The situation most projects are facing(including us), is lack of code reviews. Code reviews are the most important part of the project, and high-quality reviews are extremely time-consuming, maybe as much as so as the code itself. Usually, it is only committers do the code reviews, the code reviews from committers are important, as they are the serve as the gate-keeper of the quality of the code. In my experience, I usually find the reviews from non-committer super helpful, and they help the committer to catch problems that are otherwise overlooked.
However, it is very hard to get contributors to do code reviews unless we solicit them. It is definitely harder than getting code contributions. The Reviewer mechanism could provide a way to do so. We can recognize contributors, bring them as reviewers and encourage them to do the code reviews by explicitly soliciting. The reviewers can learn from the committer reviews, which serves as a role model for what is being expected. Naturally, this likely helps us find more good reviewers and bought them committer. Cheers Tianqi On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 1:09 PM Anirudh <anirudh2...@gmail.com> wrote: > -1. I dont see the need for additional level of hierarchy. I totally am for > recognizing good code reviewers. We can recognize this by making them > committers. Being a good reviewer should be sufficient to become a > committer in my opinion. (Assuming that there is a seperation between PPMC > and committers). > > Anirudh > > On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 8:28 AM Qing Lan <lanking...@live.com> wrote: > > > +1 > > Let's have a reviewer list somewhere with a certain format: such as C++, > > Gluon, Scala/Java based on language or some other category. etc. In the > > future, label bot would automatically assign reviewers based on this kind > > of documentation. > > > > Thanks, > > Qing > > > > On 10/21/18, 11:44 PM, "YiZhi Liu" <eazhi....@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > +1 > > I also suggest add reviewer list link to the PR template, so that > > developers can easily request review from those reviewers. > > On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 8:30 PM Tianqi Chen <tqc...@apache.org> > wrote: > > > > > > I was suggesting something more concrete: > > > > > > - Add a Reviewers section to > > > > > https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/blob/master/CONTRIBUTORS.md to > > > list a list of Reviewers. > > > - This is a "pesudo role", but holds weight as committers > should > > highly > > > value their reviews during the PR process. > > > - The committers/PMC could actively look for good contributors and > > nominate > > > them as Reviewer. > > > - Contributors are encouraged to seek reviews from the list of > > reviewers. > > > - The committers should actively solicit code reviews from the > > reviewers > > > when reviewing PRs and take their reviews into serious > consideration. > > > > > > - PMCs should actively look for new committers in the current > > Reviewers > > > - Notably, the history reviews plus contribution likely will > > provide a > > > good indication on whether the person can uphold the quality > > standard of > > > the codebase, and provide helpful feedbacks(which is the trait that > > needed > > > from committer to merge code) > > > > > > Tianqi > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 5:13 PM Steffen Rochel < > > steffenroc...@gmail.com> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > +1 > > > > With the release announcement for MXNet 1.3 all contributors > incl. > > code > > > > reviewers have been recognized. I suggest all future release > > announcements > > > > should include such recognition. Are you suggesting to highlight > > most > > > > active reviewers in release announcement or regularly (e.g. > > monthly), > > > > specifically from non-committers? > > > > > > > > On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 10:11 AM Tianqi Chen <tqc...@apache.org> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Also re another email-thread(I sent out one with my > > institutional email > > > > > which get blocked initially, so this one was a bit duplication > > of that). > > > > I > > > > > think it should really be the job of committers to recognize > > potential > > > > > reviewers, github also makes it easier to do so, e.g. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=reviewed-by%3Apiiswrong > > > > > > > > > > Tianqi > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 12:05 PM Carin Meier < > > carinme...@gmail.com> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > +1 Great idea. Adding a name to the contributor list is a > good > > idea. > > > > > Also, > > > > > > I've found that thanking the person for the review on the PR > > is another > > > > > way > > > > > > to express gratitude for their time and effort. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 2:51 PM Tianqi Chen < > tqc...@apache.org> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dear MXNet Community: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > There is a great discussion going on in terms of lowering > > the barrier > > > > > of > > > > > > > entries and encourage more contribution to the project. > One > > of the > > > > > > general > > > > > > > goals is to encourage a broader pool of contributions. I > > want to make > > > > > the > > > > > > > following proposal: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Besides Committers and PMC, let us also recognize Reviewers > > in the > > > > > > > community. This is a "pseudo role" as there is no such > > official role > > > > > in > > > > > > > Apache. But I want to explore the possibility of > recognizing > > active > > > > > > > reviewers for example, by adding a list of names in the > > contributor > > > > > list. > > > > > > > In general, I find it is really helpful to have more code > > reviews. > > > > > > > Recognizing good reviewers early enables us to find > committer > > > > > candidates, > > > > > > > and encourage them to contribute and understand what is the > > bar of > > > > code > > > > > > > quality that is required to merge the code. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This can provide the community with more evidence when > > recruiting new > > > > > > > committers. After all the write access of committership is > > about to > > > > the > > > > > > > code and understand the consequence of the responsibility > -- > > which is > > > > > > > usually can be found in high-quality review history. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Please let me know what you think. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Tianqi > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Yizhi Liu > > DMLC member > > Amazon Web Services > > Vancouver, Canada > > > > > > >
