of us
> in turn bring in a whole heap of our own non-technical ideas.  At
> least, that's about the only way to rationalise an involved discussion
> on two words in a file that (as has been pointed out) most people will
> never actually read.
> 

Exactly.  The proposed patch doesn't affect generated machine code in
any way; it only affects source code and debug symbols (= it only
affects developers of zsh itself).  The arguments have nothing to do
with, say, the C execution model or forward compatibility and everything
to do with people.

[I'd link to a Wikipedia page with a list of arguments for and against
changing master/slave terminologies, but I can't find one.]

> Q&A
> ---
> 
> Q. Isn't it terrible people have such different ideas from me?
> A. You might as well complain about night being different from day.
> And actually I think it's good to have this discussion out in the 
> open rather than just closed groups of true believers.
> 
> Q. But surely my position is so obviously right it has to win by default?
> A. No, for the same reason.  There's no "obvious" at this level.  The
> fact people come to such different conclusions means it requires
> some consideration.  A vote looks to me the right way of doing this.

What wins by default is the status quo.

Cheers,

Daniel