Open Stack

On Sat, 2014-06-21 at 07:36 -0700, Clint Byrum wrote:
> Excerpts from Sean Dague's message of 2014-06-21 05:08:01 -0700:

> > Pedantic reviewers that are reviewing for this kind of thing only should
> > be scorned. I realistically like the idea markmc came up with -
> > https://twitter.com/markmc_/status/480073387600269312
> >
> 
> I also agree it is really fun to think about shaming those annoying
> actions. It is also not fun _at all_ to be publicly shamed. In fact I'd
> say it is at least an order of magnitude less fun. There is an old saying,
> "praise in public, punish in private." It is one reason the -1 comments I
> give always include praise for whatever is right for new contributors. Not
> everyone is a grizzled veteran.
> 
> It is far more interesting to me to solve the grouping problem in a
> way that works for us long term (python 2 and 3) than it is to develop
> a culture that builds any of its core activities on negative emotional
> feedback.
> 
> That's not to say we can't say "hey you're doing it wrong." I mean to say
> that direct feedback like that belongs in private IRC messages or email,
> not in public "everyone can see that" reviews. Give people a chance to
> save face. Meanwhile, the less we have to have one on one negative
> feedback, the easier the job of reviewers is.
> 
> The last thing we want to do is have more reasons for people to NOT do
> reviews.

You're right that something like I suggested could easily lead to more
negative energy in the project, not less.

What I had in mind was that we could laugh at ourselves about this.
Assuming that the reviewers called out would be fully on-board and
willing to laugh along at being the most pedantic nerd of the week.

Yeah, that's probably wishful thinking. Maybe it could be anonymous.
Maybe instead it could be a weekly mailing list discussion so that we
could all discuss as a community whether that kind of feedback on a
review is appropriate.

The main point is that this is something worth addressing as a wider
community rather than in individual reviews with a limited audience. And
that doing it with a bit of humor might help take the sting out of it.

Mark.