Blocker Bug Voting and Conversation

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2012-12-03 at 15:19 -0700, Tim Flink wrote:
> I don't think that anyone is a huge fan of the current blocker bug
> process. I realize that the people most affected by the process are
> really busy right now but I also think that it wouldn't be a bad thing
> to start a conversation while the process is active and at its most
> painful. I don't really want this to devolve into a long flamewar about
> how bad the process is (I probably spend more time with the process
> than most people, I know it has issues) but I would like to start a
> conversation about some of it.
> 
> This conversation affects both test@ and devel@, so please try to send
> replies to both lists.
> 
> I'm trying to think through methods to improve the process but I
> ended up with some questions that need more than just my input:
> How useful is it to have the blocker votes and conversation in the bug?
> I think that it needs to be public, archived and easily accessible from
> affected bugs but I'm questioning the value of having conversations
> about blocker status within bugzilla comments.

My take on this is that 'public, archived and easily accessible' are
precisely the important criteria. The existing process was thrown
together on the back of a napkin, more or less, and tracking it in the
report itself was the obvious, easy way to do it in such a way that we
wouldn't lose the data later. I don't see any problem with doing it
somewhere else, so long as that 'somewhere else' meets the criteria.

> Affected Devs:
>  - Do you find the blocker related conversations in bugzilla comments
>    helpful? Annoying? Don't really care?
> 
>  - Do you want to be more involved in the blocker process? Less
>    involved and just notified about status changes?
> 
> Affected Voters:
>  - Do you vote on blocker status in bug comments?

Yes.

>  - Would you vote on blocker status more often if you could easily vote
>    outside of meetings?

I do my best, but probably.

>  - Do you want to receive status updates on the bugs you vote on, even
>    if those status updates don't deal directly with blocker status?

Not terribly applicable to me, as I want to know everything about just
about every bug =)

> Anyhow, helpful thoughts would be appreciated. Hopefully we can improve
> the process so that it's less painful for everyone and maybe even more
> useful (at the very least, less difficult to understand).

I don't want to overplay how bad the current system is, to be honest.
It's a duct tape job, sure, but it's survived as long as it has because
it actually achieves its goals fairly efficiently. I think we can
definitely build something more solid, but let's not throw out any
babies...
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net