Requests for comment

The following is a structured process that may help you suggest and implement a change in MediaWiki that would affect other developers. Apply common sense and good judgment when deciding whether a particular step is applicable or necessary.
 * 1) If you're new to development in MediaWiki and the Wikimedia ecosystem, see how to become a MediaWiki hacker before submitting an RFC. If you consider our principles of general measures of software quality, user experience, testability, respect for user privacy, and support for instrumentation (e.g., logging and analytics) early on, you'll save yourself future rework.
 * 2) Create a subpage of Requests for comment (e.g., "Requests for comment/My thoughtful proposal") on this wiki. Here's an example.
 * 3) Announce the RFC by email on the wikitech-l mailing list and with other stakeholders. Starting the subject line with RFC:  will help people know you're discussing an RFC. Provide a link to your RFC. If you've socialized the proposed change with key stakeholders ahead of time, discussion will probably be more fruitful.
 * 4) Discuss your idea over email, during the Architecture meetings, on IRC, on your RFC's talk page, and audio/video/in-person. Have an email trail on wikitech-l and link to or archive any offwiki discussion on the talk page of your RFC. If your idea loses momentum, ask for it to be discussed in the next IRC meeting.
 * 5) Look for the decision from Tim Starling, Brion Vibber, Mark Bergsma, or an appointed delegate. (How do we know who such appointed delegate is with respect to any given matter?)

If you can prototype your proposal quickly, great! That may help people understand your proposal. If you're proposing massive or hard-to-roll back changes, prototyping can still be helpful, but consulting with people on wikitech-l can help you reality check your assumptions before investing lots of your time.