BIP 3 and issues on BIPs

The recent discussion highlights various types of feedback on Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) and the potential methods to integrate such feedback more effectively into the BIP repository. There are primarily three kinds of feedback identified: concerns agreed upon by BIP authors but without resolved solutions, reasonable concerns that are disagreed upon by BIP authors, and feedback dismissed as irrelevant or trolling. The suggestion was made to incorporate the first two types directly into the BIPs repo to enhance accessibility and traceability of these discussions.

However, the historical approach using a comment system was discontinued due to its minimal adoption and the low quality and occasional defacement of content, which lacked proper authentication mechanisms. BIP3 already mandates that the Rationale section should document significant objections and concerns that were addressed during the proposal's development. It also notes that open issues are often recorded in draft BIPs, and now there is provision for linking to multiple relevant discussions as documents evolve. Despite these measures, the idea of collecting summaries of discussions and dissent in a dedicated space has been met with skepticism regarding its potential adoption, given past experiences with low engagement in freely accessible commentary platforms.

The expectation is that transitioning to a system that relies on pull requests and curation by BIP editors would not necessarily increase commentary but would add to the workload and decision-making responsibilities of the editors. This could be counterproductive unless there is clear evidence of insufficient documentation of issues and concerns by BIP authors. Currently, the mailing list serves as an active forum for these discussions, providing adequate visibility and engagement from the community, as demonstrated by recent improvements to BIP54 following raised concerns through these channels.

Furthermore, when BIP3 was implemented, changes were made to remove Comment URL headers linked to empty wikis, retaining only those with substantive content. This directive empowers BIP owners to decide whether to remove or maintain the Comment Summary and Comment URLs in their proposals. The need for broader dissemination of this information was acknowledged, recognizing an oversight in communication strategies concerning these procedural adjustments. For further details on BIP3 guidelines, refer to the official documentation available here.