Bugzilla [was: discretion & the issue tracker]

Steven Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, 2008-06-05 15:46 +0100:

> Why can't there be a 'proposal tracker' implemented that is open to
> anyone in the working group to add proposals to, via a form perhaps
> that asks for certain information about the proposal, so it can then
> be evaluated and debated by WG members?

It might not actually be difficult at all, and I think we already
have what may be an appropriate place/tool for it -- The W3C
public bugzilla:

  http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/

A number of other working groups have already been using that (and
were before the Tracker mechanism became widely available to
groups). There's already an "HTML WG" product there.

Anybody (even people who aren't members of the HTML WG or any
other W3C WGs) can create an account in that bugzilla, and once
anybody has an account, they can raise new issues, add comments to
existing ones, all the usual stuff you do with bugzilla.

All that said, I'm still in the process of trying to get it
finished up (mainly, to a new mailing list set up to archive the
messages it generates), so please get me another day or two before
actually raising any new issues it in.

I think once we get that going it could end up being really useful.

> It could also provide a mechanism whereby WG members could 'vote' for
> the proposal to be moved to the raised section of the issue tracker,

bugzilla has a built-in voting mechanism and we could make use of that.

> thereby providing a process for raising issues. something like this is
> in place in the editors "inbox" interface:
>   http://www.whatwg.org/issues/ (be aware if you are only able to use
> internet exploerer then you won't be able to access this), but this is
> outside of the W3C/HTML WG process and at the whim of the editor it
> appears.
> 
> Such a mechanism should reduce any feeling of disenfranchisement that
> individual members may feel and provide and provide a clear route and
> repository for the many ideas that get lost in the mailing list at
> present.

One particular advantage of the bugzilla setup is that it would
allow people (even those that are not HTML WG members or members
of other W3C WGs) to opt-in to particular issues -- and get mail
only about those issues (and not need to try to follow or filter
public-html if they don't want to).

> I for one would be happy to be a part of a "proposals task force" to
> monitor and maintain this.

And I for one would be very happy to have you help :)

> How problematic would it be to set up a duplicate of the current issue tracker?

Not problematic at all if we decide that the W3C bugzilla will
work for the use case you've described.

We could instead consider setting up an additional Tracker, but it
would lack some of the features that bugzilla has (e.g., voting
feature) and would necessarily be open only to people who are
members of the WG (or at least to those who have W3C user
accounts). I think that would be suboptimal in would be good to
have a place that provides the open-to-anybody opt-in per-issue
participation that bugzilla provides.

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/
http://sideshowbarker.net/