The governance of elm docs and smaller tools

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I really like this framing!

In the interest of shared understanding (and because I know the author perspective isn’t shared very often), I’ll do the same for this PR:

I’ll share how it made me feel as an author to get this PR:

Argh, that’s a shame that he had this experience as a beginner!

Still, I don’t think this fix is the right answer. The only reason he didn’t know how to install elm-css was that it happened to be the first Elm package he ever tried to install. If I accept this, am I setting the precedent that all Elm packages should add this to their READMEs, in case that is the first package they happen to install? That would clutter up a ton of READMEs for a pretty narrow situation.

Alternatively, maybe we should put something in package.elm-lang.org that says like elm install rtfeldman/elm-css at the top of the package’s docs, so you can copy/paste it into your CLI. But then again, we talked about adding exactly that feature once before and ended up deciding against it - although I don’t remember exactly why.

Okay, so I’m not going to accept this PR, but I don’t want to close it without explanation. I’d be upset if someone closed my PR without explaining why. So how do I explain this to him?

Well, I could write down all this stuff that just went through my head, but then he might ask me to link to the discussion where we decided against the copy-pastable elm install thing in the package website. That was years ago though - I have no idea where it was anymore. Was it even in a linkable place, or was it in person at an Elm conference or something?

So maybe I shouldn’t even bring that part up. Instead I should just say “I don’t think this is a good precedent to set,” something like that. But I need to be careful what words I choose to say that, because every time I leave a negative comment on a PR, that is one more thing someone in the future can use to say “the Elm core team closes PRs without engaging with contributors; here’s a link to rtfeldman coldly shutting down a new contributor with practically no explanation. This person was just trying to help with a simple README addition.”

There’s also the question of whether he wants to debate my decision. Once I’ve posted a comment, he knows I saw the PR and I’m obliged to engage with the debate. Otherwise later people will link to this post and say “Elm core team doesn’t listen to people who disagree with them; for example, here’s a link to rtfeldman ignoring this person after he calmly made one single - and completely valid - counterargument to rtfeldman’s reasoning for closing the PR.” I mean, hopefully it won’t happen this time, but it’s definitely happened before. Do I know it won’t happen this time? I don’t know this person; maybe they will want to debate about it. (Plenty of people do.) Do I want to risk getting sucked into an argument over this?

Okay, I’m definitely over-thinking this. Why don’t I just say “I don’t think this is a good precedent to set, but thank you for the idea!” and close it? Then again, wasn’t that the same mindset that led me to post whatever that last comment was that later got used as ammunition against me and people I care about? I should at least revise my wording a little to try and bulletproof it against that.

Argh, what time is it? I don’t want to deal with this right now. I’m going to move on to another PR and come back to it later…

… [repeat every subsequent time I revisit the PR, except in condensed form as I re-remember my thought process from the last time.]

I’m not saying this is a great way for me to live my life or anything, I’m just sharing what goes through my head in situations like these. I’ve done this mental merry-go-round on many a PR I wanted to close.

The dynamics of the Internet are weird. In person I’d have zero problem explaining the situation and it’d be resolved in no time at all.

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