Bug Triage: Call for Action (and a meeting)

[John Poelstra]

Greetings Bug Triagers,

Thanks to those of you that came to the bug triage session at FUDCon a 
couple of Saturdays back.  Hopefully it was helpful and you'd still like 
to join us.  Things have gotten slightly better here 
http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2 but we still need your help!

Our weekly bug triage meeting hasn't happened for several weeks and we'd 
like to resume them again.  Some of us were tied up with other things 
and some people were unable to make the time.  Also after having a few 
meetings with one or two people it seemed unclear how best to proceed.

So.... we know there are a lot of people interested in bug triage but 
past meeting attendance hasn't been  good so we'd like to try and fix 
that.  At least two or three people sign up for the 'fedorabugs' group 
every day so there is a disconnect there somewhere we need to fix.  And 
if you think weekly meetings aren't the way to go and there is a better 
way to proceed please put it forward.

ITEM #1
I've created a matrix on this page 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler to help 
figure out a good time for people.  PLEASE add your IRC nick or initials 
to the best slots that work for you.

I'm hoping we can gather together a core group of people that will meet 
each week to talk about bug triage, ways to improve process, and tools 
to make it easier.

ITEM #2
I've raised this idea a couple of times now (and generally been shot 
down), but since there has been little to no uptake in recent triage 
related post I'm going to keep trying :)  We made the decision back in 
January to keep triage stuff on fedora-test-list because we wanted the 
benefit of a larger audience of people that might be interested in 
helping with bug triage.  HOWEVER, I'm wondering if the "testing" 
audience and that "triage" audience really aren't the same and as a 
result we are directing new bug triage folks to sign up for 
fedora-test-list where they receive 200 emails a week where only a small 
handful of them are related to bug triage.

Would there be better response to "bug triage related posts" if they 
were sent to a bug triage list only, and thus a very targeted audience 
of people interested in bug triage?

ITEM #3
It is completely possible that items #1 and #2 are completely 
misdirected and that instead we should do ______________(you tell us). 
I'm simply writing this message because somehow we need to find a way to 
gather a core group of people around bug triage who can consistently 
work on bug triage, collaborate, and make Fedora better together by 
making sure our package maintainers have good bug reports to work with. 
  In doing so I believe we can encourage others to join in too.

Thanks for reading!
John

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 14:50 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> Greetings Bug Triagers,
>
> Thanks to those of you that came to the bug triage session at FUDCon a 
> couple of Saturdays back.  Hopefully it was helpful and you'd still like 
> to join us.  Things have gotten slightly better here 
> http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2 but we still need your help!
>
> Our weekly bug triage meeting hasn't happened for several weeks and we'd 
> like to resume them again.  Some of us were tied up with other things 
> and some people were unable to make the time.  Also after having a few 
> meetings with one or two people it seemed unclear how best to proceed.
>
> So.... we know there are a lot of people interested in bug triage but 
> past meeting attendance hasn't been  good so we'd like to try and fix 
> that.  At least two or three people sign up for the 'fedorabugs' group 
> every day so there is a disconnect there somewhere we need to fix.  And 
> if you think weekly meetings aren't the way to go and there is a better 
> way to proceed please put it forward.

I wonder -- do you think that having evening meetings might help?  To
know whether it would matter, we might want to find out how many people
who want to triage don't show up because they can't find time during the
work day.  Our experience in the Docs Project was that weeknights were
generally good, and weekends were decidedly bad.
> ITEM #1
> I've created a matrix on this page 
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler to help 
> figure out a good time for people.  PLEASE add your IRC nick or initials 
> to the best slots that work for you.
>
> I'm hoping we can gather together a core group of people that will meet 
> each week to talk about bug triage, ways to improve process, and tools 
> to make it easier.
>
> ITEM #2
> I've raised this idea a couple of times now (and generally been shot 
> down), but since there has been little to no uptake in recent triage 
> related post I'm going to keep trying :)  We made the decision back in 
> January to keep triage stuff on fedora-test-list because we wanted the 
> benefit of a larger audience of people that might be interested in 
> helping with bug triage.  HOWEVER, I'm wondering if the "testing" 
> audience and that "triage" audience really aren't the same and as a 
> result we are directing new bug triage folks to sign up for 
> fedora-test-list where they receive 200 emails a week where only a small 
> handful of them are related to bug triage.
>
> Would there be better response to "bug triage related posts" if they 
> were sent to a bug triage list only, and thus a very targeted audience 
> of people interested in bug triage?

