Product update: guidelines for contributors

As announced with the release of version 0.27, we have published some guidelines to receive new contributions while the redesign implementation process is underway. These guidelines remain applicable until the redesign is finished. This is the release plan for next year, but dates are approximate and may change:

• March 2023: release of version 0.28, with the complete redesign of the public site.
• May - June 2023: release of version 0.29, with the complete redesign of the admin site.

So, can I submit PRs during this process? What criteria will be used to decide whether a PR is accepted?

You can still make proposals. Just keep in mind that as a general rule, acceptance of new contributions will be minimized as much as possible while the redesign process is underway.

Each proposal will be reviewed to evaluate the viability of accepting the corresponding PR, depending on the status of the implementation. Beyond the review by Product, this will be a technical decision to be made by the PX + Maintainers team. Once there is a green light from the technical team, the Product team will confirm the acceptance of the contribution.

Why were some proposals from the Product team accepted?

Although we are trying to limit new PRs, also from Product, we have accepted some proposals made by ourselves that we had in the backlog for some time, and we couldn't delay anymore for administrative and also technical reasons, as we consider that both of them were priorities to have on the next release:

1. EPIC Spam:

https://github.com/decidim/decidim/issues/10039 

In the last few years we've seen how we have more spam users and contents on our platforms.

This EPIC tries to solve it through different mechanisms and enhancements. We think that there will not be a silver bullet that will solve all the problems, but that with each of these features we could be improving the general experience of moderations and also reduce the time that the spam content is in the platform.

2. Migrate from QuillJS to Tiptap Editor: 

https://github.com/decidim/decidim/issues/10082 

For some time we've seen that QuillJS editor, the WYSIWYG editor that we use in the backend and also in the frontend, is not well maintained. Some examples:

* https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-4943-9vgg-gr5r 

* https://github.com/quilljs/quill/issues/3359 

Last year we planned to migrate to Trix Editor (#7289), but after studying all the effort that this migration could take (see #7585), we postpone that.

Through financing by the Decidim Association we'll tackle this for the next release.

What happens after the redesign is finished?

Once we get the redesign and the voting module finished, we will have completed the main milestones of the initial roadmap. It will then be time to think about releasing the first major version of Decidim.

A major release does not necessarily mean higher quality or LTS (Long Time Support). Numbers are numbers. Still, it is important symbolically, and still, we want Decidim v.1.0 to have as few bugs as possible and run smoothly.

So, the big picture on the road to version 1.0 is this:

• Reduce technical debt
• Bring consistency between the different modules and features
• Extract features that aren’t used by the majority of installations to its own module, so we can reduce costs on the maintenance of the project
• To have a voting system with cryptographic guarantees, and fully deprecate decidim-consultations

Therefore, we will prioritize those proposals that are aligned with this vision to be included in the roadmap.