> On Oct 9, 2019, at 3:50 AM, Zeev Suraski <z...@php.net> wrote: > On Wed, 9 Oct 2019 at 0:38 Mike Schinkel <m...@newclarity.net > <mailto:m...@newclarity.net>> wrote: > ...it seems you have identified at least one way to seek compromise. Why not > move forward with this, in general? > I did - quite a while ago - and I see no reason not to, except that the > pro-strict/pro-let’s-break-things camp either ignores that proposal entirely, > or calls it a fork (it’s a fork in precisely the same way that PHP is a > spoon). > Note that I don’t really view it as a compromise, which is why I wrote my > reply to you the way that I did. Instead, I see it as a complete win/win for > both camps.
Well, maybe it was not the right compromise. Or better, not the right win/win. Maybe another win/win is what we need instead? But then again, it is not all on you. Or on any one individual. It will take a "quorum" of people who are actively willing to collaborate to create positive change on this list. Something that might not actually be possible given how entrenched everyone appears to be, but since I'm relatively new to participating on the list and have yet to be beaten down by it, maybe I am still just idealistic enough to think with effort it is possible? > I don’t know. The last time I tried to do it, someone pulled an overnight > pseudo-RFC to stop the discussion, radically mischaracterizing the proposal, > abusing a vote to shutdown discussion, and creating the fundamentally wrong > impression that this is about the technical feasibility of achieving this - > and not about whether we want to go down that route or not. I’m all for > discussing it (the principle, not necessarily in the P++ form). Yes, that is quite unfortunate. But I think going off on one's own to produce a solution and then presenting it back to the group — and forgive me if that is not what happened —is most likely to fail given the current nature of the list. Instead what might work better is to create ad-hoc working groups of numerous people to work on a solution, and then as a group present the proposed solution back to the list? Having all the working group members in support from the get-go would mean there would at least be a minimum number of people who support the solution once proposed. > As I wrote a couple of weeks back, before we agree on the principle - that > these contentious, breaking-for-no-new-reason proposals can’t be forced on > everyone but we need to make it opt-in, I don’t think formalizing it into an > RFC would help. I could be wrong, but I think we’re currently lacking in > good will on the other camp, which appears to feel a lot more comfortable to > just go on producing contentious proposals day in and day out, and live with > whatever sticks. I agree that there seems to be a lacking of good will on the part of many on this list. I wonder why that is and why it is so extreme in the PHP community vs. other communities that argue but do not become as toxic, and ponder how to resolve the current maliase. Maybe instead of just a mailing list, what if we also started having a weekly Zoom call where contentious subjects could be discussed instead of allowing them to fester on the mailing list? The calls could also be recorded and made available via the list for all to see. -Mike
