[RFC] Refining the way we communicate deprecations/wide-reaching changes to the project

[Stephen Augustus]

Hey Kubernetes Community,

tl;dr -- words are hard sometimes and we should take some time and care to assess the way we wield them.

Looking for feedback on https://github.com/kubernetes/community/issues/5344.

---

As we go through deprecations and infrastructure changes in the project, it might be a worthwhile exercise to assess and refine the way we communicate them.

I can think of a few recent examples that caused some panic and required additional lift from contributors to reframe or contort/extend support to accommodate:

• dockershim
• the k8s.gcr.io migration
• hyperkube
  

We should consider what it means to turn down a service, piece of functionality, or kubernetes/kubernetes-adjacent system and type of impact it may have for consumers.

Without policing contributors, as maintainers of the project, we also have a responsibility to users to be careful and deliberate with our communications outside of the project, whether it be Twitter, Hacker News, etc., etc.

So how can we improve?

I think depending on the scope of a change, the following SIGs should be involved in crafting comms:

• SIG Architecture
• SIG Release
• SIG Docs
  

With SIG ContribEx to assist with consistent delivery across our properties.

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts here.

-- Stephen

[Benjamin Elder]

I came here to write a terrible version of this comment https://github.com/kubernetes/community/issues/5344#issuecomment-737653617

1000 times this.

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[Stephen Augustus]

Katharine hits the nail precisely on the head, as usual! :)