Requests for comment/Archive 3

Requests for Comments (RFC) are used by the Wikimedia Technical Committee (TechCom) to track technical decisions within the committee's scope that are strategic, cross-cutting, or hard to undo. Such decisions about software maintained by Wikimedia should follow the RFC process.

Other changes to MediaWiki (and other Wikimedia software), including bug fixes, optimizations, and documentation improvements, can be submitted to Gerrit and follow the normal code review process.

How to participate
The purpose of a technical RFC is to make a technical decision about MediaWiki or related software. If you are an active participant in the Wikimedia movement, then the tech RFC process is probably very different from the one used on your home wiki.

People with all skillsets are welcome to provide information during a technical RFC. This includes Wikimedia users, third-party users, bot operators, designers, developers, and more.

There are often multiple separate opportunities to discuss the RFC, including commenting on Phabricator, joining discussions on the Wikitech-l mailing list, participating in a scheduled IRC office hour, or posting to project pages on this wiki. However, a technical RFC is not a vote or popularity contest, and it is not a consensus of what participants wish. TechCom makes the final decision, in accordance with its view of what's best for the integrity, consistency, stability, and performance of MediaWiki.

There is no set timeline for a technical RFC. Some RFCs may be closed within a couple of weeks, and others may be open more than a year. The RFC is closed when TechCom is confident that it can make a good decision.

Active and Archived RFCs
RFCs started in 2015 or later are tracked in Phabricator
 * active RfCs
 * archived RfCs

Older RfCs can be found in the Requests for comment category; for some easier-to-scan partial lists, see these diffs from December 2014: active and archived.