I think I can provide some context here, because this really seems to be
about something specific. The Reading Infrastructure team recently
inherited maintenance responsibility for the Wikimedia maps stack,
resourced on a very limited basis. Along with that, we inherited a backlog
of many hundreds of tasks, many of which have seen no activity for years.
For the past couple of months, a few of us have spent an hour each week
trying to work through the backlog trying to triage all of these. In the
course of these grooming meetings, we have closed more than a few tasks
based on a combination of not having the resources to work on them, and it
not seeming likely that anyone else will, either; the theory here is that
it can better reflect reality to openly decline a task than to let it
languish in a backlog indefinitely.
If this contravenes the relevant norms, I apologize. If you were upset by
the closing of what you believe to be a valid maps ticket, please feel free
to reopen. Thanks.
On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 10:06 PM Brian Wolff <bawolff(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Declined = WONTFIX (e.g. if some talented developer
wrote a patch, and the
patch was perfect, you would still -2 it because the functionality is not
wanted/stupid/etc)
Invalid = not a real bug. That should include things like spam, stuff where
the reporter is mistaken ( can't reproduce or if someone say reports a
sharepoint bug)
I think the defining difference is its possible to write a patch for a
declined bug, even though it would be rejected, where an invalid bug by
definition is unfixable.
Just my 2 cents, others may have different definitions.
--
Brian
p.s. ive never liked the "need volunteer" term for lowest priority - I have
always felt it had offensive implications as if volunteer time isnt as
important so they get the low priority bugs.
On Tuesday, October 2, 2018, Joe Matazzoni <jmatazzoni(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
I agree with Amir’s understanding.
"Declined” is basically for ideas
whose proper timing is never. Valid ideas
that we just aren’t going to
work on any time soon should go in a backlog or freezer or some such, where
they can await until some future project or other development makes them
relevant (at least theoretically).
All of which does raise a slightly different question: I am much less
clear on
what the exact difference is between “Invalid” and “Declined.”
Thoughts?
Best,
Joe
_____________________
Joe Matazzoni
Product Manager, Collaboration
Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco
mobile 202.744.7910
jmatazzoni(a)wikimedia.org
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the
sum of all knowledge."
> On Oct 2, 2018, at 9:31 AM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>
wrote:
>
> 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
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