So much discussion and so little organization = potential loss

Scanning through the forum I see so many good ideas and extensive conversations. Little of which turn into formalized documentation. I understand that devs are tied up but I see some very active and prominent members pouring more energy into discussions when they are uniquely positioned (by having a greater understanding than most) to translate community consensus about a topic into something easily digestible for the small maidsafe team or others curious about what has been considered for inclusion into the finished product (or later stages of development).

Threads are essentially RFC in the roughest draft possible. Will they ever be refined? If so when? I’m kinda worried that so many of these great ideas will get buried under more great ideas.

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Yet.

Not only are the devs tied up, many things that are being discussed here (like pay the producer as an example) would require a full network to operate and certain features (in this case safecoin) to be there, which simply aren’t yet. Many discussions here are far, far, far in the future (like some potentially years ahead).

I am actually great they are happening, they are happening here and now. Those can be archived, but on one side for many there isn’t a consensus yet (like again, pay the producer), also very often because specific implementation details depend on other aspects and yet to come features, but are important an whether there is a consensus. As an example, if it turned out having super small safecoin is highly unpractical and inefficient (unlikely but possible) then the overhead a pay-the-producer-system means to the system would probably not actually have a majority of ppl behind itself anymore. Many discussions are often at a point where people give there support under a “it depends”, with dependencies which aren’t clear yet.

When these will be defined (and implemented) is unique to the specific case and can’t be answered globally. I like that we are talking about a lot of these things and have the time to discuss them in depth long before any specific implementation requirements might make it too focused.

I am not. Not everything that has been discussed at some points (even it has been agreed upon) has to eventually become an RFC or code. Things change, the world changes and so do priorities around what is important (to be RFCed and implemented). The things people care about the most (like a safecoin infrastructure, so we can build all these awesome other things on top) do come up again and again. If something doesn’t resurface anymore, that is fine, pressure to implement it has simply decreased compared to other things we want to implement.

Either way, we have the records here and a decent search and if you want to propose something again, it takes just a little bit of digging in the archive to make that one reappear and continue the discussion. If at that point one can bring it to the state to formulate a consensus-building RFC, great. If no one wants to do that, however, there clearly isn’t enough need to do it.


On a side note: I’ve made a bunch of changes on the RFC process/repository to exactly that make this easier and I very much agree there should be more RFCs (like this one) coming from the community. I just don’t think the network itself is in a state yet to allow us to formulate them.

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@Pierce you make a good point, so what is the best way to address it having highlighted this?

Someone :wink: could start by making a list (a to-do list?) of such instances with links to where each is discussed. Even if it doesn’t lead to fleshing them out, that would be useful and it might encourage someone to have a go - especially if this includes a call to action and a “what needs doing” element for items where this is clear.

This list could be posted as a topic and made editable by anyone (ask a mod to make it a wiki post).

I think a stack type forum or category for app development would be a huge asset. As the stable network is up and SD is around the corner this would be an excellent way to keep the evolution of the apps organized.

something like this solved plugin could be an option…

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