Retiring "Bugday"
Anthony Hughes
I've been toying with the idea of retiring the use of "Bugday" as a name for testing events. My proposal is to simply call all testing events a "Testday". Should we choose to adopt this proposal, I would take the following actions:
- remove reference to "bugday" in our documentation
- every testday will have testing AND bug activities
- retire the use of #bugday, set up redirect to #testday
Why?
- having a bugday excludes those who want to help test
- having a testday excludes those who want to help with bugs
- having separate channels creates confusion about "where to go"
Pros
- centralizes weekly activity to a single IRC channel
- eliminates segregation of our community
- more inclusive of a broader community testing audience to all events
- makes documentation simpler and allows for a more canonical URL naming scheme
Cons
- Could potentially lead to testers, developers, and other asking, "Why no more bugdays?"
In general terms, I'm looking at integrating activities traditionally reserved for bugdays into all testdays. Anyone have objections to this proposal?
Anthony Hughes
Quality Engineer
Mozilla Corporation
Stephanie
I would group the activities and probably the channel under something
like community-qa
I'd also like to see a lot more smaller events organized around this -
say meet for a couple hours over a particular bugzilla query and go to
town, possibly with a direction that can keep going on it's own
inertia.
We really need to figure out how to get beyond bugday and testday -
they are great for focusing on a particular area, but not so good for
sustained momentum, and we really need sustained momentum in a lot of
areas. Some sort of "adopt-a-query" activity might be good?
Asa Dotzler
> Good Day Everyone,
>
> I've been toying with the idea of retiring the use of "Bugday" as a name for testing events.
I have a certain sentimental attachment to the name but I'm also happy
to see it go away.
- A
Anthony Hughes
Anthony Hughes
Quality Engineer
Mozilla Corporation
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Gervase Markham
> On 6/1/2011 4:48 PM, Anthony Hughes wrote:
>> Good Day Everyone,
>>
>> I've been toying with the idea of retiring the use of "Bugday" as a
>> name for testing events.
>
> I have a certain sentimental attachment to the name
Echoed :-|
> but I'm also happy
> to see it go away.
I wouldn't say I'm "happy", but I think the people doing the work get to
make the decisions, so if you want to rename it, go right ahead :-)
Gerv
Aleksej
> I've been toying with the idea of retiring the use of "Bugday" as a name for testing events. My proposal is to simply call all testing events a "Testday". Should we choose to adopt this proposal, I would take the following actions:
I had thought #bugday Firefox events were pretty much a dead thing
compared to #testday ones; #testday events are often also bugdays now.
> - every testday will have testing AND bug activities
They already do.
> - retire the use of #bugday, set up redirect to #testday
Here is a problem: sometimes there is a SeaMonkey or Thunderbird event
at the same time as a Firefox one, e.g. last SeaMonkey bug event (which
was a bugday) was on #bugday, while a Firefox testday was on #testday.
What about leaving #bugday to (some) non-Firefox events, and using only
#testday for Firefox ones?
> Cons
> - Could potentially lead to testers, developers, and other asking, "Why no more bugdays?"
Too late?
Aleksej
> On Jun 1, 7:48 pm, Anthony Hughes<ahug...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I would group the activities and probably the channel under something
> like community-qa
I think the channel should have a good simple and short name, which is
easy to remember and type to people who don't speak English natively.
The words "testday" and "bugday" are simple (at least for those who can
read English) and short.
The name should probably not contain punctuation like "-" or ".",
because it can be forgotten. There are channels like #mozilla-ru,
#firefox.de, #mozwebqa, #qa-bugzilla, #tb-bugs, #sumodev.
There was a word, "QAC" (short for "QA Community"), but it may be a
problem because:
* its pronunciation was "quack", which is IMO not helpful for
remembering it.
* the letters "Q" and "C" might be difficult to describe in some
languages. That may be a problem only when you don't know the meaning
though.
AaronMT
A lot of great points have been mentioned in this discussion,
especially Stephanies and yours Aleksej. I as well would like to see
Bug days in their entirety (in definition, in application and
execution) retire in favour of stepping away from the granular focus
of events towards a more broader spectrum (which echo the Why? bullet
points in the first post). On the flip side, perhaps test days in
their expression of the event could perhaps be improved to a
redefinition of "QA Event Day" or such, so we continue to stay broad
in events and activity.
