Digest #239 2023-12-03
Contributions
Most additions to the standard are optional, and even if an addition is implemented in a system after a proposal is accepted, that does not happen immediately. The system implementor may decide to wait until the next release of the standard happens, and even after that it may take some years. Similarly, programmers do not start using a newly standardized feature immediately, but only once the systems the programmer is interested in provide it.
In order to have an overview of the status of an proposal in the community, it is useful to be able to report updates about system support or usage (i.e., to "vote") for the proposal even after the committee has accepted it and even after it has been integrated into the standard document.
In case of a rejection by the committee such updates can be useful, too. They may inform potential alternative proposals. However, given that the CfV result is for a specific proposal version, I think that, once a proposal has reached CfV stage, it should not revert to informal or formal; instead, the voted-on proposal should be retired, and a new proposal with the needed changes should be started.