On 02/14/2013 03:19 PM, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
> On 06/15/2012 04:53 PM, Rob Lanphier wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
>>> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
>>> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
>>> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
>>> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
>>> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
>>> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
>>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
>>
>> Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
>> access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
>> If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
>> it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
>>
>> Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
>> probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
>> blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
>> deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
>> windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
>> window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
>> that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
>> adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
>> into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
>> dependencies.
>>
>> We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
>> someone introduces a breaking change or does something that brings the
>> db to its knees or introduces a massive security hole or whatever.
>> That means that if the situation were to arise that we needed to
>> revoke someones access, we have to wait until it gets egregious and
>> awful, and even then the person is likely to be shocked that their
>> rights are being revoked (if we even do it then).  To be less
>> conservative about giving access, we also need to figure out how to be
>> less conservative about taking it away.  We also want to be as
>> reasonably objective about it.  It's always going to be somewhat
>> subjective, and we don't want to completely eliminate the role of
>> common sense.
>>
>> It would also be nice if we didn't have to resort to the nuclear
>> option to get the point across.  One low-stakes way we can use to make
>> sure people are more careful is to have some sort of rotating "oops"
>> award.  At one former job I had, we had a Ghostbusters Stay Puft doll
>> named "Buster" that was handed out when someone broke the build that
>> they had to prominently display in their office.  At another job, it
>> was a pair of Shrek ears that people had to wear when they messed
>> something up in production.  In both cases, it was something you had
>> to wear until someone else came along.  Perhaps we should institute
>> something similar (maybe as simple as asking people to append "OOPS"
>> to their IRC nicks when they botch something).
>>
>> Rob
> [0]
> 
> Now that we are being looser in granting access,[1] it's probably a good
> idea to figure out how and when to remove access -- the D in CRUD,
> right? :-)  There should be social and technical procedures for removing
> members from Gerrit project owner groups.  As Rob said, if someone is a
> chronic offender in breaking the deployment, then it's important to have
> some consequence.  Possible reasons to consider removing members should
> include *persistently* breaking things through negligence or
> incompetence, lack of respect for other community members,
> anticollaborative behavior, and possibly "I have left the community and
> have no plans to come back" (as opposed to "I am now going to take a
> year off from MediaWiki to concentrate on my new baby" or a similar
> hiatus).  There were more thoughts on this in
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/59681
> .
> 
> I personally want clearer guidelines for this *so that we can be more
> open to giving more volunteers +2*.
> 
> [0] (original thread:
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/281340 .  Summary:
> let's not create solutions in search of problems; ideas for embarrassing
> IRC nicknames and other shame-based norm enforcement; this is about fun
> and responsibility, not humiliation; the need to balance caution and
> decisiveness.)
> 
> [1] Per
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Git/Gerrit_project_ownership#Removing_un-wiki_part_of_this_policy
> the policy for giving +2 for Git repositories is now "If there is
> consensus from the existing project owners, then we'll approve the
> candidate."  This is a change to the previous policy, which allowed a
> single existing owner to veto a candidate.  Chad made this change to
> policy on the 4th:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Git%2FGerrit_project_ownership&diff=640780&oldid=640776

OK, the policy is at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/%2B2#Revocation -
RobLa reminded me that we already had had this discussion. :-)  Thanks.

-- 
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation

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