Re: next CommitFest

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 9:15 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Albert Cervera i Areny
>> <albert(at)nan-tic(dot)com> wrote:
>> > A Dijous, 12 de novembre de 2009, Euler Taveira de Oliveira va escriure:
>> >> Simon Riggs escreveu:
>> >> > So, I
>> >> > propose that we simply ignore patches from developers until they have
>> >> > done sufficient review to be allowed to develop again.
>> >>
>> >> Is it really impolite for a first-contributor, no?
>> >>
>> >
>> > I don't think so, as long as it's properly explained.
>>
>> Personally, I would not propose to impose this rule of first-time
>> contributors, or even second-time contributors.  But by about patch #3
>> I think everyone should be pitching in.
>
> I hate to ask, but how would we enforce this?  Do we no longer apply
> patches for 3rd-time submitters who have not reviewed?  That seems to be
> hurting us more than them.   Are we prepared to discard valid patches
> for this reason?

We just wouldn't assign round-robin reviewers to such patches. If
someone wants to volunteer, more power to them, but we would encourage
people to focus their efforts on the patches of people who were
themselves reviewing. It's important to keep in mind that "valid" is
not a boolean. Some patches are perfect the day they roll in, but not
too many. It takes work to get them committable, and I don't see why
anyone should have an expectation that they can have that help for
themselves without doing the same thing for other people.

All that having been said, the real shortage ATM is of committers
rather than reviewers. We have plenty of them, but many of them
commit almost nothing. I don't want to minimize the contributions of
the non-Tom committers, but Tom is numerically far and away committing
more than anyone else, and not small patches, either. Beyond the
fact that it makes the CommitFest slow, long, and not too much fun for
Tom, it also means that Tom has less time available to do things that
Only Tom Can Do. I venture to say that there will be Great Excitement
about the enhancements to the EPQ machinery and PL/pgsql that Tom has
recently effected. Well, if Tom hadn't had to single-handedly handle
so many patches last CF, maybe he would have done something else cool,
too.

...Robert