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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 14:29:05 -0400
To: PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Subject: Capturing reasons for votes for historical sake?
From: mike@newclarity.net (Mike Schinkel)

Hi all,

Seeing people referencing former RFCs that failed when someone brings up =
an RFC (which is a good thing to reference, BTW) I am finally compelled =
to comment in hope there would be will to improve it.

When court justices rule on important decisions they write opinions, or =
join with the majority or minority opinion. That way judges and others =
in the future can know why things were decided a certain way. =20

However in PHP we have no way of knowing why people voted against a =
proposal except maybe for those very few who commented negatively on the =
mailing list. Which is far from concise and frequently not conclusive.=20=


It is a real shame that the PHP voting process has no way to capture a =
concise description of why people voted against an RFC.  A "No" vote =
could mean any of the following, or something completely different, and =
their reasons are really important when it comes to future consideration =
of the same issue:

1. I hate the idea and never want to see it in PHP
2. I'm okay with the idea but=20
	a. I have a small issue with "x"
	b. I have a big issue with "y"
	c. I prefer to see it implemented using "z" approach instead
3. I love the idea but=20
	a. Can't support it given "x"
	b. I want it to be implement using "y" approach instead
4. We can't do this until we do "x" first
5. We should do "x" instead
6. Or who knows what other reason?

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 OR select from the reasons that others have already given when =
voting down the specific RFC? =20

If we had that we could list the reasons and the number of votes that =
choose those reasons on the RFC for historical purposes.

-Mike