[development] ANN: drupal.org improvements series

[Derek Wright]

On Apr 13, 2007, at 12:59 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:

> I think Kristjan's posts are stellar and I encourage him to keep up  
> these contributions.

fair enough.

> You could call it 'rehashing known issues', I call it 'important  
> contributions'.

i'm just overwhelmed by the avalanche of duplicate requests that come  
in about project*, now in multiple channels.  if there was a big team  
of people pouring over the issue queues (if it was just 1/100th of  
the effort that goes into keeping the core issue queue maintained,  
that would be a huge improvement already), i'd be singing a different  
song about these sorts of contributions.

> His posts and the mockups get us closer to an actual  
> implementation.  He's translating ideas into a user-driven  
> implementation.  They provide guidance for developers, fresh ideas,  
> and a mechanism to get early feedback.

perhaps.  and i hope you're right.  however, in the last year of  
dealing with project*, this doesn't seem to match reality.  the  
reasons those known issues aren't fixed yet isn't that we (the  
developer(s)) lack guidance on how they should work, or have no ideas  
of our own, or have no mechanism for people to provide feedback.  the  
problems are: 1) lack of people working on it, 2) lack of funding (so  
i could prioritize this over my paid work), 3) what little time i can  
volunteer to work on this stuff getting swallowed up by just fending  
off the duplicate requests as they come in, so as to keep the  
discussion focused where it should be, 4) lack of people working on it.

yes, there will be 3 projects for SoC this year[1] that have  
something to do with project*, and that's fantastic.  i'm thrilled,  
and that means at least 3 more people who a) will know (parts of) the  
code, b) have an interest in watching the issue queues and helping  
out.  but, it's only april, and even still, none of the SoC projects  
directly deal with the issue tracker (except the quality metrics one,  
and then, only from a statistical side, not the UI of the issue  
tracker itself).

> All we need to do, is link Kristjan's post from the issues to  
> increase their visibility.

what we really need is more help.  perhaps my embattled email from  
last night was counter-productive for that, in which case, my  
apologies to Kristjan and everyone else.  however, *please*  
understand that it's a drain on my time (and desire) to see the same  
requests over and over again, when i know what needs to get done, and  
i just don't have unlimited time to work on all of it.

@Kristjan: sorry for snapping at you. ;)  please keep the mockups and  
ideas coming (though preferably attached to the appropriate issues).

@everyone else: in the "State of Drupal" talk Dries gave at OSCMS  
'07, he made a plea for other folks to help with the d.o  
infrastructure -- (to make our home look more like the Taj Mahal, not  
the falling down shack it is).  we need a lot more than pictures and  
descriptions of what the palace should look like.  we need builders,  
we need people to assist the builders by taking on related tasks and  
letting the builders concentrate on the building, we need people to  
hire more builders (thanks google!), etc.

thanks,
-derek

[1] http://drupal.org/node/135602