[python-committers] Timeline to vote for a governance PEP

[Paul Moore]

On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 at 02:37, Victor Stinner <vstinner at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> According to the PEP 8001: "The vote will happen in a 2-week-long
> window from November 16 2018 to November 30 (Anywhere-on-Earth)." It's
> now in less than two weeks.
>
> I see that the PEP 8001 is still being updated (voting method). Should
> we still expect new changes before the vote starts? Can we set a
> deadline, like November 15 (Anywhere-on-Earth)?
>
> Nathaniel Smith and Donald Stuff have a draft PEP 8016 which is still
> at the "ideas" stage:
> https://discuss.python.org/t/working-discussion-for-pep-8016-the-boringest-possible-steering-council-model/333/28
>
> What is the deadline to submit new governance PEP and to update
> governance PEPs? November 15 (Anywhere-on-Earth)?

Following on from this, where and when is the discussion on PEPs
happening? I guess maybe discord, but I haven't seen much (I only "pop
in" occasionally and skim for new threads). Specifically, I'm looking
for threads that *compare* proposals - and all I'm seeing is threads
on individual proposals, ironing out details and technicalities -
which is important, sure, but not relevant to me in terms of knowing
how proposals compare, and what "public opinion" is favouring.

The reason I'm interested in public discussions is that I don't have a
particularly strong opinion on the governance model we choose per se,
so I'm mostly happy to abstain on a "I trust the rest of the core devs
to come up with a sensible decision" basis. **However**, in order to
validate that trust, a key part for me is following the discussions,
and getting a sense of the overall views of the group. But in this
(particularly crucial) instance, I have utterly no sense of what
proposals are the front runners, which are considered to have open
questions, etc. Up until now, I'd taken that to be because the
proposals weren't final, and discussions hadn't really started. But
now that the vote is getting close, I'm getting more and more
concerned - with no sense of the possible direction of the vote, how
can I trust that the decision will be one I can be comfortable with -
and how do I influence the direction except by participating in the
discussions I've been unable to locate?

Currently, I feel like my only option is to abstain and hope - I don't
have the time (or knowledge) to review, understand and assess the
proposals well enough to make an informed vote, but I have no way of
assessing the "expert opinions" of those who do, to allow me to make a
broad judgement. Frankly, I feel pretty disenfranchised by the process
at the moment.

Paul