Re: [RFC] abolish narrow margins

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 12:19 PM Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi! > > > We discussed it a year ago, and discussion died down to nothing (possibly > > because it was sidetracked); If there are no objections I'll bring it to > > vote in the coming days ... > > I tend to agree with the sentiment, but not 100%. I think there are two > kinds of changes - one kind is more fundamental than the other. I.e., if > we add a major feature to the language (like strict type checks, for > example) it is going to have major influence on the language and > virtually everybody using it. You can't just ignore it. This also goes > to changes which alter ways that the syntax works, etc. which have > potential to break existing code (even if it's bad code, still). > > Then there are more "neutral" changes - like adding an utility function > or an option to a function. PHP has a lot of "syntax sugar" functions > and sometimes even "kitchen sink" functions - ones that most people > don't use but some do. Having one more would not be that big of a deal - > that's where, unlike the above, "what you don't use doesn't hurt you" > is > true. > > You probably have guessed already what I am getting at - the second kind > is probably OK to have 50%+1, since people that don't need this > option/function can vote no but still we can have it if more people do. > The counter-argument could be that people that don't need it can just > avoid voting, but then we don't have clear boundary between "I don't > think it's useful for enough people to add it" and "I am on vacation and > haven't bothered to even have an opinion". If it's a utility function and somehow ~49% of voters oppose it... think about that. It's 49% objectionable! I don't think that should pass, not even for a utility function people. > That said, I'd love to see how many of the accepted RFCs we have now > were actually accepted by margin between 50%+1 and 2/3 and what they > are, if the number is very low maybe it's irrelevant. Unfortunately I > don't have time to do it myself soon, but it would be super-awesome if > somebody did. I did this analysis in the past. There are very few RFCs that passed in this window between 50%+1 and 2/3, but there are a few. The array_key_first/last RFC is on track to pass in this region. > P.S. The question of quorum is interesting to explore, though I am not > sure how we figure out the numbers.