[ghc-steering-committee] Re: The role of the shepherd

Thanks for this, Simon! It makes sense to document this more clearly, and at the suggestion from you and Erik off-list, I've opened a PR adding a variant of this to the README: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/726 If anyone would like to suggest changes, please feel free. (I made one change: our existing guideline is two weeks rather than one week for shepherds to make a recommendation to the committee.) Cheers, Adam On 09/09/2025 23:58, Simon Peyton Jones wrote:

Friends

I have realised, rather belatedly, that we don't actually have any written guidance for shepherds of GHC proposals, so we all have to make it up as we go along.   Perhaps it'd be helpful to have some.  Here's a start.

The shepherd does these things:

* Makes a recommendation to the committee for whether to accept, reject, or send back for revision, within a week of being appointed. * Actively guide the committee's discussion. * Maintain a list of votes on this spreadsheet . * Actively facilitate the committee discussion, guiding us towards a decision, within the published time frame of 4-5 weeks. * Summarise the committee's thinking for the author's benefit, and work with the author on next steps -- this may often take the form of revisions to the proposal. * * Remind members (by name, not just general exhortation) who are silent that they are highly encouraged to contribute. * If the discussion does not converge within 4-5 weeks, take action to consult the chair, vice-chair, or secretary to decide what to do.

It's much more than "make a recommendation and wait".

Being a member of the GHC Steering Committee is a real service to the community.   But of course we all have day jobs, and so not everything happens as we hope.

Any thoughts?

Simon

-- Adam Gundry, Haskell Consultant Well-Typed LLP, https://www.well-typed.com/ Registered in England & Wales, OC335890 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX, England