Re: How are the defaults chosen?

["Göktuğ Kayaalp" <self@gkayaalp.com>]

On 2020-09-09 17:25 +03, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> From: Thibaut Verron <thibaut.verron@gmail.com>
>> Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2020 10:02:15 +0200
>> If the latter, maybe spending time to agree on or decree such guidelines,
>> at the same time as on how to change the defaults in the least
>> disruptive way possible (already in progress) would help both with
>> the current and the inevitable future discussions?
>
> How probable is the success of such a discussion, do you think?  We
> cannot even agree on specific options, and here you suggest to take
> this disagreement to a much higher and abstract level.

I’m no expert on large long standing projects (or small projects that
die quickly, for that matter), but I’d risk the generalisation that most
defaults boil down to historical accident.

I doubt we can come up with any useful guidelines or rules to make it
into a more ‘objective’ process that could apply generally, but maybe
it’d be a nice idea to have the rough rule of thumb that ‘defaults of
user-facing variables, or whether some modes are enabled by default,
should be debated before new features are merged’.  That possibly
already is how stuff happens, but we could just emphasise it as a
conscious UX decision that’ll need to be supported once released.

--
İ. Göktuğ Kayaalp / @cadadr / <https://www.gkayaalp.com/>
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