bitcoin-dev

Adding New BIP Editors

Adding New BIP Editors

Original Postby Michael Folkson

Posted on: March 31, 2024 16:01 UTC

The discussion revolves around the security philosophy of "security through distrusting," specifically within the context of communication space infrastructure.

It addresses the debate over whether shifting the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) repository to a different GitHub organization would impact Taproot activation parameters or resolve conflicts. The consensus suggests that such a move would not alter outcomes related to Taproot activation or conflicts but acknowledges potential downsides, including issues with existing links, discoverability, and the management of two GitHub organizations.

The importance of having BIP editors who understand multiple languages is highlighted, emphasizing that quality redaction benefits from multilingual editors. Similarly, it's noted that one doesn't need to be a BIP editor to provide high-quality pull request reviews in the BIPs repo, supporting the idea that community contributions enhance the review process without formal editorial roles. The discussion further explores the role of BIP editors versus Core maintainers, suggesting that while Core maintainers aim to avoid merging bad ideas, BIP editors may merge proposals they personally disagree with due to their potential rejection by Core or the broader community.

The process for assigning numbers to BIPs is critiqued as possibly overly bureaucratic, with suggestions for streamlining by avoiding different numbers for various stages. A comparison is made to the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) approach to handling draft proposals, which involves extensive experimentation without assigning RFC numbers to drafts immediately.

The conversation touches on the current state of BIP editorship, noting that having only one active BIP editor is not ideal and discussing the potential addition of new editors to reduce bottlenecks. There's also mention of updating the BIP process to provide clearer guidelines for handling proposals, especially in cases lacking clear community consensus. The proposed update aims to outline how to treat controversial ideas and manage soft fork activations, underscoring the need for personal judgment by BIP editors in ambiguous situations. The discussants express a preference for candidates familiar with Bitcoin's workings over less known individuals for the role of BIP editors, suggesting that familiarity with Bitcoin increases the likelihood of making informed decisions.