Preliminary Polling

5 years ago by Joe Watkins — view source

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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

5 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

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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

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

5 years ago by Larry Garfield — view source

unread

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

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

--

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