RE: [PHP-DOC] list of contributors [rethought]

Erica Douglass Lead Web Developer Simpli, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Gabor Hojtsy [mailto:gabor@hojtsy.hu] Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 12:30 PM To: Andrew Lindeman Cc: Erica Douglass; 'Steph'; phpdoc@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP-DOC] list of contributors [rethought] I am also against having a listing based on commit numbers. The bug database also closed the "who closes bugs" list because some guys simply started closing bugs (marking them bogus, won't fix and the like) because they got at the top. It is also very pressing to see that "wow, Hartmut has that high number of commits, I will never go close to him". This list is not about numbers, we can use the numbers to guide us in decisions, but not as an automation machine. IMHO the contributors listing should not be a mess with names listed below each other, but it should be a grouped list with everyone put at the right place. Those should also be mentioned, who contribute by fixing bugs or omissions, but in the right category. The authors list should not be automated, it should be based on human decisions IMHO. Goba ---- So who decides who is "deserving" of this? For instance, I have committed several things in the past by being the resident PHP.Net grammar nazi (including the entire FTP section of the manual.) However, I haven't committed much of anything in the past few months, as I've been swamped with contracts. So am I deserving because I've contributed a fair amount in the past, or am I not deserving because I haven't contributed anything in the past 6 months or so? Who decides? Note that I'm NOT arguing that your idea is a bad one; I think your original post sums up the problem and solutions quite nicely. What is remaining is to hash out the details. Do we only post everyone who has committed something in the past x days, or do we only post people over x number of commits, or some combination thereof? Or do we post everyone and risk the list getting out of hand and perhaps stale? Sure, I'd love to list everyone on the team, regardless of when they last committed a fix and how many fixes they have committed, but I realize that being on a list of 400 or 600 authors is probably just as bad as not being on a list at all. Then again, only showing the top 10 is just as bad, because it leaves out a lot of people in the middle. I think it would be important to set a minimum for being listed (even if we don't show it on the page), and I think this is what my earlier email was getting at. What if we say we'll post everyone who has had at least 5 commits in the past 6 months? This would set a reasonable "floor", so as to prevent the list from getting out of hand. At the same time, it would encourage those who haven't committed a fix in a while to start contributing again. I think the list should be dynamic (i.e. if I commit 5 fixes today and I've been inactive for a year, the list should automatically update within the next day or two to reflect this.) That way we leave out the human error and politics that comes along with a hand-selected list. As for the list of the top 10 or "major" contributors on the front page, I think that would be fine to do by hand. You've already pointed out the inherent problems by doing it with a computer-generated metric, which I think are valid. So... (in conclusion to this overly long email), I vote for doing the front page list by hand, but for having an automated list of contributors on a linked page. The secondary page should be automatically generated and have some sort of minimum requirements for listing contributors. You don't have to show commit stats, last commit date, or any "metric", and in fact it can be in alphabetical order with just names and PHP.Net email addresses and a big "Thank you to the PHP manual contributors listed below" or something similar at the top. Hope this helps, Erica