On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 4:55 AM, Philip Olson <phi...@roshambo.org> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Our credits system is not ideal so let's talk about it. A few points: > > - Most people on the front page aren't active > - We don't know what it means to be on the front page, or why separation > exists > - We also don't know what it means to be listed within the preface > - And, what is an editor? I'm one and don't even know > > Now, that of course oversimplifies it but let's continue. > > Goals of the credits system: > > - To give people proper credit for their work > - To let people know who writes this stuff, both past and present > - To provide incentive to work on the PHP Manual > - To be real > > Statistics based: > > Commit statistics are often misleading. Converting line endings, adding svn > props, creating skeletons, and stuff like that should count less than a > well-written paragraph or bug fix. And commit statistics don't apply to > people who do other work like maintain infrastructure (chm, builds, etc.) as > they don't involve commits. > > Jumbled based: > > This mixes everyone together, so a person who made one commit 23 months ago > sits next to a guy who commits every day. Something about this also feels > wrong, but also right. > > Now what: > > Think it over and let's determine if our current system can be improved, and > how. > > My opinion: > > Maybe an alternative or hybrid could exist, but I lean towards throwing all > names together into the preface, which essentially means removing all names > from the front page. And secondly, we can lose the editor role and also throw > them into the mix. We all work and edit. I think our current definition of > editor is an "old timer who promises to remain active" but we have plenty of > those. Something to think about. > > Also, an improved people.php.net could link to sites like ohloh.net, and also > display a statsvn.org instance. This, however, goes beyond the documentation > credits but it's also something to consider. > > >
hi Philip. for me it's seems to be a hard topic. I mean it's not really easy to tell who deserves credit if we cannot come up with objective measures. the easiest solution would be to give credit to everyone who has svn account and karma, usually they have multiple patches before applying for an account. of course, this would mean that we equally credit the casual commiters and the "hardcores" and the inactive people. I think that the now inactive people still deserve the credit for their past work, as many of their contribution is still there, and we couldn't be here without what they did back than. so I think that we should have a list for everybody who contributed and maybe a hall-of-fame, or most active contributors section, where we can adore people like Felipe or Hannes, or you. :) another thing that comes to mind is the wikipedia style of contributors. for the documentation that could work: add a link or tab for each doc page to link to a page where we list the svninfo for that page, and the usernames are also clickable: one can see what that specific user did in the past(good extension for people.php.net). of course this would mean work on our part, but it shouldn't be too hard. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
