#6320, clarifications on contributing.txt
Marc Fargas
A few days ago I filled a bug on "contributing.txt" (#6320) [0] about
clarifying what triagers are, what volunteering means and who should do
what.
That was mostly motivated due some tickets in which volunteers marked as
Ready for checking and "more official" triagers prefered this status
change to be a bit more restricted (having the volunteers disasspointed
as contributing.txt says they can, or should, do so to help).
Right now the patch on the ticket distinguishes Triagers in two
roles/types:
* Trusted Triagers: Those who have proved their triaging
criteria and are (somehow) officially recognised as "Triagers".
* Community Triagers (Volunteering Triagers or Community
Members): Those willing to help that triage bugs while trying to
prove their criteria.
A few tips are given for this last role, not completely
forbidding the most important actions but restricting them a bit
like:
- Do not close bugs as "wontfix", see the definition of
"wontfix" below, but in general, it's a decission in
hands of *core developers*.
- Do not promote tickets to "Ready for Checkin" unless
you feel confident about the patch provided and you are
not related to the ticket itself (You know, it's not
good to judge oneself's work).
- Only close tickets as "invalid" if those are clear
cases like help requests which sould be placed to
``django-users`` (tell so when closing the ticket).
SimelyChris marked the ticket as "Design decision needed" and asked me
to bring the ticket to the list for further discussion. While discussing
the ticket I'd be glad if you can propose names for the "Community
Triagers/Volunteers/Community Members".
I did not call the role "Community Members" to distinguish the
volunteers from Community Members, but maybe it would stay clearer with
this name.
So, comments and critics are really welcome. I just feel that this
clarifications should be written in the documentation some day to avoid
getting people upset (one could think that things got a bit hot on #399
[1]).
Cheers,
Marc
[0] http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/6320
[1] http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/399
--
http://www.marcfargas.com -- will be finished some day.
Russell Keith-Magee
> Hi there,
> A few days ago I filled a bug on "contributing.txt" (#6320) [0] about
> clarifying what triagers are, what volunteering means and who should do
> what.
> So, comments and critics are really welcome. I just feel that this
> clarifications should be written in the documentation some day to avoid
> getting people upset (one could think that things got a bit hot on #399
> [1]).
Hi Marc,
Thanks for taking the lead on this. Suggestions on how to improve
documentation are always welcome, especially when they are specific
suggestions, backed up by evidence of the existing inadequacy (as you
have done with ticket #6320) and a first draft.
However, I would suggest that the improvement required isn't to
introduce a new class of triager. Giving a role a specific label
distinct from the community as a whole implies that some form of
selection criteria will exist. To my reading, at least some of the
confusion in ticket #399 is to do with the issue of how someone gets
selected as a triager. Introducing a new triager class wouldn't have
avoided this problem - it would have just lead to the question "How do
I get selected as a community triager?".
Given that there is no difference between a community triager and a
community member, I would suggest that a better way to approach this
issue would be to keep the existing core + triager labels. Instead of
adding the new label, add a section to the documentation inviting
everyone to help out with the ticket system, subject to some clear
guidelines - here are the things you can do to help, here are the
things you shouldn't ever do (because they'll be done by triagers or
core devs).
This avoids creating an artificial distinction between 'community
member' and 'community triager', while still setting some clear ground
rules for what people should and shouldn't do with the ticket system.
Yours,
Russ Magee %-)
Marc Fargas
El jue, 24-01-2008 a las 20:16 +0900, Russell Keith-Magee escribió:
> Thanks for taking the lead on this. Suggestions on how to improve
> documentation are always welcome, especially when they are specific
> suggestions, backed up by evidence of the existing inadequacy (as you
> have done with ticket #6320) and a first draft.
Thanks!
> [...] Giving a role a specific label distinct from the community as a whole
> implies that some form of selection criteria will exist. [...] at least some
> of the confusion [...] is to do with the issue of how someone gets
> selected as a triager. [...] it would have just lead to the question "How do
> I get selected as a community triager?".
> [...] I would suggest that a better way to approach this
> issue would be to keep the existing core + triager labels.
I think SmileyChris comment was on the same direction, so I've just
attached a new draft on #6320. It removes the third role while inviting
everybody to help out at triaging and giving the points on what they/we
should and should not do.
There's a sentence I'm not sure about (on how it sounds):
"In fact, the only difference between you and a triager[...]"
The "you" could also be written as "a community member" or "a volunteer"
but I thought "you" could emphatize that if 'you' are reading 'this' you
can help with 'that'.
Anyway, Draft 2 published!