I absolutely agree with Sarah, Lily and Ken. Other examples of feature request threads are:
- https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/updating-the-default-startapp-template/24193: to me this has reached “consensus” but since the definition of consensus seems to be/is subjective, one can never be sure
- https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/django-auth-admin-and-passkeys/22181: may starve to death, if no one “bumps it” with a new comment, it may stay there “undefined” for a long time
- https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/ticket-34915-do-not-autopopulate-order-field-for-model-with-an-order-with-respect-to-if-already-set/24663: no responses so far
Relatedly, this Discord thread on #contributor-discussion (specifically about consensus), felt somehow discouraging, as if things would intentionally be hand-wavy and slow:
[…] this thread started because people here thought the consensus approach as it plays out currently is often:
- Prone to stalling
- Drawn out over months or years for no other reason than the process being poor
- Very arbitrary
[…] those three points are by design.
As a fellow, when I have to close a feature-request-as-a-ticket as wontfix, redirecting the reporter to the forum (as I understand this is the procedure), I feel uneasy because the request seems doomed from the start due to the inherent ambiguity and lack of clarity in the “getting consensus” process.
I would love if we could establish clear steps, rules, and procedures for proposing, reviewing, and deciding on features. Even better if this happen in a “reasonable” time frame.
Concretely, I think we need:
- A way to “list” all the feature request proposals needing a resolution. This could be its own category in the forum, or perhaps a new “Triage Stage” in a ticket (shall bringing back “design decision needed” be reconsidered?)
- A non ambiguous way to define when consensus was reached (for both “yes, let’s do it” and for “no, let’s not pursue that at this time”)
- An explicit threshold (time based? amount of participants based?) to conclude if the proposal is accepted or not