Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority
6 messages, 27 to 29 Sep 2017. Started by Luke Dashjr.
Luke Dashjr, Bryan Bishop, Sjors Provoost, Jean-Paul Kogelman, Christian Decker, Peter Todd
Many pull requests to the BIPs repository are spelling corrections or similar, which are obvious to merge. Currently, the BIP process requires the Author of the affected BIPs to ACK any changes, which seems inefficient and unnecessary for these kind of editorial fixes.
What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, I think an exception is reasonable.
I've prepared a draft PR for BIP 2 here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/596
If you oppose this change, please say so within the next month.
Luke
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:
Quoted text (6 lines)
> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these > kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 > shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, > I > think an exception is reasonable. >
Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to check revision history to see what's going on.
- Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507
Op 27 sep. 2017, om 22:01 heeft Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> het volgende geschreven:
Quoted text (8 lines)
> > On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org <mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>> wrote: > What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these > kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 > shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, I > think an exception is reasonable. > > Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to check revision history to see what's going on.
Perhaps it's enough to @mention authors in the PR and give them a week to object before merging?
Sjors
Perhaps having authors consent to certain types of changes when they submit their BIP?
Quoted text (20 lines)
> On Sep 27, 2017, at 1:20 PM, Sjors Provoost via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote: > > >> Op 27 sep. 2017, om 22:01 heeft Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> het volgende geschreven: >> >>> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote: >>> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these >>> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 >>> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, I >>> think an exception is reasonable. >> >> Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to check revision history to see what's going on. > > Perhaps it's enough to @mention authors in the PR and give them a week to object before merging? > > Sjors > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Agreed, I think a sign-off mechanism might be desirable. Currently it must be the original author(s) signing off, but we can probably widen that to be any 2-3 community members. They'd basically be attesting that the meaning did not change.
- cdecker
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 9:02 PM Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:
Quoted text (26 lines)
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev < > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote: > >> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these >> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 >> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor >> revision, I >> think an exception is reasonable. >> > > Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single > word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There > should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as > long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each > document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested > changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to > check revision history to see what's going on. > > - Bryan > http://heybryan.org/ > 1 512 203 0507 > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev >
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 02:01:40PM -0500, Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev wrote:
Quoted text (17 lines)
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev < > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote: > > > What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these > > kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 > > shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, > > I > > think an exception is reasonable. > > > > Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single > word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There > should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as > long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each > document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested > changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to > check revision history to see what's going on.
As part of this, we may want to say that the BIP editor should cryptographically sign (and ideally timestamp) all their changes as a secondary measure to make it clear who actually made the change.