Contributor Steward role (was Re: Concerns about community contributor support)

[Timothy]

Dear Bastien,

Thank you for your well-thought-out reply.
With regards to the question your email ends with:

> What do you think?  Would you be willing to take this role?
> If not, that's perfectly okay, I'll send a call for help.

The short answer is "yes, mostly". The long answer follows :P

I also think that regardless it would be good to put out a call asking
if anyone else is interested/willing to do this: I'm going to be busy
sometimes, a reduced workload is clearly preferable, and less should
slip through the cracks :)

Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:

> Dear Timothy,
>
> thanks for raising this points so carefully, they are important.
>
> I see three distinct problems:
>
> A. The lack of response and/or follow-up when people contribute by
>    sending bug reports or patches on the list.

This is something I'm definitely happy to help with.

> B. The lack of maintainance on documenting the contribution process
>    and the correct expectations for future contributors.

I'm happy to document this, but I don't know what expectations should be
set. I think this is a matter that should be decided by consensus among
the current/active maintainers.

> C. The inherent difficulty to move the Org codebase forward.

I think there are some things that can be done to improve the structure
and system of contribution/development, but I'm waiting on external
developments and it will take a fair bit of my time to properly
implement a prototype. ETA 1-2 years.

> I won't comment on (C).  For (A) and (B), I suggest appointing a
> "contributor steward" with these responsibilities:
>
> 1. Maintain updates.orgmode.org (i.e. make sure it is accurate.)
> 2. Maintain the documentation for contributors.
> 3. Help contributors enhancing their patches.
> 4. Try to reproduce bugs (and confirm them for updates.orgmode.org)
> 5. Make sure patch contributors are not left with no answer.
>
> You started (1), which is really appreciated.

I'll try to keep this up :)

> Tim and others mentioned (2), and that's certainly needed too.

See my comment on (B) above.

> (3) has historically been the role of the maintainer and of the core
> contributors, but helping with this is very welcome: knowing the doc
> at https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.html by heart, educating
> contributors on the commit messages, etc.  This all helps.

I can give this a go :)

> (4) is perhaps the most daunting task: I even think we could have
> someone only dedicated to this very important task.  Just count the
> number of times Nicolas says "I cannot reproduce this."  Each time,
> there is a real bug that is *not* fixed...

Mmmm, even if I say I'm willing to do this, I suspect this is something
I'd by nature push off enough that I'd frequently forget about this 😅.

> (5) is not about systematically welcome patch submitters with a
> message (that would be annoying) but to monitor updates.orgmode.org
> and decide what to do with a patch that didn't receive feedback:
> either say thanks and ping the list for why you think the patch
> deserves more attention, or thanks and dismiss the patch, or another
> answer.

This is how I see this two. As I indicated at the start, I'm happy to do
this, but I think a second person would help ensure that nobody slips
through the cracks.

--
Timothy