Re: discretion in adding issues [was: respecification of document.write...]

Shawn Medero <soypunk@gmail.com>, 2008-05-30 09:39 -0700:

> We should keep in mind that the issue tracker is not a
> line-by-line "bug" tracker for the specification. It is meant to
> track WG progress (often represented as ACTIONs) on broad
> concepts concerning the specification.

Yes, exactly.

> For instance we an issue to help track the progress and
> discussion around @alt. In this cases there is groundswell of WG
> discussion about a concept and the issue tracker will help track
> how we our decision came to be.

Very good example of a proper use of the tracker.

> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 3:34 AM, Robert J Burns <rob@robburns.com> wrote:
> > I hope you understand too, that a great amount of work — by me
> > and many other WG members — already has gone into discussing
> > these topics and congealing them into actionable items from
> > all of these lengthy prior discussions.
> 
> Either you or I have fundamentally misunderstood how issues are
> developed in the WG... I'll leave such guidance to our Chairs.

Shawn, you've not understood. And your description of the purpose
of the tracker (above) and example are spot-on.

> There's not a ground swell of discussion about ["UA norm for redirects
> (both META and http)"][1].

Good example of a misuse of the tracker.

> I'm not just saying this from memory... if I do [a really simple
> search for "redirect" across public-html][2] I'd don't see any
> discussion about your exact issue until you raised it.  That you
> took the time to document a potential issue and start a thread
> about it is good... that you presumed "it will be added to the
> issue-tracker in time" is inappropriate.

Exactly.

> Here's an example from one that was made into an ISSUE: To say a great
> amount of discussion went into [ISSUE-43][3] (Client-Side Image Maps)
> is a very strong misrepresentation. There's almost no discussion of
> them in the public-html records or on IRC. The [wiki page][4] cited in
> this issue contains edits entirely from one author.

Another good example of a misuse of the tracker.

> The problem (from my POV) with prematurely opening issues is that they
> haven't been vetted ... and now it is left to a handful of issue
> tracking volunteers, the editors, and the Chairs to sort this mess
> out.

Yes. I can see that "mess" may sound like a strong word, but it's
actually not in this case. A mess in that a number of us now have
had to spend time on this discussion -- time that would have been
much more productively spent doing the many other things I'm sure
we all have to do that are of higher priority than this. A mess in
that we now have to unwind it and figure out which (if any) among
these issues ever should have been opened to begin with and which
(if any) deserve to remain open.

I'm now thinking that the best way resolve the mess is just by
summarily closing them all and requiring that none of them be
re-raised as issues in the tracker unless/until it has been
demonstrated that they meet the working criteria we have for
tracker issues (articulated by Shawn above).

  --Mike

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