Re: 'Editorial' label and errata

> On 18 Nov 2021, at 16:39, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> 
> On 11/18/21 10:11 AM, Ivan Herman wrote:
>> In other words what this means is that if an issue is marked Editorial but 
>> is /not/ an erratum, then the issue will not appear in the errata list. Is 
>> this what you want?
> 
> No, that's not what we want. :)
> 
> The problem here is that people are getting confused about when to use the
> labels and what effect they have. For example, Kyle told us to delete the
> "Editorial" label yesterday because we don't use it. I then was like: "yeah,
> let's delete it!" and only stopped as my hand hovered over the delete button
> and was like "Hmm, something tells me that this is the wrong thing to do...
> and maybe this is used for the errata thing?". So, both of the Editors
> temporarily forgot about the importance of this label and were then unsure
> about the combinatorial issues created as a result.
> 
> If the Editors can't keep this straight, I expect other WG members might not
> be able to either.
> 
> Maybe this is an education issue

I believe it is.

> and the Editors just need to remember these
> rules:
> 
> * When an issue comes in, mark it with "PossibleErrata"
>  and either "Editorial" or "Substantive".
> 

If you want to have a label for "Substantive", that is fine. The errata management system does not use it, it just looks at whether it is editorial or not.

That put aside, +1.


> * Classify the issue as a "v1.1 (editorial)" or "v2.0"
>  issue so we know what release we intend to merge it
>  into.

Right. The errata reporting (at least at this moment) is meant to work with a recommendation only and it does not look at additional labels. Ie, the Errata label should be used on (at this moment) open v1.1 issues only. Once V2.0 become a rec, then switch to those.

> 
> * After discussing with WG, replace "PossibleErrata" with
>  "Errata" IF the group accepts it as an Errata.

Yes

> If not,
>  remove "PossibleErrata", "Editorial", and "Substantive"
>  labels, but maybe not the "v1.1 (editorial)" or "v2.0"
>  labels.

Yes, noting that all the errata reporting is oblivious to all issues that do not have the Errata label.

> 
> * If we close the issue, do we unmark it as "Editorial"
>  or "Substantive" if it had "Errata". I'm guessing
>  the answer is "no, leave it alone and just close
>  the issue".

Yes. 

> 
> * What happens if we use these same labels for issues?
>  Should these be limited to issues, PRs, both?

Well… technically can be both. But… I believe you are trying to put too much into the errata reporting. The setup is to signal the outside world that there is a bug in the current spec, here is where you find its description, and that the WG acknowledged it is a bug. I do not think any PR that is meant to handle an official bug, starts its life directly as a PR: it is, usually, a response to a bug raised by the public in an issue. I would therefore limit the Errata label to issues.

> 
> I think we created this problem when we needed to work on three document
> streams at the same time (v1.1, v1.2, and v2.0). In reality, we just ended up
> deciding to publish v1.2 (renaming it to v1.1).
> 
> Possible ways forward:
> 
> 1. We rename the "v1.1 (editorial)" label to "v1.1".
> 2. We keep the "Editorial" and "Errata" labels.
> 3. We get rid of the "PossibleErratum" label, I don't
>   think it's useful... either something is Errata or
>   it's not.

The errata reporting does not care… it is meant to suggest a process for a WG, but Errata and Editorial are the only labels that the script cares about. Note, b.t.w., that the target is really for, sort of, maintenance WG-s, and this WG has long left this state (in my books)...

> 
> The problem here, of course, is that we introduce these combinatorial rules
> that everyone has to keep in their heads instead of having ONE label that we
> assign to an issue... either "v<MAJOR>.<MINOR> (editorial)" or
> "v<MAJOR>.<MINOR> (substantive)".
> 
> So, I think to make everything easier, we might want the errata generation
> script to allow us to specify the labels that should be used when including
> things in the errata file. The downside there, of course, is that every W3C WG
> is going to use slightly different labels -- but maybe that's ok, because
> every WG uses ReSpec in slightly different ways.

Very honestly… I am uneasy adding more to the errata management script; it has worked out over the years, and there is an "ain't broken, don't fix it" rule that I like to keep to. I would certainly not like to touch the one that is used by other WG-s out there, so any change should be on a forked version of that script.

Ivan

> 
> The goal here is to reduce everyone's cognitive burden when tracking all of
> this stuff. Just some thoughts, none of this is pressing.
> 
> -- manu
> 
> -- 
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> News: Digital Bazaar Announces New Case Studies (2021)
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C 
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
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