Hi
The current policy regarding how RFC are discussed and voted on is quite
dated and no longer matches the current accepted practices of the RFC
process.
In the past there were several RFCs with a less-than-ideal course of
discussion. Examples include RFCs being rushed through the process by
less experienced contributors who are unaware that the two weeks of
discussion is a minimum that can and often should be extended. In the
weeks leading up to the feature freeze RFCs are rushed even by more
experienced contributors trying to meet the deadline. This resulted in
RFCs going to vote in an incomplete state, resulting in them being
declined, wasting time of everyone involved when a little more
discussion could've made the RFC succeed.
I've thus written up a policy RFC to clarify the current policy
regarding the RFC process, to use less ambiguous language and to
formalize some of the current of the currently followed undocumented
practices. Examples of those would be the heads-up email of an upcoming
vote and the announcement of any relevant change to the RFC text on the
list, so that folks become aware of new points to be discussed without
needing to check the version history all the time.
Please find the RFC at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/rfc_discussion_and_vote
And the PR at: https://github.com/php/policies/pull/23
As with all policy RFCs, the corresponding PR to the policies repository
will be the authoritative source of the proposal and the RFC (and
discussion) will only provide extra context. Please do not comment on
the PR (except for minor typographical or phrasing clarification
suggestions). For comments regarding the actual "policy" reply to this
discussion thread for proper visibility instead and I'll make sure to
incorporate them as appropriate.
I intend to dogfood the proposed policy during discussion and voting of
this RFC. Changes to the PR will be considered changes to the RFC text.
To spell it out explicitly: This email marks the official start of the
minimum discussion period of 2 weeks.
Best regards
Tim Düsterhus