Introduction

Greetings everyone! Seeing how a little organization would help streamline the proposal process, I have developed one.

The System

Requests

First we have a request, which is a wiki template used as a foundation for making proposals.

Definition

 request = { signatures, criteria, proposals(unevaluated, passed, rejected, accepted) }

Its first 3 parameters are:

• title - the name of the thing being requested proposals for
• signatures - a bulleted list of user signatures who make the request.
• criteria - a numbered list of constraints that all proposals must satisfy to pass evaluation.

Proposals are bulleted lists of links to proposals, listed by title and authors. There are four lists of proposals, so 4 parameters to a request template:

• unevaluated_proposals (stage 0) - those that haven't been evaluated for compatability with the criteria.
• passed_proposals (stage 1) - those that have been reviewed and found compatible with the criteria.
• rejected_proposals (stage 1) - those that have been found to be incompatible with one or more criterion.
• accepted_proposals (stage 2) - those that have been evaluated, accepted, and shall be implemented.

Example

Look at this example to see how to the request template is used.

Proposals

A proposal is also a wiki template. Once a proposal is finalized, it cannot be altered. One must create a variation or derivative of the proposal and list the new proposal in the variations parameter. This makes the evolution process explicit.

Defintion

 proposal = { title, signatures, description, evaluation, indefinitives, variations }

• title - a descriptive, unique name for the proposal
• signatures - a bulleted list of signatures of those who contributed to the proposal
• description - a full description of the proposal, including its implications
• evalutation - how/if the proposal meets all criteria of its parent request. If the proposal passes, this should say "passed". If the proposal was rejected, it should include the numbers of the points in the criteria (remember they are numbered) that it was incompatable with. e.g. "rejected for: 1, 3, 4"
• indefinitives - a bulleted list of links to request pages, listed by request title. Indefinitives are gaps in the completeness of the proposal. Examples of indefinitives include:
  • open issues (but not criteria incompatabilities) created by the proposal that haven't been decided upon in the proposal.
  • necessary implementation details or policy that the proposal has not covered.
  • parts of the proposal explicity left open to suggestion (proposals).
• variations - a bulleted list of links to proposal pages, listed by title and authors, that include:
  • proposed variations of the proposal, including peoples desired changes.
  • proposed successors of the proposal.

Example

Go here for an example of a proposal. Don't edit.