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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Vote process change proposal
From: smalyshev@gmail.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

> Private emails, pressure and what many, including myself, consider as
> harassment is a big issue in many OSS projects, and for PHP too. I am

What exactly you are calling "harassment"? I have a feeling we are
talking about different things, so it would be nice to explain what
exactly is harassment ans some specific examples of when that happened
in PHP would be nice. E.g., if I email you and explain you my POV on
certain topic, is it harassment? What is I ask your opinion on certain
topic? What if I ask you to vote on certain RFC? What if I ask you for
explanation of your vote?

> not sure what can be done to solve that but private discussions should
> be avoided at any price to avoid such bad things to happen. And this

Sorry, but I completely disagree. Not only you have absolutely no right
and no business to tell me who I choose to talk in private (and, of
course, to anybody else as well), but there's absolutely no reason to
avoid it. I've had hours of very productive private discussions about
various technical topics, both in PHP and outside, and there's
absolutely nothing wrong with it. I'm not sure which "such bad things"
you mean but I'd like to see some "bad things" that actually happened
because of it.

Of course, that doesn't mean people should not discuss important things
in public, especially if they are of public (understood either as PHP
devs or PHP users or wider) concern. Both modes have their uses. And of
course it doesn't mean people should not follow the RFC process and
provide the necessary explanations and support for their opinions and
proposals. But I don't think we lack that, in most cases. There are
outliers and bad RFCs from time to time, but we can deal with them when
they come.

> Now, I do agree as well that discussions can be affiliated to
> lobbying. But the key difference is that a discussion on the list is
> open and should be backed with technical argument (or principles when
> it comes to design). Lobbying, and you know that perfectly, is totally
> different story. Let be straight about what is happening and do not
> hide our head in the sand for the sake of ignoring a growing and
> devastating problem. 

OK, let us be super-straight. *What* is, on your opinion, happening?
While you call us to be straight and claim there is a devastating
problem, you seemingly forgot to straightly say what is actually
happening and which devastating problem it is?  Please do so.

> We cannot afford to loose more new contributors,
> no matter the reason.

Sorry, but we will lose contributors, no matter what. People change,
circumstances change, availability changes, people burn out, people get
busy, people lose interest, people lose patience with other people
disagreeing with them... Tons of reasons why people move on. So giving
out such blanket statements "no matter what" doesn't seem very useful to
me. I agree the community here is not ideal, and could benefit from more
kindness and supportiveness, and the processes could be improved. I
don't think anybody is against putting forward specific thoughts on how
to do it (though not all thoughts would be good ideas, naturally). But
however hard we try, for some people it would prove not to be to their
taste, and we can not say we can not let that happen "no matter the
reason".
-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com