[Telcon action] More detailed proposal for centralized feedback.

My action this week from the telcon was to flush out more on how 
centralizing all feedback into a bugtracker would work.  Well, I have 
rethought certain aspects and found something would be missing.  So this 
email addresses what was missing and tries to explain how the system 
will work better (I hope.)  This is also iffy on too many real details 
since it is hard to really explain in words how things would be setup 
and used; I'm hoping for a demo to be online later in the week.  So, 
lets begin this beast.

Let's start with a change in thinking for the comment system.  I was 
thinking at the end of last week when initially writing this proposal 
that we would do away with the current system completely; then, I 
realized it has a very useful purpose that centralizing into a 
bugtracker doesn't fill properly.  That is discussion.  As explained in 
bug 19847 [1] there is a very useful purpose to having some kind of 
comment system inline.  I think the current comment system could in fact 
stay in place but be renamed to "Discussion" as to the current 
"Comment".  From there, with a few tweaks it could be a much more useful 
tool.  The main tweak I am asking for is a flag system.  If a user sees 
an item in the discussion thread where it does not belong, they could 
flag it and that would have some kind of Admin UI to alert 
administrators of a new flag in that system.  This way the current 
system can stay in place with a few tweaks to give it a more accurate 
purpose.

With the comment system staying in place, what we would need to do is 
create some kind of form to be filled out that would let users report 
issues they see in the content.  This would create a new issue report in 
a certain category (I'm thinking "Feedback") which we could then move to 
the proper category.  I created a basic mockup of this form which is 
online [2].  People could also submit a report manually directly in the 
system if they want to, this UI is only for use in the docs themselves.  
It is a very basic modal with a form for needed information.  That would 
be sent using the JSON API of Bug Genie into the system.  (I am still 
trying to find documentation on that API, it is there I just can't 
figure out where the Docs are.)

With the feedback system in place, it all would just come down to using 
Bug Genie properly.  I am working on setting up a demo of this to 
actually be looked through.  For now though, I only have words.

Using the system properly means compartmentalizing where issues are.  
This is done in the same way our current tracker has Components.  We 
would just create a new "Project" which would take the place of the 
Component system.  For example, we would have all the components we have 
now but with the added Feedback category mentioned before in this 
email.  Here is a rundown of the categories:
(If you have seen the current bugtracker, this block is mostly a repeat 
of what you know.)
Content - Major content edits, content edit requests, ideas for new 
content.
Comments Extension - Changed to Discussion Extension.  Any issues with 
this extension.
Information Architecture - Issues about the organization of content.
Infrastructure - Software or Installation issues.
QA Forums - Issues with the Q&A System.
Skin - Theme issues.
Blog - Blog issues.
Telcon - Telcon topic tracking.  This would work by first submitting an 
issue.  This is how we would raise issues to be talked about in the 
Telcons.  Once an issue is discussed and an action is decided on, we 
would assign the issue to the person the action is assigned to and relay 
what that action is.  Until the item is done with the Telcon, it remains 
in this section.  If an item is something that is decided on, but is no 
longer going to be brought up in a telcon, we would move it to an 
appropriate category (project).
Feedback- from the frontend would be dumped here and people would sort 
from there into whichever category is appropriate.

This becomes our centralized place for all feedback and tracking of what 
is being worked on.  We could even have a DocSprint section that we 
could move things into for DocSprints so things for those get tracked in 
here as well compared to a Google Spreadsheet.

Anyone with an account would be free to submit, edit, and move bugs 
around.  We would also lock it down to show people only what they need.  
There are a lot of features that almost no one needs.  We can hide those 
to keep the frontend for most people clean.  I *really* can't explain 
this lockdown too well in words; basically, the software is built with 
software development in mind.  That means many features are in here that 
we don't need using it from a project management standpoint.  I'm hoping 
to have a demo of the system up by the end of the week that fully works 
so you all can see.  We also wouldn't change the UI too much if at all 
unless people felt like taking that kind of job on.

This system means:
We don't deal with the Discussion pages at all.  We in fact need to 
remove any direct links to them.
We re-purpose the Comment system to be more targeted in use and still 
very helpful.
Add an in-house bug tracker to handle complete project management. 
Handling software and content issues.


The main question left is, what is the Q&A system used for at this 
point?  I don't really see it getting used too much right now for 
anything.  What it does handle we could find a way to dump into the bug 
system most likely if we felt like depreciating that part of the site.  
I'm just not sure what to do with that part of the puzzle or if we 
should just keep it as a pet dragon.

So if you are reading this far, first congratulations.  Second, any 
questions or thoughts on what is being proposed?

-Garbee

[1] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=19847
[2] http://static.jonathangarbee.com/webplatform/demo/feedback_form.html

Received on Monday, 12 November 2012 22:10:46 UTC