Re: How about closing some Open Items?

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:
> On 6/8/10 2:01 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
>> I appreciate the effort that went into making this list, but it's not
>> very useful to work off of any more.  The problem is that the set of
>> things that is listed here is pretty erratic - there are actual
>> problems that are not on this list, and there are things on this list
>> that are 100% unimportant.
>
> So?  Improve the quality of the list then.  Bashing the quality of
> another community member's efforts is not at all helpful, and certainly
> does nothing to move us towards 9.0.

Whoa, there. There is not any way of moving forward with this list
without explaining why the list in its present form is not too useful.
If I simply start overhauling the list without explaining what I
perceive to be the systematic problems with it, then I will get yelled
at for failing to follow community process. On the other hand, if I
point out the problem, apparently that's bashing another community
member. I attempted to avoid that pitfall by saying "I appreciate the
effort that went into making this list" (because I do) and I tried to
make it clear that I felt it had been useful at one point by saying
"any more". The fact that the list is not as useful now is not
because Selena sucks (she doesn't, by the way! - Hi Selena!) but
because Selena overhauled this list on the 19th of May and cleaned it
up some more on the 26th, and it's now the 8th of June, and not enough
systematic effort has been put into keeping it up to date. It's not
Selena's job to keep the list up to date, but it's a fact of life that
if neither she nor anyone else does, it's going to become less useful.

So I agree with your statement that we need to improve the quality of
the list, which is why I just spent three hours working on the items
where I could discern a clear action item as well as doing some
cleanup. Like most PG hackers, I am extremely busy, which is why I
would appreciate any help that you or any other community member would
care to offer to help get the list cleaned up. Failing that, or in
addition, I would appreciate feedback on what I believe to be a
legitimate complaint about the documentation items on the list,
namely, that they're mostly unimportant things that should probably
just be dropped unless or until the people who originally raised the
issues feel like pursuing them.

I am trying to solve a problem, not pick a fight. I responded to your
original post on this topic by dropping what I was planning to do this
afternoon to work on this, and I'd like a few brownie points for that.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise Postgres Company