Re: Bug mail (Was: [Bug 10479] add role=radiogroup to details element)

On Sep 13, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
>> (*) Of course, people can apply client filters.  My goal is only to
>> eliminate excuses.  My observation is that most of the work of the working
>> group happens in bugzilla, which I will argue is a very good thing.  I want
>> to allow everybody an opportunity to participate.  The alternative is to
>> force everybody back onto the list, and I don't think anybody would be in
>> favor of that.
> 
> Actually, I completely hate this and find it a massive impediment to
> my staying informed of what occurs in the group.  Every other WG I
> participate in does all their work on the list, or in a bug-tracker
> that is well-integrated with the list such that the difference is
> inconsequential.
> 
> Working with Bugzilla is much less friendly than working with my email
> client in the best of situations.  When there is a lot of work
> silently happening in hundreds of individual bug-silos, trying to keep
> up is basically impossible (for the amount of effort that I'm willing
> to spend on it, in addition to my duties in other WGs and my normal
> job).

It's fine to spawn discussions on the list. I think in the HTML WG it might not work as well as in other Working Groups, because we have a very high volume of feedback and a mailing list is not a good tool for tracking which of a large number of items has been addressed. 

Also, if every comment that happens in bugzilla was sent to this list, I think it would become impossible for most people to keep up. I think notifying the WG of every bug (including full text) at the time is filed is the sweet spot, and we should see if we can make our tools do that. That should also make it easy to take discussions to email if they seem to be of broad interest. I would like to see more technical discussion on public-html, even though I am skeptical of forcing 100% of it to public-html.

That being said, if you want to see every single comment on every bug, the bug system allows you to opt into that. For example you can get it to auto-cc you on every bug in a component. There is also a mailing list that gets every single piece of bugmail.

(Of course, there is the alternate hypothesis that purely using a mailing list would not be overwhelming because it would force there to be much less discussion; but I don't think that is actually better for the WG overall.)

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Monday, 13 September 2010 23:23:41 UTC