Aleksej, I actually like the use of QA Community (QAC) channel, I
would be interested in what others think about that. But than again --
I often see sparse activity in our own #QA channel, perhaps we're not
making good use of that channel. New comers often see it dead during
the day, opposed to #firefox.
Aaron Train
QA Engineer
Mozilla Corporation
Anthony Hughes
For all intents and purposes #qa is what Aleksej is proposing for a #qac channel. We just need to do a better job utilizing it for that purpose. However, that's a whole different discussion.
Speaking to Seamonkey and Thunderbird events happening at the same time as Firefox testing events, I wonder if their respective channels (#seamonkey, #thunderbird) are too busy to hold their testday chatter.
Keeping this on topic, I don't see much (if any) objection to retiring the "bugday" name. To Aleksej's concern about retiring the #bugday channel; I have no intention to "delete" the channel. I'd merely set up the topic to redirect people to #testday. It will still exist should we (or someone else) want to use it.
If no one objects, I'll start implementing this change Monday next week.
Anthony Hughes
Quality Engineer
Mozilla Corporation
Aleksej
> Gervase already pointed out, the QA community is not a separate
> entity to Mozilla QA. All Mozilla QA employees are a part of the
> community; the community is part of Mozilla QA.
If I recall and understood correctly, at the time of the first or maybe
the second QMO, there was a name separation of the QA community into "QA
Team" and "QA Community" (the latter was what the "QAC" was proposed for).
Now, it seemed strange to me that in the last testday's moderators'
feedback table, the participants were divided into "contributors" and
"Mozilla employees (who helped)". Maybe the latter were originally
supposed to be also in the first column?
> For all intents and purposes #qa is what Aleksej is proposing for a
> #qac channel. We just need to do a better job utilizing it for that
> purpose. However, that's a whole different discussion.
I didn't propose #qa because there are meetings of which I am not sure
they do not happen at the same time, and because maybe some people
auto-joining it don't want to see testday activity (however, non-testday
questions at the wrong time were often ignored there anyway).
> Speaking to Seamonkey and Thunderbird events happening at the same
> time as Firefox testing events, I wonder if their respective channels
> (#seamonkey, #thunderbird) are too busy to hold their testday
> chatter.
I don't visit them often, but I suspect a possible issue similar to that
of #qa.
> #bugday channel; I have no intention to "delete" the channel. I'd
> merely set up the topic to redirect people to #testday. It will still
> exist should we (or someone else) want to use it.
Ah, ok. I had thought you meant an IRC redirect.
Tony Mechelynck
Yes, me, too, when I read that first post (a few minutes ago) I thought
what was meant was an automatic redirect; but I wanted to come to the
end of the thread before reacting. A mention of the other channel in the
topic, with no auto-redirect, is better IMHO, because it leaves open the
possibility to use both channels for different purposes or different
events at the same time.
About the #seamonkey (and, I suppose, #thunderbird) channels: they are
not only the main places where developers "sit" and come find each other
when they are stuck fixing a bug or making a release happen, they are
also one of the places sought by plain users with "general" support
questions about these products: SeaMonkey status meetings already happen
in #seamonkey, and during such meetings the flow of back-and-forth
technical and administrative conversation might quite possibly make a
newbie in search of support feel that he isn't wanted -- but it is only
an hour or two every fortnight in #seamonkey, every week IIUC in
#thunderbird. Bug or test events happen less often, but their duration
is longer: recently there was one SeaMonkey bug event which took ten
hours a day during three successive days. Happily we could arrange to
have it happen in #bugday rather than in #seamonkey -- and indeed that
was the SeaMonkey event mentioned by Aleksej, which (partly) coincided
with a Firefox event in #testday.
Indeed, I might say that the Firefox QA people's decision to conduct
their future testing and bug-checking events in channel #testday has the
*advantage* ;-) of leaving #bugday open for any testing events which
teams other than the Firefox one would want to arrange: having two
channels where different people may, possibly concurrently, run the same
_kind_ of business for different _products_ makes it much less likely
that collisions might happen or that reschedulings might be necessary.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
-- Mark Twain