Draft proposals should be easier to find

Evolution Discussion
1

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.

2

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@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@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

3

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@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@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@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

4

We have a list of frequently rejected proposals. I think it would be reasonable to have an index of discussions and even written proposals in areas of topics that are “deferred” because they are out of scope for the current release, but not rejected.

-Chris

···

On Sep 28, 2016, at 8:34 AM, Jay Abbott via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@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.

5

I think other projects use issue trackers for these sorts of topics (rather than mailing lists) primarily for the ability to capture summaries, allow searching, capture relationships (duplicates ,etc), and indicate something is deferred to a particular milestone (say swift 4 phase 2).

Not to segue the mailing list vs forum discussion again.

-DW

···

On Sep 28, 2016, at 11:42 AM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Sep 28, 2016, at 8:34 AM, Jay Abbott via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@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.

We have a list of frequently rejected proposals. I think it would be reasonable to have an index of discussions and even written proposals in areas of topics that are “deferred” because they are out of scope for the current release, but not rejected.

-Chris
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

6

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@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@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@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@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________

swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

7

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@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@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@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@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@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________

swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution