[PHP-INTERNALS] voting without vcs accounts

I'm completely in favor of a formal process since it would mean there
can be less biased and favor applied to the selection and this can
eliminate the potential for people being included to vote for or
against something for the purpose of overtaking the vote.

I think PHP is already a very inclusive environment. Given that
php.net now has edit.php.net and has streamlined the process of
submitting bug reports both for documentation and language bugs I
think the inclusion into the voting process as a formal outline and
drafted step-by-step process will further help put PHP in a position
of higher power among its neighboring communities.

I propose three primary suggestions for helping formulate such a process:

1) The person requesting voting privileges in the RFC voting process
should have either (a) contributed to the PHP community in a
constructive and contemporary manner such as submitting helpful bug
reports for docs or language bugs (did not contribute noise or repeat
bugs or lack of reproducible test cases in the recent past), (b)
participates in submitting patches to the PHP source repository, (c)
participates in actively in php.net or wiki.php.net without a known
history of disruptions among the community.

2) The person requesting voting privileges should only be allowed to
make the request once every so often (such as on a monthly or
quarterly, or even annual basis, for example). This will help avoid
constant requests that just get turned down and avoid a load on
applicants. Also, the applicant should be reviewed by their peers as
well as the SVN account holders to avoid prejudice. If this is not
possible it should at least be set in some fashion what
guidelines/prerequisites would appeal to the potential applicant so
that people can have a set expectation of what to look for before
approaching such privileges.

3) Anyone who is not included in the voting process should not be
turned down or discouraged from trying again (after an allotted
waiting period) so as to keep the voting process lean and fair.
However, I think it may also be fair to request that those re-sending
a request to gain voting privileges should be required to produce some
supporting evidence for their active and positive roles in their
community, such as previous patches, bug report ids, mailing list
archives discussions demonstrating some constructive feedback, logs,
etc...

I'm sure more can be made of this list in time. I just thought to
start the discussion off with some constructive suggestions. :)

Hi!
I think before going into these, it is important to answer this
question: what is the problem we're trying to solve?

I reject the premise of that question because it implies that nothing in
PHP should ever be changed unless it's "fixing" something that's broken.
By that standard, it would be virtually impossible to get any new features
added.

With that in mind, here's the short answer: The problem is that there is a
feature people are requesting that currently does not exist.

The longer answer: This is not a bugfix, nor does it purport to be. This
is a requested new feature proposed for the next *major* PHP release (i.e.
6.0). This feature will add convenience and allow developers o flexibly
assert more control over their code structure.

--Kris

I think you mixed up two threads here :) This one is about voting ;)

Nikita

Oh, crap! You're right. Sorry, NM on that last post, everyone.

I hate Mondays.... :/

--Kris

the voting RFC explicitly states that it is possible for (some) non-vcs
users to vote, but there isn't any formal process on how can someone apply
for voting karma, and what is the decision making process on this.
we already had at least one formal submission (
http://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg54229.html) which
went unanswered and I was also questioned on irc/twitter multiple times
about how can somebody request voting karma.
I would like to be able point people to the right direction about this kind
of questions, but currently there is no official way of doing this.
I know that some of the wiki admins are already handed out a few people
voting karma, but there is no formal process, and it isn't transparent in
any way.
I would like to see that fixed.

Hi!
I'd say if you have to request it and you have to ask about it on
twitter, you probably do not know enough about PHP development process
to have a deciding vote on PHP features. For non-deciding votes, we have
community voting where pretty much anyone can vote.

uhm. do I really have to explain it? for you? the same reason why we have
the rfc process, the release process, the voting process.
I'm not talking about 100% complete, unchangeable rules, but some kind of
process to follow.
mentioning the option for non-vcs users to vote in the voting RFC without
providing them a way to apply for karma is the same as we wouldn't mention
it at all.
I could also accept if we don't allow them, but then we should be clear
about it.


no, it only means that our internal processes aren't clear or easily
accessible.
people outside the circle can't do much, than asking people inside to let
them in.

you mean the +1/-1 on the mailing list threads?
that's nice, but I'm talking about the voting laid out in the voting
process rfc https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting (what you also supported).

as I mentioned before, I can live with it if we remove the ability for
non-vcs users to vote, but in that case we should update the rfc (and the
karma check in the wiki) accordingly.
but if we decide to keep it, we should make it possible for people to be
able to request for voting karma, and a way to handle those requests.

Hi!
If somebody is an outsider to PHP development, why do you think giving
him a deciding vote on it would be a good thing? One can discuss things,
propose changes, etc. without any special access.
No, I mean community voting in the wiki. Voting plugin has option to
allow anybody to vote. We did such polls in the past. We can do it any day.
Why sending a message to the list is not enough?

thats something which the current voting RFC allows. it seems that we are
already over on that decision, as the accepted RFC had that clause.

I'm not sure about it. AFAIK when I implemented my patch to restrict the
voting to the vcs users + the voting wiki group, we lost that ability. (see
http://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg51932.html for the
history of that change)

dunno, but it seems it isn't, as nobody replied or gave voting karma to
William.

Hi!
I don't see any indication there that community vote is not possible,
but if it was changed we can make community vote be available again.

My point is that we are talking about some formal processes but I don't
see what would be the desired purpose of such processes. For release
process, it's releasing a stable code in time. For RFC, it is informing
people about proposed feature and getting it discussed and hopefully
accepted. Here, I'm not sure what is the goal.

http://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg51948.html
Pierre said that it was a bug(better to say lack of restriction), that
everybody with wiki account was able to vote, so I changed the voting
plugin to only allow the specific groups(vcs + voting) to be able to vote.
nobody asked that we would still need to keep the ability to create "open"
votes where anybody can vote, so it wasn't implemented.

To be able to get voting karma if you meet the requirements. without the
need to bribe Hannes, Philip or any other wiki admin.

Hi!
This is the authenticated vote. It has also option of having
non-authenticated vote.
I don't see how getting you "voting carma", whatever it might be, can be
a goal of PHP project. I'm talking about the goal of the whole thing.

sorry, I can't really follow you with that.
do you have a problem allowing the non-vcs users (defined by the voting
rfc) to vote, or do you have a problem providing a clear way for them to
get their voting karma?

Hi!
I have a problem that we don't have understanding of what is the goal of
this whole vote setup. What is it for? What we will be doing with it?
And please don't say "it says so in RFC" - it is not a goal.

Stas, I'm with Ferenc on this. We just need one or two sentences somewhere
in the wiki saying how non-contributors can get vote karma. The sentences
should give the physical process and what kind of people we will give karma to.

Chris

The problem is that the voting RFC does not define who can vote. It contains
two parts:

1. Those with SVN [sic] access (but how does karma come into play?)
2. Those without (how do we provide such rights? to whom?)

If these are to be answered (they should) then I don't think an RFC can be
edited like that (people already voted on it), so suspect we'd need a new
RFC to replace it. Fun!

I suspect most people voted "Yes" for that RFC thinking it'd mean less noise
on this list while not caring about the details. That's only a guess. But
trouble is, defining the "Who" is the most difficult part and a big reason why
general consensus is preferred.

Regards,
Philip

hi,
It does, or we begin to have 2nd, 3rd and totally irrelevant classes
of developers or doc writers.
I prefer not to comment on that part. It is like saying that people
are not able to take a qualified decision, for whatever reasons. I
have been myself tempted to think or say the same about some of the
php.net members, and have been proven wrong many times. So let ignore
this comment.


Cheers,

A "not" was missing. It should have been:

It does not, or we begin to have 2nd, 3rd and totally irrelevant
classes of developers or doc writers.

Cheers,

hi Stas,
Let me clarify that and try to do not go backwards while we have
finally moved forward.

The goal is to have community leader participating in our design
discussions and decisions. It has happened already for a couple of
RFCs (accepted and rejected) and went very well. The FUDs about core
devs, legacy developers and the like loosing control about the
direction PHP takes has been killed, it did not happen and it is very
unlikely that it will happen.

How do the community leaders come in? They are usually very well known
and already participate to php in one way or another (bugs report,
testing, etc.) and are part of a known OSS project (we have drupal,
zf, symfony already for example). Having a couple of devs to second
their addition is also requested.

This has been said many times already in the past and it is said in
the RFC as well. We do not need over killed process as an attempt to
make php more closed to our communities.

Cheers,

Hi!
Excellent. So we have people participating, contributing to RFCs,
getting features accepted, etc. So what's the problem that needs fixing?
I am ignoring the comment about FUDs because I have no idea what it is
about, so I guess you are answering somebody other's comment that I have
not read.
I'm sorry I didn't understand the last sentence. Could you please
explain what you meant by that?

hi Stas,
Nothing right now, everything works as it should so far. We may do a
review in a year, or half a year. But as of now we are on track and
everything seems to run well.
It was not for you directly but the voting opponent (the very few we
have) who cannot get over it. However you are right, they can be
ignored (for their opinion about voting :).

Cheers,

I guess that covers me :(

I think the issue is not who, in general terms, can vote, but how a
determination that someone is covered by those terms is made.

What is a "known" OSS project? For instance, which of these would qualify:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#PHP ?

Of course, it's impossible to set a clear line on what is a "known"
project. Which leads to arbitrariness. Which leads to the second question
-- who approves those voting rights? It's been said in this thread that
any wiki admin can approve an account without saying anything. Is this
case? Who was approved, by whom, and who "seconded the addition" of these
accounts? Personally, I don't know.

These are, in my opinion, legitimate concerns that should not be dismissed
(and "has been said in the past" and allusions to obviousness or lack of
problems so far are not appropriate responses).

If the vote is bound to the other project: does this mean the other
project has to decide about a "delegate"? Could the organisation revoke
that delegation or replace him? Would we therefore only work with
projects which are setup properly? (This would mean that a project
organized like PHP won't get a vote)

Right now accounts (and therefore voting rights) are handed out based on
individual contributions. And I think that's a good model to follow for
the votes.

The way I understood the rule was to be able to give regular
participants in discussions, (assuming they actually make useful
contributions ;-) ) voting karma even though they don't contribute code.
And I wonder why that should have more precise rules than the ones we
use to hand out accounts. Basically every candidate I imagine could get
a "proper" account easily, if they want.

johannes

- we have a dedicated page for requesting vcs account
- we also have an agreed upon, loosely defined set of requirements for
handing out accounts (first send patches and after a few gets accepted, you
should apply for your own account)
- it is a public information who can approve accounts (it is well
hidden, but public:
http://git.php.net/?p=web/master.git;a=blob;f=manage/users.php;h=75c5aa6bf9812b653de35c43667ef03387050437;hb=HEAD#l478
^^)
- when an account is approved or rejected, a mail is sent to the list,
where we can see who approved/denied/deleted the account

if we can have the same for the non-vcs voting approval, that would be
fine with me.

Just to play devil's advocate (Satan and I go way back), what about people
who are established PHP developers but who generally don't participate in
the development/discussion of PHP core? An argument could be made that, as
the users of PHP, they should be able to have some say in its development.
That's not my position, mind you; I'm just throwing that premise out there
to see if it holds up. =)

could you please open a separate thread for that?
btw. "regular participant of internals discussions" is one of the reason on
which group someone can get voting karma.
so if that is provided, anybody have a chance to get join
the decision making process.

Why would that be a separate thread? Isn't that what we're talking about?
I.e. determining who gets voting access and who doesn't?

--Kris

I just ask for clarification on how the community representatives (which is
defined in the accepted voting RFC) can get their karma.
You are talking about changing the requirements for somebody to be able to
participate in the voting, thus changing/extending the original RFC.

It's the same topic, and the question of who *should* or should not be
allowed to vote was already raised previously on this thread. That's what
I was responding to. So, deep breath.... =)

--Kris

I think Stas was a little bit offtopic/red herring with the discussion on
why do we need non-vcs people to be allowed to vote.
But to use that as an excuse to hijack the thread to resurrect the "why
can't everybody vote" discussion isn't really nice, and I even asked it
especially to not to do, as that was the reason which halted my previous
attempt to address this issue.
Could we all please focus on the original topic?
Thanks!

The voting RFC is unclear but aside from that, there are two non-vcs
accounts with voting karma today:

User: damz: Damien Tournoud - dam...@...org
User: hywan: Ivan Enderlin - iva...@...net

Not saying they should or should not, but just saying. And I'm not sure
how/when they received the voting karma but it happened.

Regards,
Philip

As a PHP developer (that is, a developer who writes in PHP), I'd agree,
*to an extent*. There are certainly things that I'd like to be able to
vote on (such as additions to the language/syntax and things such as
.phpp). However, I've got no idea how easy such things are to implement,
so I don't feel qualified to even ask to be able to vote.

However, these things are going to influence me as a developer, so I'd
like to be able to vote.

Take, as an example, the .phpp debates. (Just as an example.) If I
didn't like it, I'd like to be able to vote against it to avoid having
to handle it later. However, if I *was* for it, I wouldn't feel
qualified to comment, as I have no idea how hard these things are to
implement.

(Just my $0.02. Apologies if this is confusing, I'm a mixture of tired
and distracted.)

Hmm yeah that makes sense. What if we split the questions into multiple
parts? For example, the first question would be something along the lines
of, "Conceptually, do you think this is a good idea?" That could be open
to PHP developers as well. Then the second question could be, "If you
answered 'Yes', as a core contributor, do you believe this proposal is
technically feasible?" That question would be open only to the people who
can vote now.

Mind you, I'm just throwing this out there off the top of my head. It
could be a really stupid idea, but I thought it might provoke some
interesting discussion at the very least. With that in mind.... Thoughts?
=)

--Kris

Hi,

Seeing the discussion/confusion yesterday I'm bringing this up again, maybe
we can get an agreement this time.