[ham] Goals for 2.22?

[Tomas Kopal]

Completely concur to this post, could not put it better myself. IMHO the 
problem of Bugzilla is not to get enough developers to get something 
done, but to keep them around. And timely reviews (or at least some 
reaction, any feedback is better than nothing) are the best way how to 
keep people interested. And if you keep them interested long enough, 
they will become experienced and can start reviewing too...

I have just short experience with submitting patches, but getting 
reviews, getting feedback, getting some satisfaction and sense of 
progress is the biggest problem IMHO.

Cheers

Tomas

Shane H. W. Travis wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, David Miller wrote:
> 
> 
>>That said, just because we have trouble getting people to work on the
>>high-priority issues doesn't mean we should give up on it.  Perhaps we
>>just need to change the tactics of how we solicit help for such things.
> 
> 
> IMHO, reviewing is a BIG issue. David Fallon wrote a week ago indicating
> that he had a patch ready to apply, but nobody had looked at it. I've got
> two 2.18 blockers that are ready to go... but again, no reviews. It's
> quite possible that we're going about it in the wrong way, but other than
> blindly setting 'r?' to the name of a complete stranger, there's not much
> indication what the right way *is*.
> 
> The fact that the Bugzilla Reviewer's list is way out of date doesn't help
> either; I'm trying to help with the grunt work of documentation (so don't
> talk to me about taking things that nobody else wants to do! :) but the one
> person who has been helping out immensely (Vlad) isn't on that list at all,
> whereas the two people who are listed for documentation (Jacob and Barnboy)
> haven't been active in at least a year.
> 
> Given that, I'm rather hesitant to set a code review to anyone on the list
> other than Dave (for the blockers) because I have no idea who is and is not
> still active in the community... so I either ask the air for a review
> (which, apparently, is incredibly ineffective), or I spam the entire review
> list with "r?" and hope someone still active catches it. Neither one is
> really very satisfying.
> 
> 
> Vlad's timely reviews of my documentation patches have played a SIGNIFICANT
> part in getting me to do *more* documentation patches. As someone who is
> still new to the process, I can tell you this: there's nothing more
> disheartening than watching a patch sit (and possibly rot) without anyone
> even acknowledging that it's there. Nobody likes to be ignored, especially
> when one is trying to help. Being ignored basically sends the message that
> nobody WANTS your help... and (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think that's
> the stance of the Bugzilla development team, is it? Because intentional or
> not, it's the message that is often being sent to new contributors...
> 
> 
> I know reviewing patches is not nearly as 'fun' as writing your own. Without
> reviewers, though, people leave for lack of encouragement (or even
> acknowledgement) and guidance. When that happens, no new blood comes onto
> the project, and eventually everyone who is left on it burns out and it
> dies.  I've seen it before -- not on things like Bugzilla (as this is my
> first experience in this field), but in other volunteer organizations of
> which I've been a part.
> 
> 
> Lest anyone think I'm merely criticizing, I've already put my money where my
> mouth is, and made an offer to Dave to review documentation patches. I'm not
> well-known enough here to do code reviews, nor (honestly) would I feel
> comfortable with it... but dagnabbit I know I can write, I'm anal about
> spacing and punctiation, and I'm working on this SGML stuff. :)
> 
> 
> Shane H.W. Travis       | Anyone who is capable of getting themselves
> travis at sedsystems.ca    |  made President should on no account be allowed
> Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |  to do the job.  -- Douglas Adams, HHGTTG
> 
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