Re: Incentives for review

[Katherine Cox-Buday]

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

>> I have often seen folks on various projects worried about the size of
>> various backlogs: bugs, issues, etc. I think it is human to want to
>> try and contain something that appears to be growing, unbounded. 
>
> …about patches only.  Bug is another story. :-)

Sorry, I meant to speak to both and instead repeated bugs with a different 
word, issues! I think patches and bugs are similar in this context.

> Just number to fix the idea about large backlog.

I think it's really great that you went through the trouble to quantify this. 
Thank you.

>> I think the thing that bothers us is a sense that the backlog is
>> becoming unmanageable, or too large to triage. I submit that this is
>> actually a tooling and organizational issue, and not an intrinsic
>> issue to be solved. Bugs may still be valid; patches may still have
>> valuable bones to modify.
>
> This is the point.  What do you do?  What could we improve about tooling
> and organisation to better scale and deal with this “becoming
> unmanageable backlog”?

I tried to give some ideas here[1].

> From my point of view, it is good to have this issue.  It means that
> Guix is becoming more popular.  And we – regular user, contributor,
> committer – have to adapt to this increasing workload, IMHO.

I totally agree!

> The question is how.  And how to invite people to complete review. :-)

Humans usually enjoy community. I think the group activities are really great.

>> I think the real issue is that as a backlog grows, the tools we're
>> used to using cannot answer the questions we want to ask: what is most
>> relevant to me or the project right now?
>
> If it is relevant to the project then it is also relevant to me as an
> user.  And vice-versa. ;-)

I think I did not give the proper context. I meant relevant as in "I am working 
on this package. Is anyone else? What tickets might I update? What other 
trivial bugs might I fix while I'm looking at this?"

I.e. relevant in the temporal sense.

> When something relevant to me is not making progress, it often means
> people are busy elsewhere, so I try to comment (review?) about patches
> or bugs.  It is a Sisyphean task because the workload never
> decreases. :-)  Or maybe structured procrastination. ;-)

I find it helpful to not think of it as a discrete task, but work along a 
continuum -- a joyful habit of collectively helping everyone to have something 
nice :)

"A society grows great when old (wo)men plant trees whose shade they know they 
shall never sit in."

[1] - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-10/msg00158.html

-- 
Katherine