[openstack-dev] Encouraging first-time contributors through bug tags/reviews

Doug Hellmann doug at doughellmann.com
Wed Nov 25 20:42:31 UTC 2015


Excerpts from Shamail's message of 2015-11-26 01:22:48 +0500:
> Hi,
> 
> > On Nov 25, 2015, at 11:05 PM, Doug Hellmann <doug at doughellmann.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Excerpts from Shamail Tahir's message of 2015-11-25 09:15:54 -0500:
> >> Hi everyone,
> >> 
> >> Andrew Mitry recently shared a medium post[1] by Kent C. Dobbs which
> >> discusses how one open-source project is encouraging contributions by new
> >> open-source contributors through a combination of a special tag (which is
> >> associated with work that is needed but can only be completed by someone
> >> who is a first-time contributor) and helpful comments in the review phase
> >> to ensure the contribution(s) eventually get merged.
> >> 
> >> While reading the article, I immediately thought about our
> >> low-hanging-fruit bug tag which is used for a very similar purpose in "bug
> >> fixing" section of  the "how to contribute" page[2].  The low-hanging-fruit
> >> tag is used to identify items that are generally suitable for first-time or
> >> beginner contributors but, in reality, anyone can pick them up.
> >> 
> >> I wanted to propose a new tag (or even changing the, existing, low-hanging
> >> fruit tag) that would identify items that we are reserving for first-time
> >> OpenStack contributors (e.g. a patch-set for the item submitted by someone
> >> who is not a first time contributor would be rejected)... The same article
> >> that Andrew shared mentions using an "up-for-grabs" tag which also
> >> populates the items at up-for-grabs[3] (a site where people looking to
> >> start working on open-source projects see entry-level items from multiple
> >> projects).  If we move forward with an exclusive tag for first-timers then
> >> it would be nice if we could use the up-for-grabs tag so that OpenStack
> >> also shows up on the list too.  Please let me know if this change should be
> >> proposed elsewhere, the tags are maintained in launchpad and the wiki I
> >> found related to bug tags[4] didn't indicate a procedure for submitting a
> >> change proposal.
> > 
> > I like the idea of making bugs suitable for first-timers more
> > discoverable. I'm not sure we need to *reserve* any bugs for any class
> > of contributor. What benefit do you think that provides?
> I would have to defer to additional feedback here... 
> 
> My own perspective from when I was doing my first contribution is that it was hard to find active "low-hanging-fruit" items.  Most were already work-in-progress or assigned.
> 
> The idea was that having a reserved set of bugs would ensure that there was always something that could be discovered easily and would be available.   If we could make available low-hanging-fruit more discoverable then that would possibly mitigate the need for "reserved" bugs.  We have enough items to work on where availability shouldn't be an issue, just visibility.
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/openstack/+bugs?field.tag=low-hanging-fruit&orderby=status&start=0

OK, reserving bugs for new contributors does reduce the number of
people contending for them, but it doesn't eliminate the need to
figure out if someone else is already working on a bug before you
start. Encouraging folks to assign bugs to themselves when they start
work is probably the best way to solve that.

> 
> > 
> >> 
> >> Tyler Britten also suggested maybe even having a pool of reviewers who
> >> could monitor items being worked on that fall in this "first-timer"
> >> category who could further help the new contributors by helpful review
> >> comments and answering questions if the contributors get stuck on some part
> >> of the process.  Could this be the same people who helped make the upstream
> >> training[5] successful?  I look forward to thoughts on this matter.
> > 
> > If we have volunteers willing to do this, that's great. It's not
> > obvious, but it is actually possible to query gerrit for reviews
> > from first-time contributors. A bot A watches for new patches leaves
> > a comment on any for which the submitter has not previously submitted
> > a patch. Querying for open reviews with comments from that bot is
> > straightforward once you know its gerrit id. For example, this URL
> > will show all open patches from first-time contributors submitted
> > to any repository:
> > 
> > https://review.openstack.org/#/q/reviewer:10068+is:open,n,z
> Thanks Doug!  I'll definitely start monitoring the results of this query and help when possible.  It will be great if others do it too, the more the merrier.  
> 
> > 
> > Doug
> > 
> >> 
> >> [1] https://medium.com/@kentcdodds/first-timers-only-78281ea47455#.707dal290
> >> [2] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/How_To_Contribute#Bug_fixing
> >> <https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/How_To_Contribute#Bug_fixing>
> >> [3] http://up-for-grabs.net/
> >> [4] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Bug_Tags
> >> [5] http://docs.openstack.org/upstream-training/
> > 
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