There was a general move to clean up lists a while ago because there
were too many, and people didn't understand the difference between them.
That's not to say this idea doesn't have merit!  Do you think separating
the lists has any possible drawbacks when it comes to something like
generating test cases from bugs that have been triaged?
> ITEM #3
> It is completely possible that items #1 and #2 are completely 
> misdirected and that instead we should do ______________(you tell us). 
> I'm simply writing this message because somehow we need to find a way to 
> gather a core group of people around bug triage who can consistently 
> work on bug triage, collaborate, and make Fedora better together by 
> making sure our package maintainers have good bug reports to work with. 
>   In doing so I believe we can encourage others to join in too.

I am really interested in trying some triage on the side.  I've never
quite been able to suss out how to do it right, but I am trying to move
out of some old stomping grounds and into new ones for my side work, so
I will get on the matrix too, FWIW.

[Brennan Ashton]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 22:36 +0000, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 14:50 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> > Greetings Bug Triagers,
> >
> > Thanks to those of you that came to the bug triage session at FUDCon a 
> > couple of Saturdays back.  Hopefully it was helpful and you'd still like 
> > to join us.  Things have gotten slightly better here 
> > http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2 but we still need your help!
> >
> > Our weekly bug triage meeting hasn't happened for several weeks and we'd 
> > like to resume them again.  Some of us were tied up with other things 
> > and some people were unable to make the time.  Also after having a few 
> > meetings with one or two people it seemed unclear how best to proceed.
> >
> > So.... we know there are a lot of people interested in bug triage but 
> > past meeting attendance hasn't been  good so we'd like to try and fix 
> > that.  At least two or three people sign up for the 'fedorabugs' group 
> > every day so there is a disconnect there somewhere we need to fix.  And 
> > if you think weekly meetings aren't the way to go and there is a better 
> > way to proceed please put it forward.
>
> I wonder -- do you think that having evening meetings might help?  To
> know whether it would matter, we might want to find out how many people
> who want to triage don't show up because they can't find time during the
> work day.  Our experience in the Docs Project was that weeknights were
> generally good, and weekends were decidedly bad.

I think the issue with evenings is timezone. if we say 5:30 PDT that is
8:30 EST and the people in the middle are being pulled away from there
computers to eat dinner with there other family. That is what the matrix
will show.
> > ITEM #1
> > I've created a matrix on this page 
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler to help 
> > figure out a good time for people.  PLEASE add your IRC nick or initials 
> > to the best slots that work for you.
> >
> > I'm hoping we can gather together a core group of people that will meet 
> > each week to talk about bug triage, ways to improve process, and tools 
> > to make it easier.
> >
> > ITEM #2
> > I've raised this idea a couple of times now (and generally been shot 
> > down), but since there has been little to no uptake in recent triage 
> > related post I'm going to keep trying :)  We made the decision back in 
> > January to keep triage stuff on fedora-test-list because we wanted the 
> > benefit of a larger audience of people that might be interested in 
> > helping with bug triage.  HOWEVER, I'm wondering if the "testing" 
> > audience and that "triage" audience really aren't the same and as a 
> > result we are directing new bug triage folks to sign up for 
> > fedora-test-list where they receive 200 emails a week where only a small 
> > handful of them are related to bug triage.

