On Tue, Jul 22, 2025, at 5:03 PM, Tim Düsterhus wrote: > Hi > > Adding an "Abstain" option to RFCs was an idea that floated around > multiple times in the past and it now came up again as part of (more > than) one of the RFCs that recently went to vote. I've therefore finally > written up a policy RFC to add such an option. As part of doing that I > have also cleaned up the phrasing of the corresponding section and added > some clarification of what I believe matches the current policy and just > wasn't written down, particularly around "secondary votes". > > Please find the RFC at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/rfc_vote_abstain > And the PR at: https://github.com/php/policies/pull/20 > > As with all policy RFCs, the corresponding PR to the policies repository > will be the authoritative source of the proposal and the RFC (and > discussion) will only provide extra context. Please do not comment on > the PR (except for minor typographical or phrasing clarification > suggestions). For comments regarding the actual "policy" reply to this > discussion thread for proper visibility instead and I'll make sure to > incorporate them as appropriate. > > This message is intended to begin the official discussion period. While > it would be great to bring this policy into effect before any RFCs > targeting PHP 8.6, I'll make sure to monitor the (list) activity with > regard to folks being busy finalizing their own RFCs (and enjoying their > summer vacations [1]) to make sure everyone had plenty of opportunity to > participate in the discussion, so I would expect a vote around end of > August at the earliest. > > Best regards > Tim Düsterhus > > [1] I'll be on vacation myself in August :-)
I support this change. Thank you. The only thing I'd add is that in the case of multi-option secondary votes, STV/RCV also be explicitly allowed. (Rank first, second, third, etc.). (I'm aware the mechanism for STV is kinda clunky on the wiki right now, but we know how to make it work.) Perhaps even encouraged if "do nothing" is not one of the options. An example of both up/down and either/or secondary votes would also be helpful. --Larry Garfield
