[development] The "postponed" issue status

[Alex Bronstein]

I'd be ok with either one of these options:

1) Don't add "blocked". Treat "postponed" as a superset of "blocked". 
So, something can either be "postponed" because another issue needs to 
be resolved first, or it can be postponed for other reasons, like the 
person who feels responsible for the issue wishes to convey that they're 
putting it off their radar for a while, until they feel like picking it 
up again some day. Although these are very different concepts, I don't 
think it's so bad to bundle them into a single status as we do now. But, 
if "postponed" includes "this issue is very much alive, but is stuck 
until another issue is resolved", then we must change the "79 critical 
issues (D7)" link in the "Contributor links" block to include 
"postponed". Otherwise, we have the wrong count and lose awareness of 
issues that still must be solved.

2) Add "blocked" and include those, but not "postponed" issues in the 
count of critical issues remaining.

My preference is for the second, but I think the first is acceptable. 
What I think is a problem right now is that we have some critical issues 
marked as "postponed" thinking that's the correct status for blocked, 
but those issues not showing up in that link that people are 
increasingly paying attention to.

Alex.

PS: Not sure if this conversation should move to an issue. Perhaps it 
should if it starts getting more responses, but at least for now, I see 
some value in continuing it on this email list.

Derek Wright wrote:
> On Jun 3, 2010, at 3:09 PM, E.J. Zufelt wrote:
>
>   
>> I think a blocked issue status would be helpful,
>>     
>
> Perhaps, although I'm concerned about the overwhelming number of choices we already have and ask users to navigate and understand.  There have been multiple bikeshed-of-doom threads about the whole question of issue status names and meanings, for example:
>
> "Reorganise project issue statuses"
> http://drupal.org/node/171350
>
>
>   
>> especially if the ability to build block relationships was available.  This would allow for the display of all blocking and blocked by issues to be listed for each issue.
>>     
>
> Right.  This would be slick, but would require some new plumbing:
>
> "relationships between issues integrated with the status field"
> http://drupal.org/node/44162
> http://groups.drupal.org/node/555
>
> Other related topics:
>
> "Provide a mechanism for issue meta discussions"
> http://drupal.org/node/569552
>
> "Enable CCK and node_reference"
> http://drupal.org/node/651484
>
>
> Enjoy,
> -Derek (dww)
>
>
>
>