Using milestones to categorize issues

[enterprisey]

Why can't we use tags for them again?

What functionality do milestones have that tags don't?

[theopolisme]

Ask @Technical-13...he's the person who pushed for this.

I actually find milestones fairly clunky...

[enterprisey]

I find it extremely ironic that this post should be categorized with a milestone, anyway. I was wondering why we needed a progress bar to see how many General Information issues are closed and how many are open (which happens to be the only reason I can think of to use milestones instead of issues).

If milestones are being used as a kind of very-important-tag, then we can just put them in all caps or something, or have a special color for them. No milestones are needed.

(#sore that I introduced milestones for things a few weeks ago and was told that "milestones make everything too complicated - just use labels")

See also: issue 92

[theopolisme]

Yeah, well, it's kind of late now after T13 unilaterally implemented them. :/ I don't know. I'm really getting sick of the project's bureaucracy -- the people who actually write the code (me, @wikipedia-mabdul, and now you) are just kind of being shoved around. And yes, it's kind of a pain. For all of us. Reminds me of what it's like to work at Microsoft....

[theopolisme]

Okay, I've tried to go through and categorize what I could... @Technical-13 you owe me ;) This method is...weird, though. I find the issue list rather disorienting, tbh...

[enterprisey]

I'll transfer the un-milestone-like milestones to actual issues and make them a color that stands out.

[theopolisme]

I honestly don't care at this point. Just explain how I can actually work on the codebase, rather than waste my time reshuffling things

[Technical-13]

@theopolisme I thank you for the time you spent organizing some of these. For the record, comments like "the people who actually write the code" are kind of discouraging to those that aren't actively writing code. I have a lot of ideas for improvement and fixes and RL (which has been happening and smacking me in the back of the head pretty hard) has been taking too much time to implement some of them. I will be actively coding before too much longer though... @APerson241 please don't undo the organization I've been working on. Thanks, I appreciate that.

[theopolisme]

@Technical-13 sorry about that. I overreacted; like yourself, I've got some stuff going on in real life that isn't too pleasant -- Wikipedia is an escape (of sorts), but the trick is making sure it's [[WP:NOTTHERAPY]]. ;) Looking forward to coding with you in the future.

Theo

[enterprisey]

@Technical-13 Alright; I was wondering why milestones were used for this instead of issues. What do milestones provide that issues don't?

[Technical-13]

@APerson241 Milestones offer Due dates that labels don't. We aren't using them yet, but I think they will be good to help the project progress once everything is organized. I'm hoping it will become more clear when it is set in place. :) Thanks for asking. :)

[enterprisey]

This should probably be left open until issues are sorted out.

[Technical-13]

@APerson241 please don't remove the milestones and close a bunch of stuff again. I really didn't appreciate having to re-do all of that work this morning. I've added some "deadlines" and "purpose of this milestone" and "words of encouragement" to most of the milestones. Thanks.

[enterprisey]

We probably don't need to see either the progress of our general information tickets or set a deadline for them.

Same for wontfix tickets.

@Technical-13 Why do we really need milestones, if we're going to use them as issues with due dates?

[theopolisme]

Just wanted to note that I am completely overwhelmed by all of this and have no idea how to handle anything anymore. Somebody, please explain...

[Technical-13]

@APerson241 you don't need to use the milestones or labels, just write code and when you are done leave a comment saying "fixed in XXX commit" and myself or someone else will worry about keeping the milestones up to date. Fair enough?

[theopolisme]

^^ I'm going to do just that :p

[theopolisme]

@Technical-13 PLEASE reclose all of the issues that I closed yesterday and you then incorrectly reopened...they were all pushed to master and as such my closes were correct.

[theopolisme]

@Technical-13 and @APerson241: could one of you explain why all those issues are tagged as "Blockers"? They most certainly are not blockers.... blockers == CRITICAL

[Technical-13]

Yeah, sorry about sone of that. You and I had everything milestoned and most of it sorted out and it was starting to look organized until @APerson241 deleted all the milestones and I basically had to start over. I'll sort out the "blockers" tomorrow.

[enterprisey]

If you look at the log, I didn't open or close any issues; I just removed two milestones that didn't make any sense. Specifically, we don't need a milestone for General Issues and we don't need a milestone for "fixed in stable" because by their nature, those things are already done.

[Technical-13]

All I know is that all of the milestones except pushed to beta were deleted.

[hasteur]

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" Before we get too much further everyone needs to step back, take a breather, and think what's best for the end consumer of our efforts (The AFC volunteer reviewing submissions). Anything else is a meta issue that only serves to hinder the development.

[enterprisey]

@hasteur That's completely true. If our goal is to make the best gadget/program possible, then our goal should also be to be as productive as possible.

It doesn't seem to me that using milestones that aren't really milestones and opening issues based on whether they're in some version of the program, not whether they're fixed, can really organize our program better.

What's wrong with our old system of using issues? The problems cited by @Technical-13, namely that we are recieving issues that are already fixed (and so we must open issues we already fixed) and that we are suffering from a chronic lack of due dates (and so milestones must be used instead of issue tags), might be bad in other projects. I sure can't notice them in ours. Duplicate issues? Just close them and link to the existing issue. Need due dates? Just open a GI issue. Why make things more complicated?

[Technical-13]

@APerson what's wrong with it is there is no organization which is making it difficult to work collaboratively in a productive manner... Theopolisme is now taking a break because he is partly burnt out and partly because of other RL stress... Nathan has been mostly gone for a month because this project is too disorganized. mabdul has little time and what time he does have he spends trying to read the code to see what has been changed so he can figure out how to fix things... I have been unable to do much coding because there is too much chaos and a lack of definition... We need to get some organization, or the turn-over rate of people actually coding on the script will be so high from burnout and stress that this project won't be able to recognize its potential. Like I've said above, if you don't want to use the milestones and/or labels, don't use them... Just make a comment that is clear on what you are doing and I will come through and tag milestones and whatnot.

[enterprisey]

With all due respect, I am not completely convinced that all those reasons are true. No amount of fooling around with the issues can improve the organization of the code. Citing members of the project who have problems with the code is not a reason to make the organization of the issues more complicated. I cannot think of any reasons why the changes suddenly implemented without asking anyone would help. If you can think of any good reasons, please tell me.

[Technical-13]

Ummm... suddenly implemented without asking anyone is quite the exaggeration... I not only asked everyone in IRC which is the real time chat we use, you, @APerson241, are the only person I rarely see there, I gave everyone over 12 hours to mute threads and do what they wanted before I actually started implementing things.

[aperson]

I feel like I'm supposed to have a say in this issue now that @Technical-13 highlighted me.

[enterprisey]

@aperson You're probably entitled to an opinion.

@Technical-13 Fair enough, but I don't recall being told that there was an IRC channel. (I may have forgotten, though.)

[enterprisey]

@Technical-13 At least deleting the general-issues and fixed in stable milestones because there is no reason on Earth why they should exist. (i.e. no deadline needed.)

[Technical-13]

Is it hurting you for it to be there? Really?