Re: Concerns about community contributor support

[Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com>]

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> ian martins <ianxm@jhu.edu> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 3:45 PM Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> [Noise]
>>
>> Timothy said there were 25 patches without response and the list goes back six months, so we're only talking about 50 emails per year.

> That assumes there is a single 'owner' who accepts the responsibility to
> respond to every patch submitted. That isn't the situation with open
> source projects where people volunteer their time.
>
> Having someone respond to the author of a patch and provide some
> meaningful feedback would be great, but I don't see how that can happen
> in a project which is already stretched and with limited resources.
> There has already been multiple messages requesting additional help and
> for volunteers willing to put in the time needed to maintain parts of
> org mode. Adding to that workload isn't going to help.

As far as I know the only call for help maintaining Org has been with
babel packages. Otherwise you would have seen me volunteering :P I'd
like to do more if I get the opportunity.

> [snip]
>
> I think you can classify patches into 3 basic types -
>
> 1. [Fixes]
>
> 2. [Extending existing stuff]
>
> 3. [New stuff]
>
> Asking volunteers to respond to patches of type 2 and 3 within some
> nominated time period is probably unreasonable.

I'd like to suggest that a response can just be "We've got your patch,
it will take some time to go through and see ow it interacts with Org".

> It also runs the danger of discouraging people from stepping up to
> volunteer to help maintain parts of org.

TBH I don't see how being asked to provide the odd cursory response
would be that off-putting. 50 currently patches needing a response per
year / say 3 maintainers ~= cursory quick email every 2-4 weeks on
average just to say a patch has been seen, thanks for submitting it, and
maybe that it might take a while to be reviewed.

> This is why I think a better approach would be to provide more details
> and explanation on patch submission which can help set the
> expectations for the patch submitter and provide some guidance on what
> to do if they want to encourage/ask for feedback.

I think this would be a very good idea, I'll say a bit more below where
you mention Worg.

> This is also part of why I think patches of type 3 and possibly many
> type 2 patches should be initially released as separate 'add on'
> packages and made available via gitlab/github/melpa by the individual
> responsible for writing the patch. The author would then be able to see
> how useful/popular/desired their patch is, be able to ask for feedback
> and be able to get issue/bug reports to refine their work. This could be
> viewed as an 'incubator' like process. If such an enhancement/extension
> turns out to be very popular or demanded by the org community, it could
> then be migrated into either org core or the proposed org contrib
> package (by which time, it would likely be more mature and stable than
> it was when initially developed). It also has the advantage of not
> impacting existing org users who are not interested in the
> enhancement/extension. For an org user, little is more frustrating than
> an enhancement/extension which results in them having to either modify
> their workflow or update their often large repository of org documents.

I think volume of email replies saying "I'd like this" is a bad measure
for a few reasons. (1) I get the sense there's a fairly high degree of
tacit approval, (2) I've seen the same idea presented simply at
different times get very different responses based on how the initial
replies reframed/directed the discussion.

Additionally, if people who like it can "just use it", a patch may be
well-liked and used a lot but not have many peoples speaking in support
of it in the ML.

In other words, I think that such a system could be too fickle. I
suspect some good patches will easily "fall through the cracks" with
such a method. I can think of a several merged patches which I consider
a good idea which would not fare well under such a system.

Then there's another concern if you're modifying parts of Org's
internals --- they can be tweaked in Org, and then the overridden methods
can cause errors in a number of ways. I know this very well, as I do
this sort of thing in a few places in my config, e.g. I was affected by
a change in org--mks-read-key. Is a patch author going to be interested
in maintaining their patch in the hope that it one day gets merged with
Org? This seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

> If we were to provide a detailed explanation on how to contribute bug
> fixes, enhancements and extensions on the worg site, contributors will
> know what is required, will be able to set their expectations in -line
> with how things work and have increased clarity regarding the structure
> of the org mode project etc.
>
> I would be willing to start drafting such a page if the community
> thought this would be worthwhile and be prepared to assist and assuming
> those responsible for maintenance agree. What I draft would be a
> starting point only and would require input to ensure it does represent
> what the community and maintainers believe is the right direction to
> take.

Fantastic! I think such an entry would be a big improvement, and I hope
that such an addition would help prevent contributors from feeling
surprised/disappointed. I think a short entry on this may also be a good
idea for orgmode.org/contribute.html.

--
Timothy