Could you reference at least the subject that you are referring to, I
have read all the emails that trickle down the list and nothing pops
out.
> > Would there be better response to "bug triage related posts" if they 
> > were sent to a bug triage list only, and thus a very targeted audience 
> > of people interested in bug triage?

IMHO they should be the same, too many lists = to few people on the
list. This list connects triage to bugs and the development of bug
management.
> There was a general move to clean up lists a while ago because there
> were too many, and people didn't understand the difference between them.
> That's not to say this idea doesn't have merit!  Do you think separating
> the lists has any possible drawbacks when it comes to something like
> generating test cases from bugs that have been triaged?

see ^
> > ITEM #3
> > It is completely possible that items #1 and #2 are completely 
> > misdirected and that instead we should do ______________(you tell us). 
> > I'm simply writing this message because somehow we need to find a way to 
> > gather a core group of people around bug triage who can consistently 
> > work on bug triage, collaborate, and make Fedora better together by 
> > making sure our package maintainers have good bug reports to work with. 
> >   In doing so I believe we can encourage others to join in too.

I agree if we could pull someone from Redhat that is involved in BZ on
our side that would be nice, then we could really leverage it, more on
that at the IRC meeting.
> I am really interested in trying some triage on the side.  I've never
> quite been able to suss out how to do it right, but I am trying to move
> out of some old stomping grounds and into new ones for my side work, so
> I will get on the matrix too, FWIW.
>
> -- 
> fedora-test-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: 
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list

[Christopher Brown]

2008/7/1 Brennan Ashton :
> On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 22:36 +0000, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 14:50 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> > > Greetings Bug Triagers,
> > >
> > > Thanks to those of you that came to the bug triage session at FUDCon a
> > > couple of Saturdays back.  Hopefully it was helpful and you'd still like
> > > to join us.  Things have gotten slightly better here
> > > http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2 but we still need your help!
> > >
> > > Our weekly bug triage meeting hasn't happened for several weeks and we'd
> > > like to resume them again.  Some of us were tied up with other things
> > > and some people were unable to make the time.  Also after having a few
> > > meetings with one or two people it seemed unclear how best to proceed.
> > >
> > > So.... we know there are a lot of people interested in bug triage but
> > > past meeting attendance hasn't been  good so we'd like to try and fix
> > > that.  At least two or three people sign up for the 'fedorabugs' group
> > > every day so there is a disconnect there somewhere we need to fix.  And
> > > if you think weekly meetings aren't the way to go and there is a better
> > > way to proceed please put it forward.
> >
> > I wonder -- do you think that having evening meetings might help?  To
> > know whether it would matter, we might want to find out how many people
> > who want to triage don't show up because they can't find time during the
> > work day.  Our experience in the Docs Project was that weeknights were
> > generally good, and weekends were decidedly bad.
>
> I think the issue with evenings is timezone. if we say 5:30 PDT that is
> 8:30 EST and the people in the middle are being pulled away from there
> computers to eat dinner with there other family. That is what the matrix
> will show.

There is no easy answer to this. I appreciate things can get very
U.S.-centric but please don't forget that there is an entire planet's
time zones to take into account. This must be the case if a more
global effort is to be considered.

I think its also the case that people lead busy lives and simply
forget. If SIGS are to have meetings then they should consider
creating a calendar to subscribe to, make that stand out on the main
$SIG page and also consider some kind of reminder email system ???

Regards

[John Poelstra]

Christopher Brown said the following on 07/01/2008 01:40 AM Pacific Time:
> 2008/7/1 Brennan Ashton :
> > I think the issue with evenings is timezone. if we say 5:30 PDT that is
> > 8:30 EST and the people in the middle are being pulled away from there
> > computers to eat dinner with there other family. That is what the matrix
> > will show.
>
> There is no easy answer to this. I appreciate things can get very
> U.S.-centric but please don't forget that there is an entire planet's
> time zones to take into account. This must be the case if a more
> global effort is to be considered.

