Re: [RFC] Clarify discussion and voting period rules
On Friday 29 August 2025 22:21:41 (+02:00), Tim Düsterhus wrote:
> Hi
>
> The current policy regarding how RFC are discussed and voted on is quite dated and no longer
> matches the current accepted practices of the RFC process.
>
> In the past there were several RFCs with a less-than-ideal course of discussion. Examples
> include RFCs being rushed through the process by less experienced contributors who are unaware that
> the two weeks of discussion is a *minimum* that can and often should be extended. In the weeks
> leading up to the feature freeze RFCs are rushed even by more experienced contributors trying to
> meet the deadline. This resulted in RFCs going to vote in an incomplete state, resulting in them
> being declined, wasting time of everyone involved when a little more discussion could've made
> the RFC succeed.
>
> I've thus written up a policy RFC to clarify the current policy regarding the RFC process,
> to use less ambiguous language and to formalize some of the current of the currently followed
> undocumented practices. Examples of those would be the heads-up email of an upcoming vote and the
> announcement of any relevant change to the RFC text on the list, so that folks become aware of new
> points to be discussed without needing to check the version history all the time.
>
> Please find the RFC at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/rfc_discussion_and_vote
> And the PR at: https://github.com/php/policies/pull/23
>
> As with all policy RFCs, the corresponding PR to the policies repository
> will be the authoritative source of the proposal and the RFC (and
> discussion) will only provide extra context. Please do not comment on
> the PR (except for minor typographical or phrasing clarification
> suggestions). For comments regarding the actual "policy" reply to this
> discussion thread for proper visibility instead and I'll make sure to
> incorporate them as appropriate.
>
> I intend to dogfood the proposed policy during discussion and voting of this RFC. Changes to
> the PR will be considered changes to the RFC text.
>
> To spell it out explicitly: This email marks the official start of the minimum discussion
> period of 2 weeks.
>
> Best regards
> Tim Düsterhus
>
If there is a likely (favourable) misunderstatement of the two weeks, my first suggestion would be
to double it to four weeks. This also has the benefit that it's close to a month so the rest of
the days can be used to off/on-RFC maintenance. This should better reflect the monthly rhythm of the
current practice release cadence (and some day to allow -- given better planning -- half the stable
release cycle to six (instead of twelve) months).
Just my two cents
-- hakre
Thread (40 messages)