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Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2014 23:58:59 +0000
To: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: RFC Process: Should we hold two different votes?
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Good evening,

A lot of RFCs have been rejected because, while they proposed a feature =
people would like, the details were problematic. This has lead to these =
features sometimes being considerably delayed.

So, in order to do something about this, here=E2=80=99s an idea: Why not =
hold two different votes on an RFC, similar to how legislation is passed =
in the UK=E2=80=99s House of Commons? The first is on whether the =
general principle of the RFC is sound. Once that=E2=80=99s passed, =
it=E2=80=99s clear the feature is wanted, so time can then be spent =
scrutinising the details of the proposal and making them acceptable. =
Then, a second vote can be held, which approves the RFC as a whole, and =
its patch (like our current votes do). This way:

* Authors know quickly whether a feature has sufficient support (reading =
internals doesn=E2=80=99t necessarily tell you anything, as votes and =
numbers of positive/negative emails rarely align), without having to =
necessarily have done everything before the final vote
* Bad ideas are rejected sooner
* Good ideas with flawed implementations may succeed in the first vote =
and fail in the second, meaning there=E2=80=99s a clear agreement that =
it=E2=80=99s wanted but not with this implementation, allowing another =
RFC with an improved approach to perhaps be made later

Does this sound like a good idea?

Thanks!

--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/