I would like to share another perspective on this as a relatively new user of the commitfest app. I really like the concept behind the commitfest app but while using it, sometimes I feel that we can do a better job at having some sort of a 'metainfo' for the patch.
Although in some cases the patch title is enough to understand what it is doing but for new contributors and reviewers it would be really helpful if we can have something more explanatory instead of just having topics like 'bug fix', 'features' etc. Some sort of a small summarised description for a patch explaining its history and need in brief would be really helpful for people to get started instead of trying to make sense of a very large email thread. This is a small addition but it would definitely make it easier for new reviewers and contributors.
On Fri, 17 May 2024 at 15:02, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote: > > On 17.05.24 09:32, Heikki Linnakangas wrote: > > Dunno about having to click a link or sparkly gold borders, but +1 on > > having a free-form text box for notes like that. Things like "cfbot says > > this has bitrotted" or "Will review this after other patch this depends > > on". On the mailing list, notes like that are both noisy and easily lost > > in the threads. But as a little free-form text box on the commitfest, it > > would be handy. > > > > One risk is that if we start to rely too much on that, or on the other > > fields in the commitfest app for that matter, we de-value the mailing > > list archives. I'm not too worried about it, the idea is that the > > summary box just summarizes what's already been said on the mailing > > list, or is transient information like "I'll get to this tomorrow" > > that's not interesting to archive. > > We already have the annotations feature, which is kind of this.
But annotations are bound to mails in attached mail threads, rather than a generic text input at the CF entry level. There isn't always an appropriate link between (mail or in-person) conversations about the patch, and a summary of that conversation.
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The CommitFest App has several features, but contains little information about how we're expected to use it. To start addressing this limitation, I've just created a wiki page about the CFA [0], with a handbook section. Feel free to extend or update the information as appropriate; I've only added that information the best of my knowledge, so it may contain wrong, incomplete and/or inaccurate information.
