Greeting bot

[noughtmare]

During ZuriHac I discussed with Teo and some GHC steering committee members that it might be helpful to add an automated response to every proposal that points the proposer to the next step in the process (submitting their proposal).

I've created a rough draft of such a "workflow" in my fork:

https://github.com/noughtmare/core-libraries-committee/blob/main/.github/workflows/greeting.yml

You can see the result in this test issue:

noughtmare#3

The text is still rough, so please suggest improvements!

[noughtmare]

I think it would be good to add a "non-proposal" label which automatically gets added if people use the "other" issue template so that they can be excluded from this automated greeting.

Edit: I've tried this, but it doesn't seem to work. Help wanted :)

[jeltsch]

[…] add an automated response to every proposal that points the proposer to the next step in the process (submitting their proposal).

After submitting a proposal, the proposer should submit a proposal?

[noughtmare]

Well the author has to say the proposal is ready for a vote or at least for discussion by the committee. That's the way things work now, but it is hard to understand from the PROPOSALS.md if people even look there in the first place.

[jeltsch]

I’ve looked at the automatically created response at #3, which reads as follows:

Thank you for your contribution!

When you are happy with your proposal and want to formally submit it for review by the committee, you can ping the committee chair: @TeofilC

Feel free to ask us for help at any time. We are happy to help!

I don’t see how this makes sense. If someone submits a proposal, by opening a corresponding issue, then this proposal is officially submitted, of course, and it should also continue to be so this way. Don’t make the process more complicated than needed. If I would submit a proposal and receive the above message in response, I’d be utterly confused: I crafted an appropriate proposal and am suddenly told that this is somehow not enough, with no indication what is missing.

[jeltsch]

Well the author has to say the proposal is ready for a vote or at least for discussion by the committee. That's the way things work now […].

My impression is that this is not the way things work now, judging from my experience as a CLC member: typically CLC members react to proposals without extra invitation, don’t they? 🙂

[jeltsch]

I also don’t see from PROPOSALS.md that an extra request for review would be needed. The “quick overview of the proposal lifecycle” reads as follows:

1. Create an issue with your idea.
2. (When requested) Implement the proposal.
3. (If requested) Make impact assessment (it's mandatory for breaking changes).
4. (If requested) Let us know in a comment about patches to impacted libraries.
5. Wait for the vote.
6. (If accepted) Write a migration guide (for proposals with breaking changes).

[noughtmare]

Of course CLC members are free to interact at any time, but can be "forced" by the chair after the author has "submitted" their proposal.

For example in your recent proposal Teo was reminding you manually that you need to ask for a vote:

#408 (comment)

And then the actual vote happened after you did that:

#408 (comment)

This bot is trying to make it so that Teo doesn't have to remind everyone like that.

[noughtmare]

I do agree that this process is not even clear from the PROPOSALS.md

[jeltsch]

Maybe it simply is not the process.

[noughtmare]

Well it's what our chair Teo has been following...

[TeofilC]

I tend to have two issues:

• submitters don't read the docs at all and so don't know what steps they need to undertake, eg, they might not realize that they need to make a breakage report
• I don't know if submitters are 'ready' for a vote. Putting things to a vote early can lead to issues if they want to make amendments still.

So I often have to make quite mechanical comments to say this is the next step or to explicitly ask if they want to vote.

I think some automation can help with that. Although we need to be careful we don't skip steps.

Alternatively I could just put stuff to a vote when I think it's ready if that's what people would prefer.

[noughtmare]

It seems PROPOSALS.md does have more details:

Typically the CLC will wait to start its internal voting process until public discussion about the proposal settles, but if the issue creator or main contributors find that too much bikeshedding is happening and wants to reach a verdict, they can choose to trigger the vote manually ("hey CLC, I'd like you to vote on this now :)"). Once the voting process has begun or there have been no new comments on an issue for 7 days, the CLC will have 14 days to reach a conclusion, or reach out for further consideration if we can't get to one as it stands.

So the condition seems to be: the voting should start if either the proposal author asks for it or 7 days after the last comment (or earlier if the chair deems the discussion "settled").

So perhaps the bot can still remind people that they can manually ask for a vote if they want to speed up the process. But maybe there is less of a point to have a bot then.

[jeltsch]

I tend to have two issues:

• submitters don't read the docs at all and so don't know what steps they need to undertake, eg, they might not realize that they need to make a breakage report

I tend to have an issue with submitters not reading the documentation. If they want to make changes to the standard library, an essential piece of the Haskel “ecosystem”, then they should be so responsible to read the relevant documents. If they don’t, then maybe they aren’t the right people to make such changes.

So I often have to make quite mechanical comments to say this is the next step or to explicitly ask if they want to vote. I think some automation can help with that.

The problem with automation like the proposed sending of a greeting message is that it makes lives harder for those who do read the documentation. These people receive more text, which they, responsible as they are, will read, only to find out that it repeats what they already know.

[Bodigrim]

I'm wondering what problem you are trying to solve here. Is it proposers who are meant to benefit? Or CLC members / chair?