Bikeshed

You have been linked to this page because someone thinks that you are trying to repaint the bikeshed or architecture astronaut.

LiveJournal used to have a serious bikeshed problem in its volunteer efforts: someone would propose a minor change to improve a specific process flow, and someone else would come along and instead explain why it would be better solved by massive infrastructure or architecture improvements.

Now, the massive improvements might be useful and desired, but as a rule, the subset of people who are able to implement minor changes is much greater than the subset of people who can implement massive changes.

Result: People who could implement the minor change see the digression about how it's better solved with massive changes, and never implement the minor change. People who can implement the massive change have tons of other stuff to be doing, and never get to it. The process never gets improved, people get frustrated having to do the old and clunky workarounds, and get discouraged and go away.

If someone requests a minor change, and you think it's better solved by a massive change, open a ticket for the massive change that's separate from the request for the minor change. There's no reason we can't have both tickets open, and that way someone can make the minor change can make that change and improve the process quickly while we're waiting for the long-term improvements down the road.