On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 7:08 PM, Erik Bernhardson <ebernhardson@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Does core have any policies related to merging? The core features team has adopted a methodology(although slightly different) that we learned of from the VE team. Essentially +2 for 24 hours before a deployment branch is cut is limited to fixes for bugs that were introduced since the last deployment branch was cut or reverts for patches that turned out to not be ready for deployment. Core is certainly bigger and with more participants, but perhaps a conversation about when to +2 and how that effects the deployment process would be benefitial?
While we're talking about +2s in core, I'd like to ask for special care on parser-related patches. Two issues:
1. Even minor changes can silently affect a large number of rendered pages. We are (slowly) beginning to create tools to search for affected (or deprecated) wikitext so that we can tell before deployment how widespread the changes are. Slow down and ask for the tools to be run to prevent surprises later.
2. We are trying to keep two different parsers in sync: parsoid and the PHP parser. For any significant change to the PHP parser (and sanitizer, and parser tests), there is likely a change needed to Parsoid (and vice versa). Try to make sure you get +1s from both teams before a patch gets +2ed.
If I had a procedures wishlist, it would be for:
a) a prominent link beside gerrit's +2 where teams could write project-specific +2 guidelines.
b) a gerrit page banner in the "24 hours before deployment" window for a given project; it's easy to lose track of the deployment train, especially if you work on multiple projects.
--scott