The old language in the SRFI process seemed to imply that, for quality reasons, the 90-day deadline is needed. I'm not at all convinced about this, so I like your new language better. I see that some kind of limit is useful because the more SRFIs in draft status, the bigger will the administrative overhead be.

In any case, I do not see time constraints as a major issue with the current SRFI process.  The problem I see is that many SRFIs are discussed by far too few people. Moreover, the people that have been involved in discussing SRFIs only reflect a small part of the Scheme community. The R6RS process was blamed for this, but the same can probably be said about the current SRFI process. I haven't made any statistics but I have the strong feeling that the community was *much* more diverse during the first 50 or 100 SRFIs.

In a discussion about the inclusion of SRFI 88/89 to Chez, Kent Dybvig once wrote: "[...] SRFIs are not standards and are vetted, for the most part, only by people who are interested in the mechanism." I think this hits a nail on its head. Our reviewers are all biased. Who does review and examine thoroughly a SRFI they are not really interested in?

Marc

Am So., 31. Jan. 2021 um 02:05 Uhr schrieb Arthur A. Gleckler <xxxxxx@speechcode.com>:
On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 4:31 PM John Cowan <xxxxxx@ccil.org> wrote:
 
In my case, at least, it's not so much that the SRFIs are unpolished, as that they only handle part of the problem, the part I myself can see clearly.  The SRFI discussion provides for the transition from mere opinions to actual positions that can then be debated and hopefully resolved.

Yes, I agree, and I apologize for the unpolished language of my message.  I suppose what I wanted to say was that I hope authors will wait until they've addressed all the known unknowns before submitting the first draft.  Discovering the unknown unknowns is one of the great benefits of the discussion.  And I'm not sure how earlier SRFIs were done in sixty to ninety days.
 
(Of course there is also the problem that people don't notice there is a SRFI they want to comment on until they hear that it is about to finalize.  I don't know what to do about that.  Likewise there is the problem of insufficient resources.) 

Yes and yes.

I keep thinking that there must be a way to help solve some of our problems with bribery.  More stickers, anyone?