Hey all,
As mentioned in a
previous mail, the number of VEPs proposed is dramatically increasing with every release. On the one hand, this is a blessed trend that is wonderful to see, as it means that the VEP process accomplishes its goals of being transparent, open and inclusive. On the other hand, it brings challenges because more VEPs require the participation of many community members in the review process.
With this huge volume of VEPs, we might not be able to track all of them in the current cycle due to insufficient review bandwidth. As written above, I consider this great news because it's a testament to how our community grows over time.
We've been discussing assigning explicit reviewers for VEPs to assess our community capacity for tracking which VEPs are realistic for a given release. For this reason, we added a "VEP Reviewer" column to the v1.9 enhancement tracking board.
Being an assigned VEP reviewer does not mean that the reviewer should be the only person to review VEP/implementation PRs. The assigned reviewer's responsibility is to be the one of the main reviewers and primarily to shepherd the VEP to success. For example, this means:
- To be one of the main reviewers for VEP / implementation PRs.
- To ensure the VEP author is aware of the deadlines.
- To raise a red flag if the VEP is blocked or likely to miss deadlines.
- To bring controversial topics to broad awareness in time.
We emphasize that VEPs without an assigned reviewer will not be able to be tracked for the upcoming release. As a VEP author, it is your responsibility to find a community member that is willing and capable to take this responsibility.
One of the best ways to find a reviewer for your VEP is to offer yourself as a VEP reviewer for others. This way we can help one another, as a community, to ensure we deliver as much high quality improvements as possible. You're welcome to respond to this mail by offering yourselves, or by using other mediums - public meetings, slack channel, etc.
Thank you very much for your cooperation,
Itamar.