On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Christopher Arndt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > Hi Cliff, > > I was the person the person that closed this bug today. I was going > through the ticket today in preparation for an anticipated TG 1.1 > release and in the process tried to clear out some (!) of the really old > tickets, that nobody had looked after apparently for years. > > I can understand your consternation that I decided that the problem was > based on a user error. "user error" is actually probably the wrong term, > I just wanted to convey that the problem can be solved with the correct > application configuration. That this was not the case when the bug was > reported is unfortunate, but I wasn't even really involved in TG 3 years > ago. > > The experience of wading through all this old and obviously > forgotten/neglected ticket certainly made it clear to me as well that > something is amiss with our ticket handling procedures and I was > thinking of writing my thoughts/suggestions on this topic to the mailing > list soon anyway. What strikes me as odd is that you use the moment > somebody is actually starting to do something about it and handles your > ticket to condemn our practice. > > We still encourage user to enter bugs into the trac but we also > encourage them (and we always did), to discuss problems on the mailing > list. Also, the more information somebody provides for a bug report or > patch, the more likely it is, that it will be looked after in timely > fashion. I also closed about a dozen of tickets today, where the devs > asked the reporter for more information, because the ticket had neither > a proper problem description, information about how to reproduce the > problem or any example code, and there had been no feedback for months > or even years. I don't think it is useless to enter tickets into trac, > the problem seems more that there are so many useless tickets. Which is > our own fault: we should have more quality control and immediate > feedback for these. > > One other problem is, I think, that most of the tickets at the moment > don't get assigned to anybody by default, so nobody will be notified. A > related problem is that the general ticket-notification Google group > stopped working a year ago. Incidentally, just today I wrote to the > group-owners to ask them if anything could be done about it. > > What we need, IMHO, is a ticket manager, who's sole job is to distribute > tickets and look after them, i.e. see that they: > > 1) have a proper problem description and if not > 2) get feedback from the reporter > 3) get assigned to the right developer > 4) they get addressed in some way* in a timely fashion by checking > tickets periodically and nagging the one they are assigned to. > 5) get closed when they are done, are invalid, won't fix or do not get > feedback after some time. > > * by either fixing the problem or asking for feedback or giving and ETA > or rejecting the ticket. > > Fact is, that we got ourselves into this mess with dozens (hundreds?) of > open and often outdated tickets and we now need to find a way to handle > this so that the ticket system becomes a really useful development tool > again. This may also mean closing most of the old tickets > indiscriminately, even if this will turn off some more people like you. > > Chris > > Chris, Something like your "ticket manager" approach has been tried in the past (at least twice). Both times it was basically presented as having a small group of "trac managers", who would go through tickets, and ask for feedback, etc. The idea being that we could free up the time of the devs by doing these "chores". Of the people still obviously around on this list, myself and Jorge (Vargas?) have both done this. Here are the problems we had (at least from my POV): 1) We almost never had any feedback from original posters or even people who had previously worked on a given ticket. 2) It's tricky for anyone not developing on TG on a day to day basis to know who the "right" dev is to assign a ticket to. They change frequently. 3) The ticket updates list really needs to be working, which I see you have begun addressing. 4) It needs to be clear how much "authority" this/these person/persons would have. After all, we don't want to get in the way. 5) There's probably some others I have forgotten. Having one person to do this task would improve several of these issues, especially if the tickets were all initially assigned to him/her, though with the current backlog, it might be a bit overwhelming at first. I would be willing to give this a shot again (I believe I still have all the necessary trac permissions, etc.), however, I am about to go on a weeks vacation, so I wouldn't really be able to do much until after next Wed. or so. In fact I would really like to be involved in (at least) helping to clean up the trac database, as its current state really annoys me :) Kevin Horn --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TurboGears Trunk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/turbogears-trunk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
