@SecondSetMaze and @slen, thanks for your comments, and welcome, @slen.
There’s two issues being combined in one here, and it may be easier to break them up into two proposals rather combining them together in an all-or-nothing thing.
For #1, the retention policy, I think both of you (and others) have put in good arguments as to its removal. However, given the scope of this undertaking and guidance from legal, I do suspect that this may be rejected due to either practical reasons or feasibility of adjusting settings for all existing groups. Other questions that may arise are the nature of discussions that can now be held–will this actually free up conversation or stifle it, if everyone knows that everything they write is essentially part of a permanent record.
For #2, the rules channel, I think that’s an easy push and can easily be implemented. We do need a few more details or discussion about the contents of these rules, who’s drafting them, who will be enforcing them, etc. Ideally the proposal itself contains the text of the rules already, so that it’s just an easy copy-paste on to Discord.
Essentially what I’m stating here is that if you combine 1 and 2 in one proposal, I suspect that both will be rejected entirely, but if you separate them out, 2 will likely be approved with some more detail, with 1 probably requiring more thought and debate.
Ultimately, as the author, it’s up to you to decide how to present this proposal, but sometimes it’s just easier to go for the lower hanging fruit first before tackling the more difficult topics. Feel free to put some more thought into it. We’ve already moved the voting round for this week, but we can move this to vote next week, if you’re ready.