board followup to "Connotation analysis for Fedora Project codename"

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 06:42:10PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Why at the same time as legal review?  If the Board/community is going
> >> to disallow a name due to connotation, then it's a waste of resources
> >> (both human and financial) to have lawyers vetting that name.
> >>
> > The thought was that the timeline for vetting names looks usually like this:
> 
> <snip stuff I already know, having run the name game for multiple releases>
> 
> > Community feedback about problems with certain names can be raised at any
> > time prior to the Board vetting the names and then the Board can use that
> > feedback to strike that name from the list that goes to Legal.  However,
> > names may be added to that list until very close to the Board vetting so
> > formally asking some group to vette the names and receive feedback about
> > whether there's a problem at that time would be a bit of a rush.
> 
> The point where I'm confused is why there is a separate week time period
> at all.  The group(s) doing connotative analysis on the names can very
> well just do it as the names come in.  Just add a field on the wiki for
> "connotation" comments and off they go.  Very similar to "Themeable" and
> "Initial Approval", neither of which wait until all the names are there.
> 
> (Though looking at the F17 page, it seems people aren't doing the
> Initial approval thing at all, which is a shame because it was a great
> help to the Board previously.)
> 
> I don't see the need to delay for a week for something that can be done
> on the fly.  It's creating an unnecessary delay.
> 
That can still happen.  As I said, there's nothing stopping people from
hitting refresh on the wiki page and making comments whenever they notice
that a new name has been added that says, please don't use this, it's
offensive to $XXX.

But following changes in mediawiki is notoriously hard.  And the Board can
do its vetting for legal very soon after the list closes for new naming
suggestions (this cycle, the Board had vetted the names less than 24 hours
after suggestions closed.)  So why should we limit the time that people have
to object to names to the period before the names go to Legal?  Why not push
the period of objections back as far as possible?  Which seems to be up
until the name goes for a vote (or in the case of extra-ordinarily bad
names, perhaps even the week after the vote completes -- before we get to
theming the release).

Letting objections come in concurrent with Legal checking for their own
issues with the names seems to be just such an extension without a timeout.

If we cut off the period for objections to be before the names went to
legal, we'd need to ensure that the volunteers who were vetting had a chance
to look over the list of names and raise their objections despite whatever
other obligations they had.

-Toshio
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