Re: [RFC] "Abstain" voting option for RFCs

On Thu, Jul 24, 2025, at 4:28 AM, Tim Düsterhus wrote: > Hi > > Am 2025-07-23 17:34, schrieb Andreas Heigl: >> As you point out, the abstain alone solves a me "problem". Changing the >> process just for that, seems overkill to me. > > Requiring an "Abstain" option in the voting widget is a simple change to > the process. It does not require any additional effort from RFC authors, > since I'll make sure to add it to the voting widget in the RFC template > (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/template) should this RFC pass. > > I believe the proposal has sufficient merit on its own and also allows > us to collect "hard data" that can be used as part of a discussion for > future scope changes, such as an RFC quorum. > > I don't believe having an "Abstain" option needs to be tied to larger > changes to the process and I am not interested in increasing the scope > of this RFC, intentionally leaving those to “Future Scope”. If you don't > see the value right now, but don't outright reject the proposal due to > being interested in future scope changes building on the proposal, > abstaining from the vote would probably be the right decision :-) > > Best regards > Tim Düsterhus Applying similar logic as for technical RFCs, * This is self-contained. * This dove-tails cleanly with planned and intended future development. * Adopting it now does not preclude those future developments, nor do any harm to the language/process on its own. * The order in which those related developments are adopted (eg, a quorum, or a "use it or lose it" policy, etc.) does not matter. If anything, it would make more sense for Abstain to come first, rather than after those. * This one is largely uncontroversial, whereas a quorum or "use it or lose it" policy almost certainly would be. Those all strike me as good reasons this is fine to adopt stand-alone and get it out of the way, just as, eg, pipes could be adopted without PFA, on the expectation of PFA later. --Larry Garfield