Open Stack

On 09/21/2017 10:21 PM, Matt Riedemann wrote:
> I just wanted to highlight to people that there seems to be a series of
> garbage patches in various projects [1] which are basically doing things
> like fixing a single typo in a code comment, or very narrowly changing
> http to https in links within docs.
> 
> Also +1ing ones own changes.
> 
> I've been trying to snuff these out in nova, but I see it's basically a
> pattern widespread across several projects.
> 
> This is the boilerplate comment I give with my -1, feel free to employ
> it yourself.
> 
> "Sorry but this isn't really a useful change. Fixing typos in code
> comments when the context is still clear doesn't really help us, and
> mostly seems like looking for padding stats on stackalytics. It's also a
> drain on our CI environment.
> 
> If you fixed all of the typos in a single module, or in user-facing
> documentation, or error messages, or something in the logs, or something
> that actually doesn't make sense in code comments, then maybe, but this
> isn't one of those things."
> 
> I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this is annoying to the point I
> felt the need to say something publicly.
> 
> [1] https://review.openstack.org/#/q/author:%255E.*inspur.*
> 

The boilerplate is helpful but have we considered putting something
along these lines in official documentation so that reviewers can just
point to it? It should then be clear to all that negative reviews on
these grounds are not simply a function of the individual reviewer's
judgment or personality.

FWIW I think it is better not to attribute motivation in these cases.
Perhaps the code submitter is trying to pad stats, but perhaps they are
just a new contributor trying to learn the process with a "harmless"
patch, or just a compulsive clean-upper who hasn't thought through the
costs in reviewer time and CI resources.