nusenu:
I've got some practical experience with how things are (not) handled by the Tor Project in this space which discourages involvement.
That's unfortunate. What has been the problem with past proposal-handling? And how should it have been done differently?
The past has also shown that proposals in this area are not handled as tor proposals in the sense of [1].
That is correct. Proposals in this space are not necessarily related to Tor proposals that aim to specify behavior at the Tor protocol level. There might be some, though, that could lead to changes in Tor which then would merit a respective proposal in the sense you linked to. However, that would be a follow-up task so that the network team gets a specification which they could then implement.
I've been explaining that at the relay operator meetup last Saturday, but "proposal" here is meant to be used in a broad sense: some text detailing an idea or recipe for improving the health of the operator community, providing our users a safer Tor network that way. We look for all sorts of inputs here: ideas that might be enforceable at some point or could lead to technical changes at the protocol level or aimed at strengthening non-technical aspects of our operator community or...
I hope this clarifies things a bit.
[snip]
Georg