[Zope-dev] Re: [Zope-Coders] Collector Status Meanings

[Ken Manheimer]

[I'm only following up to zope-coders.  I tried in my initial followup to
redirect the zope-dev side to zope-coders, and strongly ask that we not
try to conduct a multi-list discussion.  Some people wind up responding in
the midst of a thread only to one list and some the other, and it winds up
making for lots of discrepancy and chaos.]

On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Fred Drake wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 11:50:57 -0400 (EDT), Ken Manheimer <klm at zope.com> wrote:
> >   Accepted: Issues that some supporter(s) has responsibility for resolving
> >             it, and it is not yet resolved.
> > 
> >             Your description says that some supporter has assessed the
> >             issue as warranting repair, and later says that the the issue
> >             has an assigned supporter.  I think it's a lot clearer to
> >             directly say that an accepted issue has a supporter
> >             responsible for resolving it.
> 
> I don't think it makes sense to use this to indicate a supporter (and
> possibly some of their time) has been allocated to deal with the
> issue; the list of assigned supporters should be sufficient for that. 
> If the list is empty, no supporter has been assigned.
> 
> I think "Accepted" should be used to indicate that the issue is real
> and still needs to be addressed in some way.  This is independent of
> assigning it to one or more specific supporters.

The collector is specifically built to not allow an issue being in the
accepted state without having any supporters.  "Accepted" is for putting
your money (or someone else's, but they can retaliate:-)  where your mouth
is.  This is fundamental to the design of the collector (you can't resign
an issue and have it remain accepted when you're the only supporter on
it), and i adamantly don't think it should be changed.

The thing we specifically want to avoid is the classic, otherwise 
inevitable tendency of people to say, "Yeah, someone oughtta do that" 
without actually making a commitment.  Without some kind of check, 
and particularly if someone else *might* take care of it, people will
"accept" anything remotely feasible and useful.

Issues that warrant attention but don't not enough to justify someone
taking responsibility for it should either remain pending - which means
continuing pain for the people triaging issues - or be deferred, which
means it may languish.  But it should not be impossible to say "yeah,
someone oughtta do this" without putting someone on the hook for it.

This is why i want to restate what chris wrote to simply say that 
"accepted" is an issue which someone has taken the responsibility to 
resolve.

I also think it's not quite right to suggest that someone wishing to join
the effort to work on an accepted issue should contact the supporters -
accepting/assigning yourself *will* contact the assigned supporters.  
What we probably want to suggest is that you should explain how you want
to help if you assign yourself to an accepted issue.

Ken