Re: Is it fair that people with no karma can vote on RFCs?

On Sep 19, 2014, at 21:32, Kris Craig <kris.craig@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 7:25 PM, Kalle Sommer Nielsen <kalle@php.net> wrote: >> 2014-09-20 3:29 GMT+02:00 Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>: >>> Hi! >>> >>> Perhaps I’m being unfair and overthinking things, but I wonder if it is >> really fair for people who have no karma, i.e. not contributors to the >> documentation, extensions, php-src or anything else, to have the ability to >> vote on RFCs? >>> >>> I’d never suggest people without internals karma can’t vote. I think doc >> and peck contributors are as valued as any other contributors. However, >> people with no karma whatsoever (a blank people.php.net page) voting irks >> me. >>> >>> Thoughts? >> >> I'm with you on this one, huge +1 for the separation on who can vote >> and changing the voting rfc. >> >> >> -- >> regards, >> >> Kalle Sommer Nielsen >> kalle@php.net >> >> -- >> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List >> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php >> >> > The one problem with this is it doesn't take into account those who > contribute to PHP in other ways, such as administering tests, contributing > RFCs, etc. I'm not necessarily against this, but if you want to garner > wide enough support, you might want to make the language a little more > inclusive. > > Just my two cents. > > --Kris I would also argue that contributions are not always a measure of the value of a person’s opinion. I haven’t made what would be considered “significant” contributions to PHP itself in a few years now, but I remain a very active user of the language, and I keep an eye on where it’s going. When I vote on language features, I’m casting that vote as someone who 1) has a clear set of reasons in mind for why a feature would or wouldn’t be useful, and 2) is always looking for a reason to be able to devote my time again. I agree that voting should be kept out of the hands of people who’ve never made any effort to show they give a darn about the language and its future. But I would say, be careful about equating “small" contributions with “unimportant”, “uninteresting”, or “nonexistent" ones. As Kris pointed out, the ways in which someone contributes aren’t always obvious. Leigh speaks of people who contribute “one translation a year” - that’s still more than many ever have done or ever will do. There are many who simply don’t have the time to take away from their lives to do more, but remain invested in the language and its community. That being said, I am absolutely in favor of excluding people who don’t make at least *some* effort. I’m strongly +1 for people explaining their reasons for a vote, or even doing so much as saying “I’d prefer not to explain my reasons”. I’m even more strongly +1 for people having to at least shown some level of interest before being allowed to influence PHP’s future. I would just like to be sure that the bar is not set so high that it excludes opinions from people whose only failing is not being seen by the community. Full disclosure: This is absolutely a self-serving opinion. All of my significant contributions are years old (dating back to 5.3), I’ve been all but invisible in the internals community since, and I am certainly someone who has limited time to spend on contributing to the language. But I like to think my thoughts are still worth something. If the requirement for that is that I explain why I voted how I did on an RFC, I’m glad - even eager - to do so. If the requirement for that is that I contribute at least one nontrivial documentation edit or source code commit per month, or something similar, I think the point has been missed. -- Gwynne Raskind