Replying to @njs in this topic because I think this is more the locus of discussion about when we should and should not vote +1 / -1 for promotions:
I think this actually makes a case for only giving commit bits to people who need them to do reviews, because if the issue is “we are drowning in unreviewed PRs”, then it makes sense to prioritize giving commit bits to people doing reviews so that they can clear out the backlog.
If we were running this like a company with a fixed “commit bit” budget, I would probably focus on giving the commit bit to people who can help clear out the review backlog, which is people who have domain expertise in “understaffed” domains and experienced maintainers who we can count on to either merge or close PRs. We don’t have any shortage of people who want to participate in the conversation and generally where we do, we fill that gap with domain experts and experienced maintainers who are not core devs (e.g. this year’s language summit included many non-core devs). Generally speaking, you do not need a commit bit in order to gain that sort of experience.
That said, we are not running a company and there is not really a fixed budget for “commit bits”, which is why many of my objections are in the subjunctive. I believe the tension I’m feeling with these core dev votes is that there isn’t any guidance as to how we’re intended to vote. I tend to agree with you about this:
Under that rubric, I would promote Joannah and Karthikeyan and several other triagers today, because I consider commit bits essentially free. Right now what happens is that every vote is on the joint question “What does it take to be a core dev, and does this person have those qualities?” rather than “Here’s what it takes to be a core dev: does this person have those qualifications?” Some people sail through because they already meet nearly everyone’s definition of what a core dev should be and there’s no controversy. Other people qualify under one rubric but not under another, which leads to somewhat uncomfortable discussions and often no clear feedback or guidance for the candidates.