[arc-discuss] ARC Community organization

[John Plocher]

Darren Reed wrote:
> Is there a list of "informal rules" that govern ARC cases?

They are talked about as they come up in the ARC Business
part of the weekly meetings.  This particular one came up
about a month (or two?) ago because someone from the community
specifically asked that there be sufficient "geographical"
time between a fasttrack's submission and approval for everyone
in the external community to at least see it.

PSARC agreed to not "run the litany" on cases less than 24 to
48 hours old and to have Aarti or myself publish the list of
pending fasttracks on the OS.o announcement the day before
the meeting

> How would an outsider to this process become aware of
> this and other such "informal" rules in order to gain better
> understanding of what they see or correctly interact with
> the process?

They wouldn't, because they are outsiders.  For things like this,
the people who are participating are trying hard to hear and
forecast the potential needs of these outsiders - as part of
the effort to make them insiders.

>>> To me this expectation seems to be abuse of the PSARC meeting
>>> as a way to have fast tracks approved more quickly than they

If this is abuse, it has been going on for almost 20 years...

Remember, one of the key design patterns here is "easy and
obvious things should be easy".  Fasttracks start with a 1:1
review of a proposal by an experienced ARC person.  That
review is expected to weed out anything that is controversial.
By definition, things that would be bad if they were approved
too quickly fail the "can't be controversial" test, and so, are
ineligible to be fasttracks in the first place.

> Now obviously maybe it's me who's the odd one out here, but

Ya think? :-)

> how many fast tracks have their timers expire vs are approved
> early?  

Hopefully, statistically, about 50%.

> The point here being that if the ARC behaves in a manner
> that undermines its own process 

It *is* following the defined process.

The litany is
	"Does anyone want more time?
  	 Does anyone wish to derail?
	 If not, the fasttrack is approved."

Within reason, anyone can ask for more time (if there isn't
any time pressure on the submitter...), but technically, these
actions are the prerogative of the voting Members.

> To invent some numbers, if 60% of fast tracks are approved
> without running to the full extent of their timeout, is that an
> indication that:
> a) the default timeout is too long

The timeout is chosen to match the frequency of scheduled ARC meetings.
If the ARCs met bi-weekly, the timeout would be 2 weeks.

> b) people are incorrectly filing things as fast tracks that should
>   be closed/approved automatic

Probably not.

> c) we're approving things too quickly

Nope.

> d) none of the above
   Yup - the process is working as designed.

>> If you see one go by that you might be interested in, but can't review
>> or comment right away, then (a) request more time and (b) specify some
>> _reasonable_ date when you'll be able to provide comments.
>>  
>>
> 
> I'm unclear as to why the latter half is required 

Asking for more time can be as simple as saying "let it run until
it naturally times out", but it can also be "the discussion has
unearthed several issues that are being resolved.  Give things
another week and everything should converge".

> but it is rare that such hasty engineering is actually good.

I don't see anything hasty about this at all - the engineering
has already been done by the submitter; all that is happening here
is architectural peer review.  If the peers that have reviewed it
are satisfied on Wednesday, why should the submitter have to wait
until Friday?

> On the other side of fast tracks, I'd like to see more exploration
> and understanding of what it means for cases to be considered
> candidates for automatic approval.

A project that has been to the ARC in the past, that desires to
change something that has NO architectural impact, but wishes
(for whatever reason) to inform others about the change, can
submit a "closed approved automatic" case.  They could also
simply file a bug report, since, by definition, the two are
equivalent.

   -John