It's been a while since the thread [1] wasn't discussed, so here we go again.
After 3 months, here's the situation reviewed :
1) - Notes posted : We receive about 30 notes a day, most of them are :
I - Asking for help
II - Pointing to a bug in the documentation (typo, something missing, etc..)
III - Noise
IV - Scripts to help other users
2) - Problems with the actual system :
I - The rejection mail is too generic and deals with all the situations that may have caused the rejection. If the poster didn't read all the warnings while submitting the note (don't post support questions, don't, don't), will he really read such a mail ?
II - We see some good notes deleted, and nothing done. We have lost one more occasion to provide a better manual.
III - When a note is deleted, we doesn't know why it was (from time to time I think that the one who deleted it don't know the reason..)
IV - We sometime rejected notes with bad-formed emails, it only gives the mail server more work (and we know how the mail server suffers from time to time)
3) - Solutions :
First shot, solving I, II and III.
Same as proposed in [1], but a little reviewed (three months has passed by)
Possible actions :
Rejected
Deleted
To be integrated
Integrated
No action (another maintainer will maybe take one of the four actions mentioned before)
Possible reasons :
* Rejected :
- bug : Didn't you read all the warnings before posting ? Please fill in a bug report. we can also mention features request here.
- support : have a look at php.net/support.php
- not our thing : "Hey !! why is www.somesite.com pointing me here ???". Answer "drop a mail to the webmaster of this site"
* Deleted :
- trash : a note that doesn't belong in our manual at all (spam, irrelevant, wrong note, bad coded script, submitted twice, etc..). Everything that is not part of the other reasons for deleting a note.
- integrated : the note is now in the official manual. We can also make the script send an automatic mail to the submitter (he will certainly be pleased)
* to be integrated :
- this note is really relevant and should be in our manual ? mark it as integrated.
If you have enough time/karma, add it to CVS, then delete the note with "integrated" as reason
If you don't have enough karma, but still want to help, write something and send it to phpdoc, someone will validate and integrate it.
If you don't wanna do something more, stop here. A web interface will allow phpdoc'ers to see the notes flagged this way and they'll act for you.
Second shot, solving IV :
The actual system doesn't test the emails before sending a rejection mail. We can make it do so, with a regexp and testing if "spam" or "remove" is part of the email. This way, even if we make a mistake and click the bad link, the mail server won't be working in vain.
4) - Discussions :
When I proposed [1] I recieved a lot of feedbacks saying : "wow, too many reasons, it's gonna be horrible." This is how the alert sent to the notes mailing list will look like
" Submitter email
The note
------------ Manual page
Delete :
trash
Integrated
Reject :
bug
support
not our thing
To be integratedSearch the note database "
6 possibilities. IMHO, if someone found this to be too many, he doesn't belong on the notes maintainers staff as he don't want to put forth any effort. A note maintainers task is to take care of the manual and improve it. It requires effort (private joke : rioter... I'm sorry =D)
5) - Active maintainers : Here are the list of the active maintainers for last months :
- Vincent Gevers (vincent)
- Sebastian-H. Picklum (sp)
- Mehdi Achour (me, didou)
- Sara Golemon (pollita)
Managing the notes every day, integrating notes in the manual, fixing the bugs reported there.
- Jani Taskinen (sniper) : As he's in the front line in the bugs reports, he sometimes walks through a manual page after closing a related bug and hunts down most of the notes there.
There's some people who help from time to time and people who have helped a lot in the past. We can mention jimw, ronabop, zak, alindeman, jmc, betz, phillip.. (sorry for whoever I'm forgetting)
I would really like to hear feedback from all of you. Sure, everyone else is welcome, especially phpdoc'ers for the "to be integrated" proposition.
6) - Conclusions :
I hope this time the thread won't die. I'm ready to developp the new interface and the help of everyone is again welcomed.
The ball is in your camp, shoot it back !
Best regards,
Mehdi Achour
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[1] :: http://news.php.net/article.php?group=php.doc&article=%3C3F35958D.4030008%40keliglia.com%3E
PS : Thank you for the review Lateralus ;)
