[Python-Dev] Enhanced tracker privileges for dangerjim to do triage.

[Nick Coghlan]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>  > There is one privilege that should be hard to get: Permanent delete.
>  > But being able to triage bugs isn't such a privilege. Heck, not even
>  > commit access is, because of someone makes something bad, you can back
>  > out the checkin.
> 
> Sure, but that's still *work*, and it's work for *somebody else*.  The
> person who made the mistake is unlikely to detect it, and needs to be
> told to fix it, if they even fix it themselves.

As someone who's main contribution these days (other than kibbitzing
here) is reviewing checkins that go by on python-checkins, there
generally *is* a slight uptick in that workload when someone new is
given commit privileges (e.g. reminders to update docs, NEWS, tests,
what's new, ACKS, pointing out potential cross-platform or backwards
compatibility problems, reminders to check with active maintainers for
some modules).

It usually doesn't last long, because those people are currently
familiar with the basics of the process from submitting patches to the
tracker and seeing them applied for a while before commit privileges are
granted.

Actually having to revert commits and rerun the test suite to make sure
everything is back the way it should be can probably be taken as a
1-for-1 loss in patches applied without being too far off the mark
(fortunately, that is rather rare under the current system - I expect it
would be significantly more common if we were more casual about handing
out commit privileges).

However, I will also point out that a large chunk of the motivation in
moving to a DVCS is to make life easier for *non-committers*. Existing
devs get some benefit in being able to use something less clunky than
svnmerge to manage the maintenance branches, but that is pretty minor
compared to the gain in usability for everyone else.

>  If the existing tracker crew is happy
> with Sean's recommendation, and similar recommendations in the future,
> I'm happy too.  But it is a process change, and they should be
> comfortable with it.

Agreed that it is the existing triage team that really needs to OK this
(since they'll likely be the ones cleaning up any mistakes).

Getting someone to do things the clunky way for a couple of weeks still
seems like a decent way for them to show they understand the basics of
our tracker management policies (since merely commenting on issues can't
cause a mess the way inadvertent misuse of tracker privileges can).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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