Hi Marcus, thanks for engaging a discussion.  The one question I think you did
not address (because I did not make it explicit enough) is what do you think of
using an optimistic approach?

I know, I know, this is a scary thought, and I don't know for sure how well it
would work, but..  when you said

> People always think that their stuff should be added, but they in turn 
> do not
> look at anything that others submit. They just don't care.

if people truly "don't care" then why not let the change in?  THEN, if it
causes someone some kind of pain, maybe they WILL care enough to comment about
it (in the meantime, the tool will allow them to keep it out of their image). 
This would seem to fulfill the very definition of a community-developed,
open-source project.

Maybe one answer is, "because then things may slip in unnoticed that nobody
commented about that we don't want in there."  If that happens then, upon the
next alpha, someone submits a change that removes that piece they don't want
and then people who care or not will comment or not.  Removal can move us
"forward" as much as adding (as we all know!).  It's a constantly evolving
piece of software, we will *never* reach a "final destination" for Squeak, so
we may as well try to maximize its ability to change and evolve.

So, the main objectives are:

  - it causes each submission to generate its own "call for commentary" :) from
those who don't like it for whatever reason
  - it reduces/eliminates the bureacracy for those who *originally* cared about
it
  - it allows the community to define where they want Squeak to go, not 2 or 3
people.
  - it allows the Squeak community to be able to sustain its own growth as the
volume of participants increases.

> So in the end there are lots of people submitting stuff, and only 2-3 
> looking at
> the changesets.

And this is what will eventually inhibit growth of Squeak and the community. 
Maybe this is a good thing for now, but eventually, with just 2 or 3 people
burdened down with a high-volume of submissions, the quality of their review
will diminish, and their need-to-be-quick decisions won't always necessarily
reflect what the community may have wanted if they were given the opportunity
to participate in a more democratic process.

> All comment-only changes have been approved *very* fast over the last 6 
> Month.

Thanks for clarifying that, sorry if I misspoke about that.

Regards,
  Chris