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Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 21:31:11 +0100
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To: Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>
Cc: internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP direction and governance [was: Re: [PHP-DEV] P++: FAQ]
From: phpmailinglists@gmail.com (Peter Bowyer)

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Hi Stas,

Thanks for replying!

On Sun, 11 Aug 2019 at 04:26, Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The risk here however is for the document to be seen as a means to
> "argue less" by way of excluding certain points of view from discussion.
> That would not be a good thing. This is the main concern for codifying
> such things - as soon as you have written The Rules, next thing that
> happens is rule lawyering and instead of considering arguments on their
> merits, people start arguing whether raising this or that proposal
> violated the Rules and whether their opponents should be silent because
> The Rules say so. This is tempting because arguing rules is usually
> easier than arguing merits (The Rules are always the same and the merits
> are always new), but winning on the rules is never satisfactory and
> rarely healthy, because the other side always feels they have not been
> properly heard.
>

I understand and agree this is a danger with rules, particularly
over-lawyering. Where I disagree is that this is worse than the current
situation, but I'm OK with that as we seem to have different philosophical
outlooks. I suggest there is an issue of balance, to be too far towards
either outlook is not a good situation.

I disagree that (as I take away from your last sentence) the current
approach is better because it means people feel they have been properly
heard. I can think of recent messages on the list from people saying that
they don't feel heard.

Perhaps we can have more consensus around the questions "Are things going
well on this list / with the PHP project in general?". If we do think the
discussions here have not been ideal and some direction (which in an
individualistic meritocracy is not easy) would help, then the follow-on
question of "How can the situation be improved?" is of greater shared


> But do we really want to pre-commit one being always more important than
> the other in any case, no matter what? Do we want to pre-commit never
> considering specific case on its merits and always be satisfied with
> "The Rules say A more important than B, therefore function has to be
> removed and you can't argue it's important because The Rules are
> supreme, kneel before The Rules!" I certainly wouldn't feel satisfied
> with such outcome. We can reflect certain philosophy and premises we
> consider preferred, but we shouldn't pre-commit to it excluding discussion.
>

I feel you're interpreting things in a more black and white way than I did
by changing the terminology to 'Rules'. I didn't use this word, and neither
did I claim they were absolutes. Your last sentence is what my email said
to my reading.

The problem I see is that if we don't commit to anything, then we stand for
everything and nothing.


Any thoughts on governance and the lack of consensus over who should/should
not have a say in what happens?

Peter

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