We all get too much Bugzilla mail. Often this is because you signed up a long time ago as the default assignee for a component, or added yourself to a cc list. It's time to prune these old lists, so that the only bugmail you get is stuff that *directly relates to you*.
Today we made a change that may result in stopping bugmail you DID want, so read on for explanation and instructions.
= Default Assignee changes =
RobLa suggested that, in most cases, the Bugzilla default assignee for a MediaWiki component or extension should be no one (that is, the wikibugs "no one in particular" user). Today Mark made that change, for MediaWiki components and for the extensions that WMF sites use. You can see what the old default assignees were here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MarkAHershberger/Weekly_reports/2011-07-25...
If you've been removed and you actually WANT to be a default assignee for something, go ahead and add yourself back in. For example, maybe Ryan Kaldari really wants every new WikiLove bug assigned to him. But going forward, it seems to Mark & me that assignment should *mean* something - it should mean that someone chose to assign the bug, and that the assignee aims to address the issue.
= CC list email =
Once you're signed up for a cc list, you can't take yourself off; a Bugzilla admin has to do it. So today, Mark is emailing the people who are on cc lists, telling you what lists you're on, and asking you which of those you really want to be on. Please respond and think about what you really want. If you just want a regular overview of all the new bugs in that component, set up a report to be emailed to you every week using https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/editwhines.cgi .
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
Once you're signed up for a cc list, you can't take yourself off; a Bugzilla admin has to do it.
Are you sure about that?
See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622 and click on the edit button next to "CC List: 9 users (edit)". A list of the CC users appears and there's a little checkbox that says "Remove selected CCs". So I would think that it *is* possible to remove anyone from a CC list at any time by anyone, not just admins.
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
RobLa suggested that, in most cases, the Bugzilla default assignee for a MediaWiki component or extension should be no one (that is, the wikibugs "no one in particular" user). Today Mark made that change, for MediaWiki components and for the extensions that WMF sites use. You can see what the old default assignees were here:
It would be a good idea to add those people to default-CC though.
Bryan
I think Sumana meant the default Cc lists for bugs.
-Chad On Jul 20, 2011 8:17 AM, "Casey Brown" lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
Once you're signed up for a cc list, you can't take yourself off; a Bugzilla admin has to do it.
Are you sure about that?
See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622 and click on the edit button next to "CC List: 9 users (edit)". A list of the CC users appears and there's a little checkbox that says "Remove selected CCs". So I would think that it *is* possible to remove anyone from a CC list at any time by anyone, not just admins.
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Chad wrote:
On Jul 20, 2011 8:17 AM, "Casey Brown" lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
Once you're signed up for a cc list, you can't take yourself off; a Bugzilla admin has to do it.
Are you sure about that?
See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622 and click on the edit button next to "CC List: 9 users (edit)". A list of the CC users appears and there's a little checkbox that says "Remove selected CCs". So I would think that it *is* possible to remove anyone from a CC list at any time by anyone, not just admins.
I think Sumana meant the default Cc lists for bugs.
Right. Default CC lists (per product or per component) are managed by Bugzilla admins. I guess it's fine to try to clean these out, though surely there are higher priority tasks. The people getting these e-mails are generally experienced developers who know how to find a Bugzilla admin to adjust the lists as necessary.
MZMcBride
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:20 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Right. Default CC lists (per product or per component) are managed by Bugzilla admins. I guess it's fine to try to clean these out, though surely there are higher priority tasks. The people getting these e-mails are generally experienced developers who know how to find a Bugzilla admin to adjust the lists as necessary.
Right. Most people who are on CC lists are there because they asked to be added. Same thing with being the default assignee. I'm not too thrilled that this is happening en masse without having the discussion first...
As for extensions: they absolutely should always have a default assignee, and as a matter of policy I refuse to ever add new extensions to BZ unless someone is willing to take the assignee role.
In summary: I agree with Max completely that there are bigger fish to fry, and this comes across as a solution in search of a problem (too much BZ mail? Says who? If you don't care about a bug remove yourself from it...)
-Chad
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
Right. Most people who are on CC lists are there because they asked to be added. Same thing with being the default assignee. I'm not too thrilled that this is happening en masse without having the discussion first...
Fair point. I'm less concerned about cc lists than default assignees. In fact, I think that if someone has been taken off the default assignee, they should (by default) be put on the cc line if they haven't already.
As for extensions: they absolutely should always have a default assignee, and as a matter of policy I refuse to ever add new extensions to BZ unless someone is willing to take the assignee role.
I'm not so sure this is the right position. For WMF-maintained extensions, we may have multiple people who would be logical choices. For other extensions, we're not going to be able to stop people from filing bugs once it's in the repository. If we're going to have a gatekeeper function, I'd prefer that we gate things from getting into the repository if there's no one to fix bugs. Once the extension is in our repository, the bugs will get filed, and the result will be we'll just lose metadata by not letting people enter it.
As Mark and Sumana have both expressed, the assignee should mean something.
Rob
Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com writes:
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
You can see what the old default assignees were here:
It would be a good idea to add those people to default-CC though.
I did that when I removed them.
Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org writes:
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
Right. Most people who are on CC lists are there because they asked to be added. Same thing with being the default assignee. I'm not too thrilled that this is happening en masse without having the discussion first...
Fair point. I'm less concerned about cc lists than default assignees.
From the responses I've gotten today, Chad is right. Most people on the
CC lists are the because they want to be. Still I have removed a couple of people from assignments and CC lists when I asked them if they still wanted to be on it.
I see this whole exercise as kind of like a manual counterpart to Mailman's monthly reminders — “Here is the list of the mailing lists you're signed up for” — except that you cannot remove yourself from Bugzilla's default assignments and CC lists. Be assured, though, that I have absolutely no plans to do this on a monthly basis.
Mark.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org