[codehusker]

> It's not bikeshedding when the bikeshed's color will actually have concrete effects on adoption.

Not taking a stance either way on the name, but that is the definition of bike-shedding (aka law of triviality). A committee won't vote for my nuclear plant because the bike shed is red. The bike shed's color has concrete effects on adoption.

EDIT: I would just like to acknowledge the irony of bike-shedding bike-shedding.

[stock_toaster]

  > ...but that is the definition of bike-shedding (aka law of triviality)
  > A committee won't vote for my nuclear plant because the bike shed is red.
  > The bike shed's color has concrete effects on adoption.

Not exactly.

  > Parkinson observed that a committee whose job is to approve plans for a 
  > nuclear power plant may spend the majority of its time on relatively 
  > unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for
  > the staff bikeshed, while neglecting the design of the power plant itself,
  > which is far more important but also far more difficult to criticize constructively.
  > -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding

This part is key here:

  > A reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot
  > understand it, so one assumes that those who work on it understand it. On the
  > other hand, everyone can visualize a cheap, simple bicycle shed, so planning 
  > one can result in endless discussions because *everyone involved wants to add a
  > touch and show personal contribution*.
  > -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
  > -- https://books.google.com/books?id=RsMNiobZojIC&pg=PA317

[codehusker]

I need some additional hand-holding here if you don't mind, I don't see the difference.

If I were to rephrase those two excerpts:

  > Parkinson observed that a committee whose job is to approve plans for a 
  > [globally distributed relational database] may spend the majority of its time on relatively 
  > unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what [the name is],
  > while neglecting the design of the [globally distributed relational database] itself,
  > which is far more important but also far more difficult to criticize constructively.

  > A [globally distributed relational database] is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot
  > understand it, so one assumes that those who work on it understand it. On the
  > other hand, everyone can [read a name], so planning 
  > one can result in endless discussions because *everyone involved wants to add a
  > touch and show personal contribution*.

edit: formatting

[phlakaton]

Please tell me we're not having a bikeshedding discussion on the meaning of bikeshedding. :-)

[stock_toaster]

We probably are. ;)

It's so meta it hurts.

[SilasX]

Alright, if you really want to unpack the metaphor:

The bikeshed story is to illustrate overemphasis on something that is trivial. It uses the example of a bikeshed color and a committee wanting to spend a lot of time on it because a) they care a little about it, and b) they understand it well enough for hard-headed members to wade into the dispute rather than trust experts.

It's a failure mode -- by stipulation -- because the bikeshed color doesn't matter beyond minor (but real) aesthetic feelings among the committee, that are far outweighed the cost of high-level personnel devoting time to it. Had they been aware of the general dynamic of these thing, they could entirely prevent the loss by moving on; it's purely an internal matter.

The bikeshed model ceases to demonstrate a failure mode if and when the bikeshed color has impacts far beyond things under the control of the committee. For example, if the majority of the world's people had a near-religious devotion to destroying facilities that house a blue bikeshed, and that fanaticism was hard to defend against, this would be a valid reason not to make the bikeshed blue, and would warrant the committee's attention.

I summarize such situations as "that's not bikeshedding", though of course, to be more technically correct, I should say "that situation does not illustrate the avoidable failure mode in the parable of the bikeshed".

Similarly, if adoption matters for more than just that committee -- if they need to convince numerous other committees to adopt the design -- it's likewise "not bikeshedding" because the first committee doesn't have control over all the other ones; with respect to the first, it's an external matter, and they can't stem the loss just by saying "hey, this is trivial".

Now, you are correct that, a high enough level, this could work as a bikeshedding example, if you could simultaneously get the entire world to collectively agree on the non-importance of aesthetics on technical matters, and on what counts as technical vs aesthetic. Then the world could play the role of that first committee and say "wow, this is trivial" and it's done.

But if that were actually feasible, then that should be your product (producing universal agreement on matters where you have a logical proof-of-correctness), not a database!