Capturing reasons for votes for historical sake?
| From: | Mike Schinkel | Date: | Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:29:05 +0000 |
| Subject: | Capturing reasons for votes for historical sake? | ||
| Groups: | php.internals | ||
| Request: | Send a blank email to internals+get-109076@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message | ||
Hi all,
Seeing people referencing former RFCs that failed when someone brings up an RFC (which is a good
thing to reference, BTW) I am finally compelled to comment in hope there would be will to improve
it.
When court justices rule on important decisions they write opinions, or join with the majority or
minority opinion. That way judges and others in the future can know why things were decided a
certain way.
However in PHP we have no way of knowing why people voted against a proposal except maybe for those
very few who commented negatively on the mailing list. Which is far from concise and frequently not
conclusive.
It is a real shame that the PHP voting process has no way to capture a concise description of why
people voted against an RFC. A "No" vote could mean any of the following, or something
completely different, and their reasons are really important when it comes to future consideration
of the same issue:
1. I hate the idea and never want to see it in PHP
2. I'm okay with the idea but
a. I have a small issue with "x"
b. I have a big issue with "y"
c. I prefer to see it implemented using "z" approach instead
3. I love the idea but
a. Can't support it given "x"
b. I want it to be implement using "y" approach instead
4. We can't do this until we do "x" first
5. We should do "x" instead
6. Or who knows what other reason?
Would it be possible to add a feature when voting were people either need to type in a one to two
sentence reason why they voted "no" on a proposal OR select from the reasons that others
have already given when voting down the specific RFC?
If we had that we could list the reasons and the number of votes that choose those reasons on the
RFC for historical purposes.
-Mike