On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 01:52, Donald Stufft <donald@stufft.io> wrote:
> I also know that Nick has a few concerns with accessibility to the wider community, which I believe I addressed in the other email thread, but to reiterate, I don’t think that the wider community cares one way or another, and I think the biggest benefit comes from being able to tailor this process to what we need. So we can adjust it as we go along to what makes the most sense to us, without having to go to python-dev and get them to change their process to fit our needs.
I don't think the wider community necessarily participates in
discussions, but nevertheless I feel that the *ability* to do so is
essential. There's already an undercurrent of feeling that the PyPA
make decisions without considering the community[1], which I think we
need to address. It's important to me that anyone in the community can
comment on proposals and be heard (and that's not just "technically
has the ability to", but rather it's "knows how to, and has the
information they need to do so"). Currently, the PEP process is well
known, and "everyone" knows how to participate (more accurately, they
know they can, and that if they want to they can find out how to do
so).
A rule of thumb I learned from writers: outside critique is great at identifying *that* there's a problem, but lousy at identifying *what* the problem is.
The complaints about PyPA being arbitrary and autocratic always seem weird on their face, because we all know we're a bunch of disorganized volunteers who would love more participation.
I think the problem is actually that we're not autocratic enough :-). Or at least, not organized enough. I actually don't know how the PyPA makes decisions. People make claims about what "the PyPA" has done, and no one has the authority to even say whether they're true or not. Most python users have absolutely no idea where PEPs come from, and then even if they do, the packaging PEP process is its own weird thing with confusing and poorly documented exceptions to the regular PEP process. We have so many partially overlapping mailing lists that it's effectively impossible to follow everything. This all creates the impression of opacity, insularity, arbitrariness.
I think the main thing that will make a difference here is having a clear, simple picture of what the PyPA is and isn't, what the communication channels are, how decisions get made, how people can get involved, etc. And then actually writing that down and putting it somewhere prominent.
-n