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Open for comment

Changes to these questions get decided in the open, not behind a desk. Everything below is a proposal, not a decision. Anyone can agree, disagree, or say why the wording would land badly with the people it is asked of. Frontline staff and people who have been asked these questions themselves are exactly who this is for.

How a proposal gets here, and what happens after

  1. Someone flags a question: staff, a group reviewing the tool, or a person who was asked it.
  2. It is posted here with the wording it would change, an assessment of the case for and against, and a label for how big a change it would be.
  3. Anyone votes and comments. This is the part that needs you.
  4. Gaither Stephens, who builds and maintains HEAT, decides, and writes down why.
  5. The decision goes in the Changelog. An adopted change ships as a new version of the question with an Evidence Register entry.

What your vote does

The two buttons on each proposal say Adopt this change and Do not adopt this change. They tell the person maintaining HEAT what the people who use it think, which is information he cannot get any other way.

It is not a ballot. The count decides nothing on its own. A proposal still has to pass the five tests on the Governance page, and anything that would change a determination carries a far higher burden of proof than a change to wording. A proposal can be voted up and still declined, with the reasons published either way.

Anyone can vote, with no account and no sign-in. One vote per proposal, and pressing the same button again takes it back. Comments count for as much as votes: the number says how many people, a comment says why.

What is kept about you

Nothing here records who you are. Votes and comments are anonymous. We do not store a name, and the only thing kept about a device is a one-way code that stops one person voting fifty times. If a proposal is adopted and you asked to be credited, that is the only time a name appears.

Comments post straight away. An automated check reads each one first and holds anything that looks like it names a client or another person, because that must never appear on a public page. Criticism of the tool is not held back: disagreement is the point of this page.

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