Re: next CommitFest

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:31 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas wrote:
>> >> 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.
>
> OK, but the problem I see there is that the reviewers are there to
> assist the committers;  if no one reviews something, it just makes more
> work for the committers.

That wasn't my intention. I really was assuming that we would just
let those patches drop on the floor, and that they would not be picked
up either by reviewers or committers. I don't think this would cause
as many problems in practice as perhaps you fear, because I think it
will just motivate people to act as reviewers. Writing a patch is
typically more time-consuming than reviewing one, at least IME, with
some exceptions of course. I wouldn't spend 20 hours writing a patch
and then let it fall out because I wasn't willing to spend 2 or 3
hours reviewing someone else's patch, and I don't think other regular
contributors will either.

...Robert