Agreed. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler is 
in UTC and includes all times :)

So far it looks like 1400 UTC is the sweet spot.  Would that work for 
you Chris?
> I think its also the case that people lead busy lives and simply
> forget. If SIGS are to have meetings then they should consider
> creating a calendar to subscribe to, make that stand out on the main
> $SIG page and also consider some kind of reminder email system ???
>
> Regards

As an interim solution what if I sent direct emails to people who wanted 
reminders?

John

[Christopher Brown]

2008/7/2 John Poelstra :
> Christopher Brown said the following on 07/01/2008 01:40 AM Pacific Time:
> > 2008/7/1 Brennan Ashton :
> > > I think the issue with evenings is timezone. if we say 5:30 PDT that is
> > > 8:30 EST and the people in the middle are being pulled away from there
> > > computers to eat dinner with there other family. That is what the matrix
> > > will show.
> >
> > There is no easy answer to this. I appreciate things can get very
> > U.S.-centric but please don't forget that there is an entire planet's
> > time zones to take into account. This must be the case if a more
> > global effort is to be considered.
>
> Agreed. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler is in
> UTC and includes all times :)
>
> So far it looks like 1400 UTC is the sweet spot.  Would that work for you
> Chris?

Regrettably no, at least, not on weekdays. Sad to say my triage
involvement (as you may have noticed) has decreased drastically from
previous levels due to life commitments. That said, please do email me
with upcoming meetings as I may be able to take part to some extent as
I greatly enjoyed harassing kernel bods for a few months!
> > I think its also the case that people lead busy lives and simply
> > forget. If SIGS are to have meetings then they should consider
> > creating a calendar to subscribe to, make that stand out on the main
> > $SIG page and also consider some kind of reminder email system ???
> >
> > Regards
>
> As an interim solution what if I sent direct emails to people who wanted
> reminders?

I would appreciate this, perhaps an hour prior to the event???

Regards

[John Poelstra]

Christopher Brown said the following on 07/06/2008 04:32 PM Pacific Time:
> 2008/7/2 John Poelstra :
> > As an interim solution what if I sent direct emails to people who wanted
> > reminders?
>
> I would appreciate this, perhaps an hour prior to the event???
>
> Regards

Okay.

To conclude this thread it appears that the best time (as voted on by 
four people including me) is 1400 UTC (10 AM EDT) on Tuesdays .  We will 
have our first meeting at that time next week.  I will send a reminder 
out in a few days and again on Monday including the IRC location.

Again if there is a better way to be reaching all of you silent triagers 
out there please let me know (on list, off list, IRC, etc.).  Four of us 
can make a different, but ten could make a lot more! :-)

John

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:50:50 -0700
[e-mail] (John Poelstra) wrote:
> Greetings Bug Triagers,
>
> Thanks to those of you that came to the bug triage session at FUDCon
> a couple of Saturdays back.  Hopefully it was helpful and you'd still
> like to join us.  Things have gotten slightly better here 
> http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2 but we still need your help!
>
> Our weekly bug triage meeting hasn't happened for several weeks and
> we'd like to resume them again.  Some of us were tied up with other
> things and some people were unable to make the time.  Also after
> having a few meetings with one or two people it seemed unclear how
> best to proceed.
>
> So.... we know there are a lot of people interested in bug triage but 
> past meeting attendance hasn't been  good so we'd like to try and fix 
> that.  At least two or three people sign up for the 'fedorabugs'
> group every day so there is a disconnect there somewhere we need to
> fix.  And if you think weekly meetings aren't the way to go and there
> is a better way to proceed please put it forward.

I think it's harder and harder to find a good time to hold meetings for
Fedora groups, since we are getting more contributors from all over the
world (not that that is a bad problem to have!).
> ITEM #1
> I've created a matrix on this page 
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler to help 
> figure out a good time for people.  PLEASE add your IRC nick or
> initials to the best slots that work for you.

