[python-committers] How to Increase Triage and Code Review Activity? (was: Vote to promote Pablo Salingo Salgado as core developer)

[Eric Snow]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 8:06 PM Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 4:40 AM, Berker Peksağ <berker.peksag at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This isn't about my or someone else's high standards. We keep saying
> > we need more triagers and reviewers, and we keep promoting people who
> > didn't do any issue triaging and code review. It's not fair to
> > contributors who have spent so much time working on these areas.

Just to be clear, Berker, I really appreciate the time folks
(including you) put into the more thankless (and often tedious) tasks
like bug triage and code review (and triaging buildbot failures).  I
for one need to spend more of my open-source time on that.  No one
should ever feel like they have to do more than their fair share.

> Surely the solution is to promote more people who do those things, not
> to turn away people making other contributions? We need more
> contributors of all kinds.

I agree completely.  However, Berker's concern is a real (and honest)
one, regardless of its bearing on accepting new core developers.  It
also reflects a real, continuing problem: a shortage of folks doing
bug triage/curation and code review.  Unfortunately, this has a chain
reaction effect by discouraging people from pursuing more involvement
in core development.  For instance, if someone creates a PR but it
sits there for a year they eventually give up.  On the other hand,
sometimes aspiring core contributors question the value of giving a PR
a review if a core committer is going to review it themself before
possibly merging.  (I realize there are good reasons for any code
review, but that is the reaction I've gotten from people on occasion.)

The consequent question is how to get more people resolving open
tracker issues and giving PR reviews?  Off-hand, I'm not sure. :/
We've discussed this before and it's probably time to discuss it
again.  Any ideas?

-eric