[swift-evolution] draft proposals should be easier to find

[Jay Abbott]

Maybe my wording and use of the word 'proposal' is all wrong. I still think
there's an issue that could be addressed though. Don't get me wrong - I
think the level of documentation available on swift.org about the community
process, different streams (evolution/dev/etc.) is all fantastic, still it
can be improved. This is one of those issues that it's very difficult to
see as an issue at all from the inside. I think just knowing that a
particular subject is being discussed - even if it's not a concrete or even
a draft proposal - would help people, a) to not waste their own time and
that of the list with duplicate ideas; and b) to feel more comfortable
about getting involved. Maybe an ideas board that people can +1 or -1 would
help instead - or at least keep poorly researched discussion at bay?

On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 at 16:54 Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think the idea is that proposals submitted to GitHub are supposed to
> have already gone through a robust round of discussion, but the community
> can't be adequately engaged in that discussion if the topic is out of
> scope. In that case, there shouldn't be anything to capture as a proposal;
> anything written down won't have gone through the right process to bring it
> up to that point.
>
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 10:34 Jay Abbott via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>> I don't really understand this concept of only accepting proposals for a
>> specific round. I saw some ideas that were suitable for future rounds of
>> proposals but not right now... Why aren't they captured in a better format
>> than the mailing list archive? If you don't want to be distracted by future
>> things then capture them as proposals but file them out of the way a bit so
>> that people can see they exist - I would have thought this would decrease
>> distractions from people bringing them up again.
>>
>> On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 at 16:14 Robert Widmann <devteam.codafi at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> There's a difference between "was once discussed here" and "had a
>>> proposal submitted to Github for consideration".  If many people are
>>> producing the same ideas for proposals that exist on GitHub that poses a
>>> more pressing risk.  But it is easier to search GitHub for such proposals
>>> than the list.  For draft proposals that haven't made it yet, as long as
>>> they fall within the guidelines for proposals of a specific round, there's
>>> no reason you shouldn't be able to dig the discussion back up again and
>>> just talk about it.  Who knows, maybe you'll get a proposal submitted to
>>> GitHub that way with your name on it too - at the very least you'll learn
>>> something.  In a strange way, I guess, I'm saying we might not need this.
>>> If somebody replies "by the by, we discussed this <here>" it's not meant to
>>> dismiss you as unoriginal.  You can use that old thread as a further
>>> jumping off point if you wish to continue discussion.
>>>
>>> tl;dr Keeping track of every idea pitched here would quickly grow...
>>> unmaintainable.
>>>
>>> ~Robert Widmann
>>>
>>> 2016/09/28 11:03、Jay Abbott via swift-evolution <
>>> swift-evolution at swift.org> のメッセージ:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I had an idea and eventually discovered trawling through the archives of
>>> this list that quite a few other people have had the same idea and it has
>>> been discussed. Multiple times. This was not easy to discover, and judging
>>> from some of the messages I came across other people hadn't found and read
>>> them.
>>>
>>> I imagine this is frustrating and potentially time-consuming for the
>>> list, with people proposing or reopening ideas that have already been
>>> discussed, and it's likely frustrating for those people trying to get
>>> involved too, possibly discouraging them from participating further.
>>>
>>> I have some ideas about how to solve/mitigate this, not sure if they are
>>> any good, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
>>>
>>> 1. Add a draft-proposals directory to the swift-evolution repo. People
>>> would still discuss it here first, then add a draft and send a PR.
>>>
>>> Pros:
>>> Easy to find and search; Easy to link to; Things that are suitable for
>>> future discussion/review would have a place to live until their time;
>>> Commonly proposed already have a place, but uncommon ones could live here;
>>> Could be categorised (perhaps in sub-directories or by renaming files to
>>> have a different prefix) for "not viable" "yes, write it up and move to
>>> proposals" "consider later" "no, never" etc.
>>>
>>> Cons:
>>> Would get big and might need some cleaning from time to time; More PRs
>>> to deal with - although a quick scan is all that would be needed;
>>>
>>> 2. Add a currently_proposed.md file. This would have a similar purpose,
>>> but would be 3 lines only - Title (link to mailing list archive of
>>> discussion), Description (one-line), Status/comment.
>>>
>>> Pros and Cons are basically the same as 1.
>>>
>>> 3. Add a separate category to the bug tracker for proposals.
>>>
>>> Pros: ?
>>> Cons: ?
>>>
>>> Not sure how that's currently used, or if mixing up dev and evolution
>>> related items is acceptable or not, so I'm not sure if this is
>>> viable/practical.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> swift-evolution mailing list
>>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>> swift-evolution mailing list
>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20160928/0a733903/attachment.html>