I really wish we would have something better than this... 
Is there really no open source calendaring/scheduling app we could use? 
Anyone?
> I'm hoping we can gather together a core group of people that will
> meet each week to talk about bug triage, ways to improve process, and
> tools to make it easier.
>
> ITEM #2
> I've raised this idea a couple of times now (and generally been shot 
> down), but since there has been little to no uptake in recent triage 
> related post I'm going to keep trying :)  We made the decision back
> in January to keep triage stuff on fedora-test-list because we wanted
> the benefit of a larger audience of people that might be interested
> in helping with bug triage.  HOWEVER, I'm wondering if the "testing" 
> audience and that "triage" audience really aren't the same and as a 
> result we are directing new bug triage folks to sign up for 
> fedora-test-list where they receive 200 emails a week where only a
> small handful of them are related to bug triage.
>
> Would there be better response to "bug triage related posts" if they 
> were sent to a bug triage list only, and thus a very targeted
> audience of people interested in bug triage?

I think another list is a bad idea. It would cause triagers to be off
in their own world. If folks find the volume hard, we could try and
setup topics? Or show people how to filter posts...
> ITEM #3
> It is completely possible that items #1 and #2 are completely 
> misdirected and that instead we should do ______________(you tell
> us). I'm simply writing this message because somehow we need to find
> a way to gather a core group of people around bug triage who can
> consistently work on bug triage, collaborate, and make Fedora better
> together by making sure our package maintainers have good bug reports
> to work with. In doing so I believe we can encourage others to join
> in too.

Yeah, I think meetings are great, but hard to figure out times. ;(
> Thanks for reading!
> John

kevin

[stan]

Kevin Fenzi wrote:

-snip-
> I really wish we would have something better than this... 
> Is there really no open source calendaring/scheduling app we could use? 
> Anyone?

I came across this yesterday.  Haven't used it.  Maybe it suits your needs?
http://www.taskcoach.org/

I did a search on    calendar schedule   on sourceforge and got 1102 
hits.  You
might be able to find something there also.

-snip-

[Matej Cepl]

On 2008-07-07, 20:26 GMT, stan wrote:
> I came across this yesterday.  Haven't used it.  Maybe it suits 
> your needs?
> http://www.taskcoach.org/

The issue is IMHO not with client (Thunderbird, Kalendar, 
Evolution work fine), but with server.

Matěj

BZ: Bug Triage: Call for Action (and a meeting)

[Matej Cepl]

On 2008-07-07, 19:12 GMT, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> I really wish we would have something better than this...=20
> Is there really no open source calendaring/scheduling app we could use?=20
> Anyone?

Wouldn't ics file somewhere on fedorapeople with ACLs RW for all 
members be enough? Not sure, just asking.
> I think another list is a bad idea. It would cause triagers to 
> be off in their own world. If folks find the volume hard, we 
> could try and setup topics? Or show people how to filter 
> posts...

Something like BZ in Subject (BZ like BugZilla and BugZappers)?  
See this message.

Sorry for answering only now.

Matěj

[John Poelstra]

Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:50:50 -0700
> > [e-mail] (John Poelstra) wrote:
> > ITEM #1
> > I've created a matrix on this page 
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Scheduler to help 
> > figure out a good time for people.  PLEASE add your IRC nick or
> > initials to the best slots that work for you.
>
> I really wish we would have something better than this... 
> Is there really no open source calendaring/scheduling app we could use? 
> Anyone?

I wonder what they use here: 
http://quality.mozilla.org/event/2008/07/07/month

[Matej Cepl]

On 2008-07-08, 17:11 GMT, John Poelstra wrote:
> I wonder what they use here: 
> http://quality.mozilla.org/event/2008/07/07/month

Considering the line in HTML

<script type="text/javascript">Drupal.extend({ settings: 
{ "dhtmlMenu": { "useEffects": [ 0, 0 ] } } });</script>

some thoughts come to my mind ;-).

Matěj