Re: why creating "teams", "cores" and "groups" won't work this time, either

Alexey Borzov wrote:

The QA team is charged with making sure that packages are up-to-date, as bug free as possible and are maintained by someone that can and is willing to put in the effort needed for the package. The QA team must identify packages and code segments that do not meet PEAR standards of quality or formatting and a) get the maintainer to fix them in a timely manner b) fix them themselves or c) find a new maintainer willing to fix the issues. So what do we see here? [x] cool sounding name [x] additional rights (pestering package developers)

I see the assignment of responsibilities: "The QA team must..." and "The QA team is charged with..." And I don't see asking maintainers to fix bugs or keep packages up-to-date as pestering. I see it as reminding them of the responsibility they accepted when they submitted a proposal.

And no additional duties! Seriously, what prevents anyone from establishing guidelines? PEPr is available and open to anyone. What prevents anyone from fixing bugs? Bug tracker is there and packages' source is available.

A lot of things prevent people from fixing bugs. Among them are fear of stepping on other peoples toes, lack of ability, lack of understanding of a package, or pride. A team dedicated to putting all these things aside and trying their best to make packages better is all I am asking for. Nothing prevents others from establishing guidelines but that doesn't mean it gets done. Why? Because no one is held accountable for getting it done. Everyone says, "Eh, someone else will write that up." And we end up with an out of date CS and no clear picture of what needs to be done.

So I suggest that anyone wanting to propose a new "team", "group" and / or "core" first answer these obvious questions: 1) What problems is the group intended to solve and what clearly defined duties will it have.

The QA group is designed to fix the declining level of quality in PEAR packages. Read the wiki page for their responsibilities. The Core group is designed to provide leadership and mentoring for developers. Read the wiki page for their responsibilities. The PR group is designed to keep the public informed about changes in the PEAR project as well as keep pearweb up=to=date and bug free. Again, read the wiki page for their responsibilities.

2) Can the problems be solved without creating the group. If the answer is "yes" then use Occam's razor [2].

If it could, we wouldn't have these problems now, would we? Thanks, Scott