Re: Commitfest problems

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 03:29:19PM -0500, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> On 12/15/2014 03:16 PM, Andres Freund wrote:
> >On 2014-12-15 11:52:35 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> >>On 12/15/2014 11:27 AM, Robert Haas wrote:
> >>>I feel like we used to be better at encouraging people to participate
> >>>in the CF even if they were not experts, and to do the best they can
> >>>based on what they did know. That was a helpful dynamic. Sure, the
> >>>reviews weren't perfect, but more people helped, and reviewing some of
> >>>the patch well and some of it in a more cursory manner is way better
> >>>than reviewing none of it at all.
> >>Well, it was strongly expressed to me by a number of senior contributors
> >>on this list and at the developer meeting that inexpert reviews were not
> >>really wanted, needed or helpful.
> >I think that's pretty far away from what was said.
> >
>
>
> I welcome reviews at all levels, both as a developer and as a committer.
>
> It is true that we are very short on reviewers with in depth knowledge and
> experience, and this is the real problem we have far more than any
> technological issues people might have.
>
> But that doesn't mean we should be turning anyone away. We should not.

+1. Some of the best reviews I've seen are ones where the reviewer expressed
doubts about the review's quality, so don't let such doubts keep you from
participating. Every defect you catch saves a committer time; a review that
finds 3 of the 10 defects in a patch is still a big help. Some patch
submissions waste the community's time, but it's almost impossible to waste
the community's time by posting a patch review.

Confusion may have arisen due to statements that we need more expert
reviewers, which is also true. (When an expert writes a sufficiently-complex
patch, it's important that a second expert examine the patch at some point.)
If you're a novice reviewer, your reviews do help to solve that problem by
reducing the workload on expert reviewers.

Thanks,
nm