Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I'm grateful for this largely civil and productive discussion. I'd like to suggest that the multiple sub-topics being discussed here might be easier to follow if the entire discussion is moved to a wiki talk page, such as on MediaWiki.org. I am not attempting to halt discussion or to tell people

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Brion Vibber wrote: >*nods* I think the root problem is that the phabricator task system does >double duty as both an *issue reporting system* for users and a *task >tracker* for devs. > >An issue reporting system should capture all actual problems and all >actual suggestions, and is meant to

[Wikitech-l] Discussion Tomorrow: RFC: Spec for representing multiple content objects per revision (MCR) in XML dumps

Hi All, A friendly reminder that TechCom is hosting an IRC discussion tomorrow on RFC: Spec for representing multiple content objects per revision (MCR) in XML dumps: This RFC is about how the content of multiple slots should be represented in XML

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 9:57 AM Brion Vibber wrote: > *nods* I think the root problem is that the phabricator task system does > double duty as both an *issue reporting system* for users and a *task > tracker* for devs. > IMO that kind of double duty is normal for all software development

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 20:43 +0100, Yuri Astrakhan wrote: > I think we are misusing the term "priority" here. Priority for whom? > Setting something to "lowest" priority implies that users do not care about > the item. It does not, as "users" do not prioritize what developers work on.

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Hi! > I think we are misusing the term "priority" here. Priority for whom? For whoever is responsible for the planning. Which in most cases is the WMF team that is tagged, though if it's a project that belongs to another team (or person), then it's this team's (or person's) planning. > Setting

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 22:24 +0500, Michael Holloway wrote: > I think I can provide some context here, because this really seems to be > about something specific. The Reading Infrastructure team recently > inherited maintenance responsibility for the Wikimedia maps stack, > resourced on a very

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 17:05 +, Brian Wolff wrote: > Declined = WONTFIX (e.g. if some talented developer wrote a patch, and the > patch was perfect, you would still -2 it because the functionality is not > wanted/stupid/etc) > > Invalid = not a real bug. That should include things like spam,

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I think we are misusing the term "priority" here. Priority for whom? Setting something to "lowest" priority implies that users do not care about the item. Unbreak now implies users need it fixed right away. "we have no resources" does not mean its not needed, it just means WMF does not view it as

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

We could also create a global tag called freezer / room101 () to help developers to do this filtering. It would also allow us to get a high level overview of under resourced projects which i suspect would be helpful with planning and finding stewards for certain projects. Without such a tag

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I agree with this approach, and also with moving tasks to a "freezer".  I support depreciating the use of "needs volunteer (developer)". Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) Original message From: James Hare Date: 10/2/18 11:41 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 11:32 AM Stas Malyshev wrote: > Realizing this, I think we need some mode of explicitly saying "we do > not have any means to do it now or in near-term future, but we don't > reject it completely and if we ever have resources or ways to do this, > we might revisit this". >

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Hi! > All of which does raise a slightly different question: I am much less > clear on what the exact difference is between “Invalid” and > “Declined.” Thoughts? I usually use Invalid where the description of the task does not really describe the problem (or a problem) - e.g. it was a user

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Hi! On 10/2/18 9:57 AM, Brion Vibber wrote: > *nods* I think the root problem is that the phabricator task system does > double duty as both an *issue reporting system* for users and a *task > tracker* for devs. This is probably the real root cause. But I don't think we are going to make the

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I think I can provide some context here, because this really seems to be about something specific. The Reading Infrastructure team recently inherited maintenance responsibility for the Wikimedia maps stack, resourced on a very limited basis. Along with that, we inherited a backlog of many

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

*very much agree with both Amir and Brion* I've seen the same thing; something is reported as a more or less general issue, it is then picked up as a task, it is further discussed in a specific context, then closed because it does not fit the given context. But the new context wasn't part of the

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Declined = WONTFIX (e.g. if some talented developer wrote a patch, and the patch was perfect, you would still -2 it because the functionality is not wanted/stupid/etc) Invalid = not a real bug. That should include things like spam, stuff where the reporter is mistaken ( can't reproduce or if

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Joe, "Invalid" means something like "this is not a legitimate report; the user had mis-configured their browser". "Declined" means something like "We understand the user's request but we won't change the default font size based on the reasoning provided here." Pine (

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

*nods* I think the root problem is that the phabricator task system does double duty as both an *issue reporting system* for users and a *task tracker* for devs. An issue reporting system should capture all actual problems and all actual suggestions, and is meant to provide visibility for the

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

+1 that we shouldn't close valid bugs. Assuming nobody brings up objections, here's a nice place to document new consensus: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bug_management/Bug_report_life_cycle FWIW, that page is discoverable from:

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I agree, which raises a question why so many map related legitimate used requests were closed recently as declined, and with a comment that there is no resources to work on them On Tue, Oct 2, 2018, 17:51 Joe Matazzoni wrote: > I agree with Amir’s understanding. "Declined” is basically for

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I agree with Amir’s understanding. "Declined” is basically for ideas whose proper timing is never. Valid ideas that we just aren’t going to work on any time soon should go in a backlog or freezer or some such, where they can await until some future project or other development makes them

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

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

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

I agree, tasks should not be declined in such a way when tagged with component(s). On Tue, 2 Oct 2018 at 17:31, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: > Hi, > > I sometimes see WMF developers and product managers marking tasks as > "Declined" with comments such as these: > * "No resources for it in (team

Re: [Wikitech-l] problematic use of "Declined" in Phabricator

Pe marți, 2 octombrie 2018, Amir E. Aharoni a scris: > 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

[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

Re: [Wikitech-l] Upcoming Search Platform Office Hours—October 3rd

Just a reminder that this is happening tomorrow, about 24 hours from now. Trey Jones Sr. Software Engineer, Search Platform Wikimedia Foundation On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 10:42 AM, Trey Jones wrote: > The Search Platform Team > will be >

[Wikitech-l] Wednesday: Technical Advice IRC Meeting (Two time slots this Wednesday!)

Reminder: Technical Advice IRC meeting again **Wednesday at 3-4 pm UTC AND 11-12 pm UTC** on #wikimedia-tech. The Technical Advice IRC Meeting (TAIM) is a weekly support event for volunteer developers. Every Wednesday, two full-time developers are available to help you with all your questions