Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] Aggregated status whiteboard for projects

[Joonas Niilola <juippis@gmail.com>]

On 6/4/19 2:35 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Right now we lack a consisted aggregated source of project status.  Some
> projects report their progress via website news, some use various
> mailing lists, some don't report status at all.  I'd like to propose
> a new method for publishing an opt-in 'status whiteboard' for projects.
>
> The idea is to create a special template on wiki.  The projects
> interested in publishing their status would use the template to put it
> on the page.  As a result, besides being published as part of project
> page it would be aggregated for machine processing.
>
> Then, we'd create a simple aggregated listing of all projects publishing
> their status.


This sounds a bit vague currently, and for me it's quite hard to imagine 
what you exactly mean. Maybe some simple mock-up would help to explain 
it better? Is the "status" indicator simply 'active/inactive'? Do you 
write your own goals and then set it 'in good health / behind intended 
progress'? How does it get defined, automatically or manually? Because 
if it's manually written, projects can be set 'active' now but forgotten 
in weeks. If it's automatic, how does it get defined?


I think the purpose here is to spot inactive projects easier? Depending 
how this is implemented, I don't believe it will help the situation with 
inactive projects at all, and may deceive the status even more.


>
> The exact data reported is unspecified.  For example, it could state
> the current releases, what the project is currently working on, etc.
> The primary purpose would be to let users and developers know better
> what's happening inside Gentoo.  The secondary purpose would be to
> provide a quick health check.
>
> What do you think?


I comply with this and encourage more projects to update their wiki 
pages, and keep them active. Such as project goals and current status. 
Some projects already do this quite well, like Gnome. There are people 
reading.


--

juippis