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Re: Action: Task List Tool



On 07.10.2013 10:30, Miriam Ruiz wrote:
[...]

> I for one think that this would be a really useful tool, at least for
> me. I don't think that the wiki is really the most appropriate tool for
> this. On the other hand, we have to build up a consensus on this,
> because if people don't like the idea, we might end up with even more
> dispersion of the pending tasks, which would be undesirable.

First of all I don't want to prevent anybody from introducing a new task
management system that eases to work collaboratively with other team
members, I'm just skeptical if we not gain more by using existing tools.
It appears to me that we have not a "tool issue" and the question is
about what tasks we are talking exactly.

I know you have a general tool in mind that lists all possible tasks
from fixing bugs to updating a single wiki page but I wonder if we need
a new tool apart from the BTS to track bugs, which can also be seen as
another term for tasks. If some bugs deserve more attention than others
and are incredibly difficult we could use usertags again and flag them
with a special tag like "for newbies". ;)

In my opinion the BTS and a wiki page are the most appropriate tools for
our internal release goal. No additional effort is necessary. We simply
need to determine who checks what package of the Games Team. (I think a
manual check is needed for our icon goal). I have started this page for
example.

https://wiki.debian.org/Games/JessieReleaseGoal

To begin with I intend to check all packages from 0ad to funnyboat and
will file bug reports for all of them that miss our criteria provided we
agree on this procedure. Of course I hope that others will say "hey good
idea, I'll check everything from g to i". After that it's quite easy to
track those bug reports in the BTS. The next step would be to send in
patches and to upload the packages. That's it.

> In my opinion, and especially if we want to lower the entry barrier and
> help new people come in and help, we should make something simple,
> manageable and easy to start using, I personally  like the idea of
> either a Self-hosted tiny task management system or a usable interface
> over some other tool, but I'd rather avoid using tools that are not
> designed for task management, such as the wiki page.

At the moment we have more volunteers who want to contribute to the
Debian Games Team than Debian Developers who can guide these people.
Even if we had a new task management system, we would need sponsors and
mentors who can review packages and more important upload them.

I think our internal release goal is quite simple and a perfect
opportunity for someone who wants to get involved in the team. They can
learn to work with the BTS, they can learn to write simple patches, they
can create new artwork (icons), they can add new debtags (no programming
skills required) and so on.

> In any case, I think we should have an open debate about the pros and
> cons of the proposals, as well as maybe having other ideas, and try to
> decide on a unified way to manage the tasks in the team, with a
> particular focus on making it easy to handle to newcomers, and also with
> the goal of not adding more work to the team.

Excellent idea to start a discussion, so that Steven is not the only one
who has to worry about this topic.

Cheers,

Markus

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