Asa Dotzler wrote:
> Jason Bassford wrote:
>>> Andrew, because Peter thinks his keyword is really useful I'm giving
>>> you a list of bugs that Peter has determined to be low risk (they're
>>> not,
>> Peter never said that they were low risk. In fact, he has
>> repeatedly said that they were only suggestions and that, since he's
>> not a programmer (something else he's said repeatedly), it was up to
>> those who are programmers to tell him if they are low risk or not. The
>> only thing he's said is that he *believes* that they *might* be
>> low risk.
> So it's time for programmers to stop what they're doing and evaluate
> bugs to see if Peter's keyword is accurate? I believe I just read a post
> from Peter saying that keywords should be added when they fit and
> another post saying that he has no way of knowing whether his keyword
> fits because he's not a developer.
Please don't misquote me! I never said I had "no" way of knowing.
Anybody who puts some thought to it is likely to make a pretty decent
evaluation of a bug. And with experience, the evaluations will improve.
> Now we're supposed to tell people
> "make your best guess, possibly misinfroming new contributors and all
> the developers and QA with unlimited free time will come along and
> confirm or remove the keyword"?
No, with some keywords, people should be told that they may only add it
if they have enough experience to make that judgement. Other
"restricted" keywords exist. Zhis could be one of them.
> What Peter wants and what you want are two different things.
Not really. We both want a better "system" to help newbies learn the
"ropes".
> What Peter
> wants is another keyword that he thinks will help get specific bugs
> fixed.
I also think it will be a valuable aide to newbiews (one of "many" that
could improve the system).
> What you want is a general mechanism for pointing new
> contributors to bugs that are easy to fix. Your proposition requires, I
> believe, several things none of which are a new keyword.
Nothing "requires" anything. There is always more than "one" way to skin
a programmr (err, cat) ;)
> You want
> developers (or other sufficiently knowledgeable people) to flag bugs
> that they deem easy to fix for someone who doesn't know anything about
> Mozilla.
*doesn't know anything*?`Let's not exxaggerate here.
> I argue that there isn't a single
> bug in the database that a new contributor could get checked in without
> first communicating with a real person (either in Bugzilla, newsgroup or
> IRC)
We are not suggesting that it would *eliminate* the need to talk to real
people, simply *reduce* it.
> and that while better documentation (looking for volunteers.)
Just copy and paste the reply you gave to Andrew on 13.08.01, edit it to
include all OS's and you've got yourself an excellent first page for the
brand new "One-Stop-Shop for people wanting to contribute code" page.
Just make sure to add a link to a qury with *easy2fix* bugs ;)
> <snip>
> If enough
> of you tell me I'm not wanted and they'd rather read some boilerplate
> text or be handed a list of bugs that someone thinks you should be able
> to fix then I'll stop trying to give the one-on-one help and go back to
> my real job of organizing QA and testing efforts.
No need for drastic measures. We likely need a combination of dedicated
"real" people like you and some solud structure. Everyone who wants to
contribute does things differently. Some like to talk, others like to
read, most like a combo of the two.
> Peter has freely admitted that he didn't know how to add keywords
> sometime between 4 and 6 months ago.
I never said I didn't know, I was just less experienced -there is a
difference - please be more precise.
> I think the fact that he had been
> active in well over 200 bugs (and adding plenty of
mostly applicable and relevant
> keywords) before that
> time is evidence that we shouldn't be doing anything to make keywords
> any more difficult to understand than they already are.
...unless the benefit is greater than the increased difficulty ;)
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
