Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP 2 promotion to Final

From: Btc Drak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 09:42:16 +0000

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Luke Dashjr <[email-masked]> wrote:

> BIP Comments are not a part of the BIP itself, merely post-completion notes
> from various external parties. So having them external does not make the
> BIP
> any less self-contained. Right now, this information takes the form of
> reddit/forum comments, IRC chats, etc.
>

BIP2 does not state the comments section is where discussion happens for
the BIP, but for a sort of final summary.

> It is important that the forum for comments have a low barrier of use. The
> Bitcoin Wiki requires only a request for editing privileges, whereas GitHub
> wiki would require reading and agreeing to a lengthy Terms of Service
> contract.
>

Seems weak, it's much easier to sign up for a Github account and most have
one already. It's certainly easier than either paying to get edit
privileges on the Bitcoin Wiki find someone to convince you're genuine an
obscure IRC channel.

> In terms of staleness, the Wiki has been shown to stand the test of time,
> and
> is frankly less likely to move than the GitHub repository.
>
> The BIP process originated on the Wiki, and was only moved to GitHub
> because
> stronger moderation was needed (eg, to prevent random other people from
> editing someone else's BIP; number self-assignments; etc). Such moderation
> is
> not only unnecessary for BIP Comments, but would be an outright nuisance.
>

I'm not sure that is the reason why, but in any case, Github is a more
sensible place because of the collaborative features which is why they
became the centre of OSS software development for hundreds of thousands of
projects.

> I hope this addresses all your concerns and we can move forward with BIP 2
> unmodified?
>

I am sorry but it has not. I still strongly object to using the Bitcoin
Wiki or any external source source for the commentary part of BIP2. I
believe it should be done on using the Wiki feature at bitcoin/bips. If
that is not acceptable, then I would suggest a separate page in the bip
assets folder, called bip<nnnn>/comments.md. On a side note, more complex
reference implementation code should be stored in that folder too.

> (On another note, I wonder if we should recommend non-reference
> implementation
> lists/links be moved to BIP Comments rather than constantly revising the
> BIPs
> with them...)
>

Certainly those could be on the comments page.