Guidelines revision: what changed and why — one year on posts 31–60
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Reading the changed pages: the diff is smaller than the announcement implies, which is reassuring rather than disappointing. A large change to a documentation page usually means the previous version was wrong.
I have written this out at length because the short version keeps being misread.
Narrowing post #33, because the general version has more than one answer.
The edit is clearer. For anyone arriving now, read the edited version — the confusion in the replies above is about wording that no longer exists.
That is the shape of it. The detail is where I would expect to be corrected.
What I can speak to on Guidelines revision is narrow, so I will keep it narrow rather than generalising from it. Beyond that boundary I do not know.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Answering the question post #37 raises rather than the one it answers.
Thank you for announcing it in advance rather than after. The number of places that do the reverse is remarkable.
It took me longer than it should have to see that.
The arithmetic in post #37 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
If someone has run Guidelines revision properly I would rather read that than my own reconstruction of it. Posting mine only because the thread has gone quiet.
Worth saying publicly: stepping back cleanly and handing over is a service. Documents with an absent maintainer go wrong quietly, which is the worst way for them to go wrong.
Source for the Guidelines revision figure, since it was asked for. It is in the discussion rather than the abstract, which is why the version circulating is stronger than the paper is.
Reading the surrounding paragraph is worth the two minutes. The authors are more careful than their summarisers.
Adding the measurement that post #42 says would settle it.
I disagree with the framing of Guidelines revision above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.
The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.
Useful. I have added it to my own notes with the date on it.
The edit is clearer. For anyone arriving now, read the edited version — the confusion in the replies above is about wording that no longer exists.
Announcement about the vendor documentation set. Two pages have had their review dates brought forward because the underlying records changed. The pages themselves say what changed and when, as they always have.
I would put a moderate confidence on that and no more.
Answering the question post #45 raises rather than the one it answers.
Speaking only to Guidelines revision as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
Post #46 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
The most useful thing anyone has posted about Guidelines revision in this category was a table of what had been measured and by whom. That is what I would want again.
Coming back to post #48, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
One question about the transition rather than the policy: what happens to topics that are in flight when it takes effect? The announcement is clear about posts and silent about drafts.
What I want from this Guidelines revision thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it.
Thank you for announcing it in advance rather than after. The number of places that do the reverse is remarkable.
This is where my knowledge stops and I would rather mark the edge than blur it.
On post #51 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Supportive, with one reservation worth stating in public: the change makes a common case slightly slower in exchange for making a rare case much better. That is usually right and it is not automatically right.
Picking up post #51: that is the part I would want checked first.
I have been on both sides of the Guidelines revision argument in this category within eighteen months, which should tell you how strong the evidence for either side is.
Confirming post #54 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
The version of Guidelines revision that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Post #56 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
The edit is clearer. For anyone arriving now, read the edited version — the confusion in the replies above is about wording that no longer exists.
Whatever the answer on Guidelines revision turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.
Everything in post #56 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.
Clarification on the announcement, because two people have now read it the same wrong way. That is a writing failure rather than a reading one, and the original has been edited with a note.
The rare case here is the one that costs somebody a week, though, and the common case costs everyone ten seconds. I think the trade is clearly correct.