[Ksummit-discuss] "Maintainer summit" invitation discussion

[Hannes Reinecke]

On 04/27/2017 12:41 PM, Lee Jones wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Apr 2017, Jani Nikula wrote:
>> On Wed, 26 Apr 2017, James Bottomley <James.Bottomley at HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
>>> Agreed, but I think you'll find most maintainers have a "trust factor"
>>> for reviewers.  Perhaps we should discuss how we arrive at this and how
>>> we should make it more public.  The way I often deal with less trusted
>>> reviewers is to redo their review and point out all the things they
>>> missed and ask them not to come back until they can be more thorough.
>>
>> I think that's also a bit harsh, because I think the only way to become
>> a better reviewer is to... review. I know it's hard to balance being
>> welcoming to new reviewers and ensuring the patches do get proper review
>> in the end.
> 
> I'm inclined to agree, this is a harsh approach.  My personal method
> is to allow anyone to review, regardless of their credibility/trust
> status.  I make a point not to hamper or criticise anyone that's
> genuinely tying to help, unless of f course they are dishing out bogus
> review comments, then those will need addressing, but only picking up
> even say 10% of the issues really isn't a problem.  It doesn't matter
> how many points are picked-up or missed, we as Maintainers can always
> conduct an additional review or one in parallel.
> 
> I find additional reviewers particularly helpful if I'm overloaded,
> since I can then insist that the contributor fixes all outstanding
> review comments before I conduct my, hopefully thorough, review. 
> 
Indeed. From my POV the biggest problem is a shortage of reviewers, and
we should be working on getting that resolved.
In fact, most developers I'm working with simply are too scared to do
any reviews, feeling as they do not being qualified enough.
If we take the abovementioned route that's a sure way of putting them
off reviewing for good.

Cheers,

Hannes
-- 
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