Declined tasks also usually do not appear in any searches by volunteers looking for tasks, which would be sad as the original reason for declining may be "no resources", declining the task effectively makes it impossible for these resources to find it, usually.
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Wikitech-l <wikitech-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> Im Auftrag von Amir E. Aharoni Gesendet: Dienstag, 2. Oktober 2018 18:31 An: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Betreff: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator Hi, I sometimes see WMF developers and product managers marking tasks as "Declined" with comments such as these: * "No resources for it in (team name)" * "We won't have the resources to work on this anytime soon." * "I do not plan to work on this any time soon." Can we perhaps agree that the "Declined" status shouldn't be used like this? "Declined" should be valid when: * The component is no longer maintained (this is often done as mass-declining). * A product manager, a developer, or any other sensible stakeholder thinks that doing the task as proposed is a bad idea. There are also variants of this: * The person who filed the tasks misunderstood what the software component is supposed to do and had wrong expectations. * The person who filed the tasks identified a real problem, but another task proposes a better solution. It's quite possible that some people will disagree with the decision to mark a particular task as "Declined", but the reasons above are legitimate explanations. However, if the task suggests a valid idea, but the reason for declining is that a team or a person doesn't plan to work on it because of lack of resources or different near-term priorities, it's quite problematic to mark it as Declined. It's possible to reopen tasks, of course, but nevertheless "Declined" gives a somewhat permanent feeling, and may cause good ideas to get lost. So can we perhaps decide that such tasks should just remain Open? Maybe with a Lowest priority, maybe in something like a "Freezer" or "Long term" or "Volunteer needed" column on a project workboard, but nevertheless Open? -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
