Using platform meeting time: TryServer as an example.

[sayrer]

joduinn will in fact be scheduling a meeting on the TryServer topic,
but I wanted to address an issue brought up after the meeting. I had a
number of people complain that the discussion was cut short, and a
roughly equal number of people thank me for cutting off the
discussion.

First of all, the platform meeting is a very poor venue to discuss
specific bugs or solutions to the TryServer's various issues. It
requires the time of 50+ people, most of whom can make no contribution
to the solution, and don't need or want to know the details. Even
worse, it is also ineffective, in addition to being a waste of other
people's time. To use one example, we had the suggestion of
configuring what you want to test on TryServer come up in an identical
form both this week and last week. I don't think we should have
meetings where we repeat ourselves each week.

What we should have is a metabug on TryServer improvements, and people
with suggestions or complaints should file bugs blocking it. That's a
great way to do things, and perhaps fodder for the upcoming TryServer
meeting. Do we have such a bug?

In general, the platform meeting is a pretty lousy place to resolve
technical issues of any kind. It can be good for getting help and
getting people to own issues, as well as announcing detailed
discussions and work to follow.

A related note: If an issue is important to you, it should probably be
added to the meeting agenda prior to the start of the meeting.

- Rob

[Robert O'Callahan]

On 11/08/10 8:03 AM, sayrer wrote:
> In general, the platform meeting is a pretty lousy place to resolve
> technical issues of any kind.

That is true.

> It can be good for getting help and
> getting people to own issues, as well as announcing detailed
> discussions and work to follow.

Meetings can also be good for forcing decisions.

I think we could say "let's talk more about XYZ after the platform
meeting has ended, just stay on the line", once per meeting.

Thank you for running the meeting brutally. It's a good thing.

Rob

[Mounir Lamouri]

On 08/10/2010 10:03 PM, sayrer wrote:
> What we should have is a metabug on TryServer improvements, and people
> with suggestions or complaints should file bugs blocking it. That's a
> great way to do things, and perhaps fodder for the upcoming TryServer
> meeting. Do we have such a bug?

There is one:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=572808

--
Mounir