Github and "help wanted" labels

[Daniel Martí]

Hi all,

Github got a couple of changes yesterday. One of them is in the issue
trackers, which shows a tip:

> Now, GitHub will help potential first-time contributors discover
> issues labeled with 'help wanted' or 'good first issue'

It seems like we should take advantage of this. After all, we already
have a 'HelpWanted' label. It currently reads on
https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/IssueLabels:

> HelpWanted - we would like help on this issue. This label is used
> haphazardly. In general we want help on all issues.

If we made it clear that HelpWanted issues should be on the easy side,
then it would work great. We could always use ExpertNeeded or
NeedsInvestigation for the non-easy ones.

There's also the question of the label style. I do not know if they
would recognize 'HelpWanted' as 'help wanted'. There is a closed
Github org of OSS contributors that they use to discuss upcoming
features. I've used it to ask about this, so hopefully I'll have an
answer soon.

Ideas, criticism or counter-arguments welcome.

--
Daniel Martí - https://mvdan.cc/

[Ian Lance Taylor]

In principle, sounds good.

I was told that Github convention is for labels to be FunkyCaps. Is
that not true?

The existing HelpWanted label seems to be a mix of simple issues and
issues where the core Go team lacks key knowledge or lacks interest.
I'm fine with changing that, although I'm not sure quite what to
change to, and I'm not sure how to actually change.

Ian

[Robert Griesemer]

We do have ExpertNeeded for issues where we lack expertise or knowledge.

We currently have one issue that combines HelpWanted and ExpertNeeded ( https://github.com/golang/go/issues/463 ). And that issue can possibly be retired (iant?).

- gri

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[Daniel Martí]

On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 19:25:38 +0000, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> I was told that Github convention is for labels to be FunkyCaps. Is
> that not true?

I'm not entirely sure, but I'd bet on 'spaced lowercase' given that the
default label set contains 'help wanted'. Anyway, we'll see what they
answer (if they do).

> The existing HelpWanted label seems to be a mix of simple issues and
> issues where the core Go team lacks key knowledge or lacks interest.
> I'm fine with changing that, although I'm not sure quite what to
> change to, and I'm not sure how to actually change.

This feature would suggest the issues to "potential first-time
contributors", so I'd say keep it to issues that are on the easy side
and require less knowledge of the Go codebase. Like Robert said, we
could move some of the existing HelpWanted issues to other labels such
as ExpertNeeded.

Like you, I simply think this is a good idea in principle. I don't know
how the feature works in practice or how effective it would be. But if
we can adapt to it with little effort, it could be worth a try in my
opinion.