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Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 09:01:40 -0500
To: "Steffen via internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Preliminary Polling
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Mon, Aug 19, 2019, at 1:26 AM, Zeev Suraski wrote:
> I'm on vacation so only at a high level:
> 
> - If it's anything remotely similar to the one for P++ (abrupt, done 
> without any coordination with the author, goes into a vote with 
> immediate effect, grossly misrepresents the idea while refusing to fix 
> that even after the fact, pretends to be an RFC even though it's not, 
> and with perceived mandate to shut down discussion) - then absolutely 
> not.  The side effects from this instance still need to be cleaned up.
> 
> But - I think it can actually be a good idea as a semi formal toll for 
> authors to know whether they should continue to invest their efforts in 
> a certain idea.  As long as it is designed to be a helper tool for 
> authors - and not a method for folks to shutdown discussion.  It can 
> also be a good indicator for authors whether their idea is likely to 
> pass or whether they should substantially evolve it (or better explain 
> it's merits) before moving on.
> 
> Zeev
> 
> > On 19 Aug 2019, at 7:55, Joe Watkins <krakjoe@php.net> wrote:
> > 
> > Morning internals,
> > 
> > I've got a sort of fuzzy idea to make provisions in the RFC process for
> > preliminary polling.
> > 
> > It seems there are several situations where a preliminary poll makes sense,
> > it would have made sense for the p++ discussion and saved us a week of
> > wasted time. It also makes sense when the RFC author is not sure whether
> > they want to invest time in an implementation, or even long drawn out
> > discussion.
> > 
> > They would be non-binding, of course, and allowable from the time of RFC
> > creation, with a limit of one preliminary poll per RFC.
> > 
> > Is this making sense to anyone else ?
> > 
> > Cheers
> > Joe
> 
> --
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I've used informal polls in FIG over the years to great effect.  I think they're very valuable.  For RFCs, I think the main requirements are that it's the author that calls them, not anyone else (Zeev's concern), and that what's being polled is *very* specific; viz, just the concept, not implementation, or "do you prefer path A or B", etc.  Getting people to actually, you know, pay attention to the question being asked is the hard part.

Also, allowing more robust polling types than just Yes/No would be helpful.  In FIG I have become very fond of scale voting (rate 1-7 for agreement with two competing statements), and in case of multiple options ranked choice voting is almost always superior to simple plurality.  I don't know if the Wiki is capable of those, but that's why I've generally used Google Forms for FIG polls.

--Larry Garfield