Open Stack

Excerpts from Tom Barron's message of 2017-09-22 08:10:35 -0400:
> 
> 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.

That's a good idea. How about adding a "Contribution Guidelines" section
to https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/open-development.html
with this and other tips?

> 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.

Good points.

Doug