[bitcoin-dev] Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority

[Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev]

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

[Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev]

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev
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

[Sjors Provoost via bitcoin-dev]

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev
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

[Jean-Paul Kogelman via bitcoin-dev]

Perhaps having authors consent to certain types of changes when they submit their BIP?

Post by Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev
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.

Sjors
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[Christian Decker via 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 <

Post by Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev
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
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

[Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev]

Post by Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <

Post by Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev
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.