Re: Capturing reasons for votes for historical sake?

> On Mar 16, 2020, at 9:20 PM, Dan Ackroyd <Danack@basereality.com> wrote: > > On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 at 18:29, Mike Schinkel <mike@newclarity.net> wrote: >> >> 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 > > Pretty strong no for me. Thank you for your reply. Let me start with the end of your reply, what you state was your biggest issue: > And the big issue, where possibly I disagree with your reasons for wanting this: > >> and their reasons are really important when it comes >> to future consideration of the same issue > > This kind of makes an assumption that all RFCs should have some path > to being passed. > > For some RFCs, there just isn't a good path forward for them. Actually no. You are assuming wrong. If we had history we could better see the RFCs that had valid reasons for not passing and that should not be revisited vs. the ones that didn't pass for some technicality and didn't pass because the timing was not right that should be revisited. If we knew WHY RFCs were turned down then the next time someone brings the issue up again — which we they will — we could say "Here, read this. Chances are this idea will never pass for the reasons explained, so don't waste all of our bandwidth (unless you can counter all those objections, which you probably cannot.)" So actually part of what I am asking for is a way to put the bad ones down, and for good. > btw I think there's a bigger problem on some RFCs being accepted, > particularly where people who aren't core maintainers are voting on > things that really need an informed understanding of internals. I can certainly understand that perspective. But what's the proposal to improve that situation? Actually, I think you are under-appreciating what I proposed. Consider if instead of a "Yes/No" prompting people to vote, there was a list of reasons to vote "no" from those who already voted no. Isn't it likely that people who got to review that list would be more likely to vote "no" in the case of something that should not actually be accepted? (To be fair, if we did that we'd probably need a list of reason why people votes "yes" too so that voters could see why others voted yes and no.) (BTW, I do think having a good history of why things failed might keep bad ones from being approved in the future "accidentally.") >> However in PHP we have no way of knowing why people voted against a proposal > > I think this type of analysis belongs off-list. Which is why: > https://github.com/Danack/RfcCodex/blob/master/rfc_codex.md That's nice, but requires superhuman efforts on one individual's part, is contained on the GitHub account controlled by one individual, and is inherently slanted by one individual's bias, even if only unconscious bias. So it is really not a solution for the PHP community in general, notwithstanding that it is a nice resource that you have provided of your own industriousness. > * Explaining exactly why you're voting no can be hard as there can be > multiple overlapping reasons for voting no. 1. Nothing I proposed would stop someone from listing multiple reasons. Free-form text would allow someone to write a dissertation, if they desire. 2. If someone votes "no" but cannot put it into words, it is really fair that are driving the destiny of PHP used by ~5 million programmers? 3. There is nothing that In I am proposing that would stop you from just typing in "I really don't like this" and leave it at that. > * It sets up arguments about what is and isn't a valid reason for voting no. Not sure how this is relevant. Once it is voted down it doesn't matter if people felt the reasons were valid or not, it would still be voted down. BTW, I am not proposing that the reasons be tied to individuals. Those would be separated from the vote and displayed anonymously. So who specifically would they argue with? Unless of course you are earnestly concerned about this syndrome: https://imgur.com/gallery/91sn32Q > * It drives people who might want to vote no away from the project, if > they have to take the extra time to justify their position. That is why I proposed that they could select from the list of all other things people have provided. If someone does not want to type a reason then just pick from one of the reasons other people already submitted. > * Shifts the part of the burden for coming up with a plan for how to > get the RFC implemented onto people who are not in favour of the RFC. Currently it takes herculean effort to get almost anything approved, but it takes effectively zero effort to stifle the hard work someone invests in trying to improve PHP. Is it really just that all their work can be nullified by a simple thumbs down like an emperor deciding the death of a gladiator? (sorry, couldn't resist using that analogy. ;-) BTW, I am thinking of the outrageous amount of work Paul M Jones is putting into Server-Side Request and Response Objects (v2) and fear for him that all his effort will be for naught, and he won't even have a concise list of reasons why it was voted down. The best he will be able to do is infer from the comments in thousands of the messages why people voted down. But he still won't know. Frankly it also feels to me that people seeing that will be a lot more likely to be be driven away from the project than the fact that people who have already gotten the right to vote on the project actually have to write a sentence or two to go along with their votes. I know that if people vote down his work after all his effort I will feel less like contributing for fear of the same outcome. But being told that I am expected to help future people by recording my reason to vote? Hell, I'd feel like I was being granted an honor and I would want to rise to the occassion. It is almost like you are arguing the with great power comes no responsibility (sorry, couldn't resist using allusion, either. ;-) > * The phrase "this is a terrible idea and I don't have enough crayons > to explain why to you" would be more likely to be used, and wouldn't > add much to the discussion. In which case we would be no worse off than we are now. However, if even only 1/3 the people who voted actually did provide an intelligible reason then we'd be much farther along to know how and why we should reconsider something in the future, OR NOT. And this might stop a *lot* of wasted effort. Otherwise we continue to be "Those who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it." -Mike P.S. Some modifications to the proposal might include: 1. As Jakob Givoni proposed: a list of predetermined reasons even the first voter course pick from a list , OR they would write their own if they want. 2. Create a two (2) phase process. Phase 1: Solicit people enter a short concise reason to vote "no" or "yes", or to select to join one of the existing reasons. This is basically everyones way to lobby for yes or no. Phase 2: Do the actually vote where people can select a reason from the list to go with their vote, or enter a new one.