Up-votes instead of down-votes on RFCs

[kennytm]

The good thing about reviews is that they are tied to some specific RFC text, so they are much more local. With reviews, some concerns can be raised, resolved, and then folded (which GitHub will do automatically) once the concern has been resolved. That way, it is easier to see what issues are outstanding and what issues are resolved.

That’s not replying to my concern that you see the RFC got updated but you don’t know where it happened and thus missed it unless you read every comment again. Auto-folding makes it worse.

[Centril]

That’s not replying to my concern that you see the RFC got updated but you don’t know where it happened and thus missed it unless you read every comment again. Auto-folding makes it worse

But GitHub gives you notifications via email which includes the new comments?

[kennytm]

Not everyone enabled email notification, and its built in notification system (the blue dot on the bell) only links you to the latest action.

[Centril]

its built in notification system (the blue dot on the bell) only links you to the latest action

Perhaps we have enough pull as a community to change this?

[kennytm]

It would be nice if GitHub can highlight every unread comment in a subscribed issue

But before this is ever implemented, I still prefer allowing generic discussion happen in the main thread.

[Centril]

But before this is ever implemented, I still prefer allowing generic discussion happen in the main thread.

Fair enough =) Tho sometimes, non-generic discussions happen in the main thread, which would be better dealt with reviews.

[Ixrec]

This is not a great solution since new comments in a review comment thread appear without any context as to what thread they were in, and are often complete gibberish until you follow the link and reread the context of that specific thread.

When reviews are not being used, the simple linear RFC comment chain at least remains coherent every time you get a new comment in your inbox without having to re-read a bunch of the history.

[Centril]

This is not a great solution since new comments in a review comment thread appear without any context as to what thread they were in, and are often complete gibberish until you follow the link and reread the context of that specific thread.

Unfortunate, yes - but we are at GitHub’s mercy here… unless we RIIR GitHub ^,-

the simple linear RFC comment chain at least remains coherent every time you get a new comment in your inbox without having to re-read a bunch of the history

A simple scroll up to the first post in the review thread should suffice?

[nikomatsakis]

Yes! Actually, I would be in favor of “removing” from the range of “reactions” available in rust-lang repos. The way I wanted to do this was to write a bot that looked for any attempt to add and converted it to , but I might accept less passive aggressive versions too (like just removing it).

[glaebhoerl]

Is there precedent for Rust requesting a feature from GitHub and getting it? Have we tried contacting them about this one?

[mrhota]

seems like y’all are already in favor of protecting people’s feelings, but I don’t think I saw any evidence in this thread that people’s feelings actually need protecting.

Is there any evidence that Rust RFC proposers have gone away, never to come back, because of down votes?

[johnthagen]

Yes! Actually, I would be in favor of “removing” from the range of “reactions” available in rust-lang repos.

Wouldn’t this encouage “-1” posts that clutter up the discussion as was the case with “+1” posts back before GitHub added the emoji reactions?

[notriddle]

If you want to disagree with an RFC, you need to actually say why. Content-free comments should just be removed by the mod team as unconstructive.

[nikomatsakis]

Is there any evidence that Rust RFC proposers have gone away, never to come back, because of down votes?

I’ll be honest – I find it unpleasant to see “thumbs down” comments, even when it’s not my RFC, and even when it’s an RFC I disagree with. It just gives me a bad feeling. I like seeing and things like that, it makes me happy. I don’t want to have bad feelings when working on Rust.

[Centril]

Is there precedent for Rust requesting a feature from GitHub and getting it? Have we tried contacting them about this one?

I have no idea, but to get something we first have to decide what we want =)

[glaebhoerl]

Well yes, but it seems like it’d be worth giving that a shot before we start workarounding it by implementing bots.

I imagine we’d go to GitHub with something like “we’d like to be able to disable the -1 reaction on our repos” [and possibly the ‘confused’ one too, which comes off as more of a “meh” in practice], and then maybe they’d come back to us with something like “ok, each org/repo now gets to choose which 6 emoji are available as reactions”. (Which sounds like a reasonable approach to me - but maybe they also have other priorities like wanting the set of reactions to be consistent across their website.)

(If something like that does happen, then I’d also really want to have distinct reactions for “good comment” and/or “thanks”, versus “yes, I agree”!)

[felix.s]

I don’t want to have bad feelings when working on Rust.

People don’t want to have bad feelings generally. And yet, humanity has been suspecting that it’s impossible to have a meaningful, fulfilling life without some suffering, and without accepting that certain wants aren’t going to be met all the time, for long enough that ‘misery builds character’ has become something of a cliché.

Like @petrochenkov said, I don’t want to delude myself that my proposals are universally admired and accepted. Sure, a downvote may be less useful than an explanatory comment, but I’d still take that over pile-ons or no feedback at all. (It’s not like all comments are perfectly explanatory either.)

[glaebhoerl]

‘misery builds character’

survivorship bias

[nikomatsakis]

I don’t want to delude myself that my proposals are universally admired and accepted.

Don’t worry, we’ll let you know. And maybe we’ll even give you some constructive feedback while we’re at it!

It’s not like all comments are perfectly explanatory either

Certainly not all comments are perfectly explanatory, but a comment cannot explain, by its very nature! It is just pure negativity with nothing else.

[steveklabnik]

And yet, humanity has been suspecting that it’s impossible to have a meaningful, fulfilling life without some suffering

Rust development is (hopefully!) only part of any given life. Let’s leave the suffering to the other parts. Nowhere in that maxim is it stated that suffering must be equally distributed through every part of life.