Re: next CommitFest

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
> Robert Haas wrote:
>> Please don't sabotage my effort to ensure
>> an adequate supply of reviewers unless you have a competing proposal.
>
> I don't think you can reasonably demand this. If I don't think your
> suggestion is going to improve matters I have a right to say so.

I've never disputed the right of you or anyone else to say whatever
they like.  Just to be clear, I don't think that mandating reviews is
the best idea anyone has ever had, and I don't rule out the
possibility that in solving one problem it might create some others.
I think those problems are likely solvable, but I might be wrong, and
in any event, it's clearly better for it to be a voluntary system.

As far as I can tell, the major objection to having it be mandatory is
that it might drive some people away.  My major argument for why that
isn't the case is that the mere fact that we are even *discussing*
whether it should be mandatory has led to a bumper crop of reviewers,
including several of the people who fall into the category I've been
discussing.  So maybe we don't need to make it mandatory: maybe we
just need to discuss making it mandatory every 6 months or so.  :-)

Anyhow, as Bruce pointed out on another message, in some sense we are
getting sidetracked.  Good reviewers opting out of the system *is* a
problem, but lack of a sufficient number of sufficiently involved
committers is a bigger one.

...Robert