Entering the consensus call period: reminder on process

[Don Stewart]

Hey all,

Just a reminder from your friendly Haskell Platform infrastructure team:
we are now entering the "call for consensus" period for the current
round of Haskell Platform changes.

What consensus is, and how we achieve it, is described here:

    * http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/AddingPackages#Consensus

As a reminder, the key points are:

    * People who participate in the review process for a package are expected
        to participate in the call for consensus.

    * Each time there is a call for consensus, everyone has three options:

        + Say nothing. This indicates you're prepared to accept the current proposal.

        + Stand aside. An email to say that you do have unresolved concerns but
            you are prepared to see the proposal accepted to further community goals.

        + Raise objection. Objections need accompanying reasoning so that
            others can try to work with that reasoning to find a
            resolution to the issue. 

And remember, **our goal is to give the greatest benefit to the community, not
to achieve perfection.**

Once we've done a few of these, I expect libraries@ to become quite
efficient: just keep the goals of the Haskell Platform, and the Haskell
community in mind. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The discussion period (Stage 1) extended from September 1 through
November 1, which ends with the consensus calls.

The two proposals under consideration (our very first additions to the
HP in 2 years of work! ... ) are:

   text
    * http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ticket/145

   mtl
    * http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ticket/152

The mtl proposal has officially entered the consensus phase now, text
will follow shortly.

All discussion should be finalized by Dec 15 at the latest, after which
the package set is frozen for the January release.

-- Don