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 "Declined" status shouldn't be used like this? "Declined" should be valid when: * The component is no longer maintained (this is often done as mass-declining). * A product manager, a developer, or any other sensible stakeholder thinks that doing the task as proposed is a bad idea. There are also variants of this: * The person who filed the tasks misunderstood what the software component is supposed to do and had wrong expectations. * The person who filed the tasks identified a real problem, but another task proposes a better solution. It's quite possible that some people will disagree with the decision to mark a particular task as "Declined", but the reasons above are legitimate explanations. However, if the task suggests a valid idea, but the reason for declining is that a team or a person doesn't plan to work on it because of lack of resources or different near-term priorities, it's quite problematic to mark it as Declined. It's possible to reopen tasks, of course, but nevertheless "Declined" gives a somewhat permanent feeling, and may cause good ideas to get lost. So can we perhaps decide that such tasks should just remain Open? Maybe with a Lowest priority, maybe in something like a "Freezer" or "Long term" or "Volunteer needed" column on a project workboard, but nevertheless Open? -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
