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Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2025 16:17:37 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Clarify discussion and voting period rules
To: Nicolas Grekas <nicolas.grekas+php@gmail.com>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: tim@bastelstu.be (=?UTF-8?Q?Tim_D=C3=BCsterhus?=)

Hi

Thank you for explaining your position. The RFC has been accepted in the 
mean time, but I wanted to nevertheless comment on your email.

On 11/15/25 10:19, Nicolas Grekas wrote:
> I wish common sense still remains our main approach, and the RFC as
> proposed makes me feel we go into more bureaucracy.
> And to me, bureaucratie makes things smoother only for the experts of its
> own rules.

I feel exactly the opposite. I feel that having clear rules - that are 
followed by every contributor - make it easier for less-experienced 
contributors to follow the same standard. Instead of needing to learn 
about expectations by reading up on older RFCs, there is a clear 
document that they can refer to.

In my opinion most of the policy can be summarized as: “Take your time 
to make sure to build the best possible RFC together with the other 
participants”. The formalization of the Cooldown Period is probably the 
most significant thing that has newly been written down and I don't 
think it's a particularly complicated rule to follow.

The other things, like keeping a Changelog, is something that is easy to 
fix when someone forgets. Someone will notice and send a reminder for 
you to update the changelog. Or if something is missing from the voting 
announcement mail, someone else can add the missing information in a reply.

A SHOULD instead of a MUST however just invites discussion of whether or 
not it is okay to ignore the rule in any specific case, which will just 
add noise to the list and is what a policy is intended to avoid.

Best regards
Tim Düsterhus