On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 5:27 PM, Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
In my experience, the bots in the channel are an important part of our workflow -- new bug reports, bug updates, and patches in gerrit. When I'm discussing things in #wikimedia-dev I usually end up having to manually
add
references to something that a bot already sent to #mediawiki, which is
one
of the reasons I've always preferred using #mediawiki.
Please don't make yet another split-off channel; that'll be annoying and make things more complicated for little if any benefit.
I think I agree with Brion more than anyone else. I find the bots to be incredibly useful, and jumping back and forth between channels is a pain. Also like I've said multiple times in multiple places over the past couple of days--when you move channels you fracture discussion. It happened with #wikimedia-dev, and it'll happen again here if we don't do this right.
However, I see the argument to be made that if you're not a regular then the bots can be rather annoying to filter out. And honestly, someone who drops in for a few minutes to ask a question shouldn't be asked to /ignore every random bot they see.
Is there some middle ground here?
-Chad
I agree with all the above (hm.. I see a pattern emerging :D ).
I think the middle ground is to keep the bots in a regular discussion channel, but not the channel where most support and new-user development takes place, but a channel where most core developers hang out. I'm talking about #wikimedia-dev.
I'll cite myself from CR: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/12388 :
We should make the bots smarter, and spread out to relevant channels
(rather than everything in one channeL). But I don't think one (or more) "bot channels" is going to work. The main concern raised (iirc) is that new users don't like them. And I agree the 'user' level doesn't have much use for them. A few ideas:
* #mediawiki: wikibugs for Product=MediaWiki (maybe + MediaWiki extensions).
- #wikimedia-dev: wikibugs for Product=Wikimedia.
* Other bugs are not sent to IRC (unless additional rules are inserted.
e.g. mobile could have their component output in their channel)
* #wikimedia-dev: gerrit-wm messages currently assigned for #mediawiki
could be moved to #wikimedia-dev. That will reduce the flood for support, while keeping them in the relevant context of developers and conversations.
-- Krinkle