The RFC describes the account as dormant and implies the project has
chosen not to post on X. Neither is accurate as stated.
The account is silent because one credential holder unilaterally
stopped posting and has not transferred or shared access despite
repeated requests. That is a governance failure, not a project
decision. Removing the link in this context does not reflect a project
consensus to abandon the platform — it ratifies the outcome of one
person's unilateral action.
That precedent matters beyond X: it establishes that any credential
holder for any project asset can force a project-wide outcome by
simply becoming non-responsive. The link will be removed, the account
will be marked as no longer official, and the underlying procedural
failure gets retroactively legitimized as a "decision".
Larry mentioned earlier in this thread that PHP has never had formal
procedures for defining "official" accounts. The correct response to
that observation is to establish those procedures, not to treat their
absence as license for any individual outcome that happened to result.
The link itself represents a project-level commitment that one person
should not be able to unilaterally undo through inaction. Until the
credentials question is resolved through a defined process, removing
the link records the wrong outcome and embeds the wrong precedent.
I've drafted an alternative RFC that addresses this directly:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/social-media-policy
https://github.com/pronskiy/php-rfc-social-media-policy/pull/1/changes
It establishes Infrastructure Team custody of credentials (with
succession procedures, so this situation does not recur) and
Foundation content authority for official channels. Decisions about
which platforms PHP maintains become content decisions within a
documented process — including the X question, future platforms, and
any reversal of those decisions later.
I'd ask that this RFC be deferred until the governance framework is in
place. Removing a link is trivial to do afterwards, should that be the
decision.
-Roman
Removing the link in this context does not reflect a project
consensus to abandon the platform — it ratifies the outcome of one
person's unilateral action.
Leaving Xitter would be appreciated though: some people do in fact give a
damn.
Marco Pivetta
Hi Jim & all,
Currently, the RFC states:
due to to the current nature of the site, there is no reason for the project to have a presence there
This is unclear -- what exactly about "the current nature of the site" leads to there being "no reason for the project to have a presence there" ? Can you articulate the specifics, for the record, in the PR?
-- pmj
Hi Jim & all,
Currently, the RFC states:
due to to the current nature of the site, there is no reason for the project to have a presence there
This is unclear -- what exactly about "the current nature of the site" leads to there being "no reason for the project to have a presence there" ? Can you articulate the specifics, for the record, in the PR?-- pmj
Do you really need more details about why X/Twitter is a problem per se?
This subject has already been covered in several threads: its owner is a
fascist that promotes and enhances fascism with the help of his
networks, he deliberately updated the recommendation algorithm to create
a personality-cult for his fame, the AI that's bound to this network is
p*do-promoting, most of the people that are still there are either
fascism-enthusiasts or compliant with what the platform has become
(therefore, okay with the statu quo, which means "collaborating with the
in-place system").
Do you really need more details about why X/Twitter is a problem per se?
Quote from How To Create an RFC page (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/howto):
Listen to the feedback, and try to answer/resolve all questions. Update
your RFC to document all the issues and discussions. Cover both the
positive and negative arguments.
Hi all,
Hi Jim & all,
Currently, the RFC states:
due to to the current nature of the site, there is no reason for the project to have a presence there
This is unclear -- what exactly about "the current nature of the site" leads to there being "no reason for the project to have a presence there" ? Can you articulate the specifics, for the record, in the PR?
-- pmj
Do you really need more details about why X/Twitter is a problem per se? This subject has already been covered in several threads: its owner is a fascist that promotes and enhances fascism with the help of his networks, he deliberately updated the recommendation algorithm to create a personality-cult for his fame, the AI that's bound to this network is p*do-promoting, most of the people that are still there are either fascism-enthusiasts or compliant with what the platform has become (therefore, okay with the statu quo, which means "collaborating with the in-place system").
Great -- if those are the beliefs of the RFC author, they should go directly in the RFC as supporting language for the reasoning behind the RFC.
Then there's a record of exactly who is voting in agreement with those statements, and who is not.
If there is some worry or concern about adding the reasons, that itself will be quite telling.
-- pmj
Since PHP is community-driven, maybe instead it could be interesting to
create a global PHP-community-wide poll, aside of the "php people with
voting rights", to gather more sentiment on whether there should be a
"social media policy", or at least to know whether PHP as an "organized
community with a lead account" (somehow) should be present on X, or on
certain other platforms.
That would help some people like me and others to definitely show
whether we are a niche amount of people agreeing on the fact that PHP
should leave X, or if there are actual people who care about the image
of the language being active on a fascist platform.
The account is silent because one credential holder unilaterally
stopped posting and has not transferred or shared access despite
repeated requests. That is a governance failure, not a project
decision. Removing the link in this context does not reflect a project
consensus to abandon the platform — it ratifies the outcome of one
person's unilateral action.
I agree with Roman here: even if there was unanimous agreement that the X account should be shut down, we would need to proceed in stages:
-
Agree how official PHP social media accounts should be governed, and who should have access.
-
Based on that policy, demand access to the X account called "php_official" be transferred.
-
Based on that process, decide whether the X account should be shut down, and if so, what that should look like (e.g. complete account deletion, or profile update to link to other active channels).
Otherwise, we're just setting ourselves up for more problems in future: people creating "official" accounts on other services, then abandoning them, or worse.
Regards,
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]
Hi,
On Fri, May 1, 2026 at 2:18 PM Rowan Tommins [IMSoP] imsop.php@rwec.co.uk
wrote:
The account is silent because one credential holder unilaterally
stopped posting and has not transferred or shared access despite
repeated requests. That is a governance failure, not a project
decision. Removing the link in this context does not reflect a project
consensus to abandon the platform — it ratifies the outcome of one
person's unilateral action.I agree with Roman here: even if there was unanimous agreement that the X
account should be shut down, we would need to proceed in stages:
Agree how official PHP social media accounts should be governed, and
who should have access.Based on that policy, demand access to the X account called
"php_official" be transferred.Based on that process, decide whether the X account should be shut
down, and if so, what that should look like (e.g. complete account
deletion, or profile update to link to other active channels).Otherwise, we're just setting ourselves up for more problems in future:
people creating "official" accounts on other services, then abandoning
them, or worse.
I'm all for addressing the long-term governance issue, and I don't think
anyone else has objected to that.
However, I don't understand why unlinking this X account from php.net
should wait for all of the bureaucracy to play out first. The account has
been inactive (or at least hasn't posted anything) for over a decade it
seems, and is currently a liability. To me it's a no-brainer to remove the
link now, and only add it back if/when the situation is resolved.
Cheers,
Andrey.
I'm all for addressing the long-term governance issue, and I don't think
anyone else has objected to that.However, I don't understand why unlinking this X account from php.net
should wait for all of the bureaucracy to play out first. The account has
been inactive (or at least hasn't posted anything) for over a decade it
seems, and is currently a liability. To me it's a no-brainer to remove the
link now, and only add it back if/when the situation is resolved.
Agreed, let's remove stale/dead account and then separately formulate a
social media policy (platforms, ownership, responsibility). I think some
"political messaging" was added to the original RFC, which caused the
confusion.
--
Ilia Alshanetsky
Technologist, CTO, Entrepreneur
E: ilia@ilia.ws
T: @iliaa
B: http://ilia.ws