Re: Fwd: Tracker features - additional states

> Can you clarify how we are interpreting the states at this point?
>
> I see three keywords in the tracker:
>
>    RAISED
>    OPEN
>    CLOSED
>
> ...and these are the states that I care about tracking:
>
>    The issue has not yet been processed by the editors.
>    The issue has been processed by the editors.
>
> Can you clarify to which keywords the above states map?

>From a issue tracker (about a set of specifications) standpoint the
three states are pretty clear in my mind but when bundled with the
working group, W3C process, etc... there is some gray area I'm unclear
about.

As I see it:

RAISED  = The issue has not yet been processed by the editors.
OPEN     = The issue is being considered by the editors.
CLOSED = The issue is resolved in the eyes of the working group.
                 (Based on how Dan Connolly & Mike Smith have CLOSED issues.)

Based on an email Dan circulated late last month it is not clear to me
now if working group consensus is required to RAISE or OPEN an issue
but that seems like an unnecessary bit of policy cruft (especially
given the size of our group...)

The workflow issues seems to follow these lines at the moment:

1. Conversation (email, irc, telcon, face-to-face, blog, etc) prompts
RAISING an issue.
2. The editors come along and review an issue.
    a. Editors decide issue has merit and OPEN for further work
    -or-
    b. Editors need more info to decide if the issue is valid
    c. Editors think the issue is already handle by the spec or
another related issue
    d. Editors think the issue is out-of-scope
    e. and other scenarios which basically mean the issue isn't going
to be OPENed.

So should the conversation be longer to vet an issue before it is
added to the Tracker? My instinct had to been to add anything that
needed to be addressed by the editors or the working group at large
into the Tracker. Then Dan suggested was that *big* ticket items like
"Extract <canvas> into separate specification" is a working group
_issue_ but when a working group member (like Henri so often does)
finds a typo or proposes a small change to the spec these should be
_actions_.

Other W3C working groups don't have quite the size or public nature as
the HTML one does so it is not clear where I should look for best
practices or "the standard". WHATWG doesn't seem to have these
distinctions (there's no Tracker or consensus requirement)... and I
realize that W3C != WHATWG but since Ian is splitting his brain
between the two groups I think it is wise to consider a little
consistency in issue handling to preserve at least one of our editors'
sanity. Hyatt is probably already off his rocker at this point ;)

Sorry for the wordy email about less than exciting issues like issue
tracking policy. (Though after a week+ of uninformed <video>
discussion I'm game for talking about anything else.)

-s

Received on Tuesday, 18 December 2007 12:34:08 UTC