Hello,
Also some of MarsSeed's requests are being rejected after evaluation if the reasons are not enough to accept. Archives are public for anyone.
I am aware of this, I made the point of the fact the archives are filled with a few usernames, and them usernames only, one of them is "MarsSeed". I can never seem to find anything within the archives, but then again, that might be incompetence on my part.
Also, I tend to give priority to orphan requests, as someone else is awaiting to fix packages issues, so giving priority to these requests the packages will be fixed quicker.
I noticed this a lot, but it means merge requests take months to be accepted, and deletion requests can sit there for potentially years. I guess this isn't really anyones fault, but more the lack of manpower to deal with the influx of requests.
So, please, Polarian, don't discredit the staff members and respect the work done which is sometimes very heavy and tiring and wasting my time in explaining how the things are is more time I have subtract. I found this your accusation very rude and ungrateful, I hope it was done in good faith, not thinking enough (you never contacted me to asking such details).
I made an observation, hence the word "seems" was used, instead of an objective fact. I apologise that you disagree and believe that no unconscious bias was put into the situation, and that I got it wrong, but observations are in no way insults. I would also like to point out I have never complained how long I have to wait for requests, in fact, I normally just forget I even submitted a request. So I do not see how I am being ungrateful here, it wasn't a complaint, nor was it an insult...
Having said this, actually we have more than 3000 pending requests, so it's impossible to remember who is awaiting in the queue. Whenever his turn comes the request will be processed like for anyone else. In the 98% of the times, a request is accepted or rejected. The remaining cases are awaiting for requester or maintainer answer. In some rare cases (less than 1 of 100) if I don't understand the issue or I'm unable to understand how the things are I leave the package request to someone else.
And if a large percentage of those requests were submitted by the same person, then it does give the viewpoint of a bias, because the same maintainer is seen being accepted/rejected within the archives. Maybe "bias" was the wrong word to use here, as instead of it being a bias, it is the staff trying to keep up with the ever increasing flood of requests as Arch grows bigger and bigger on a daily basis, and people like MarsSeed simply make the most requests, and thus has the most responses.
Also each PM does evaluate the requests by interpreting what the requester wrote, so a clearer explanation in the requests could give better result and quicker response time.
I don't even care about the names in the requests, seriously.
I think you took an observation as a complaint about your effectiveness, when it was not meant in that way. The entire reason I even pointed it out was to justify my suggestion, MarsSeed by numbers probably has the most requests dealt with, percentagely there could be a bias here, but that doesn't matter. My point was that the "bulk request" idea would fix this issue, instead of there being 700 requests which MarsSeed submitted and had dealt with, it was one request grouped together, this removes the illusion of a bias towards a single member as you can see "oh it was just 700 plugins for a package which no longer exists". That was my point, my point wasn't the staff being ineffective and I know how much effort you put into accepting requests, I believe you have dealt with the majority of my requests, it was never an insult, it was an observation to back my idea. It has been pointed out to me, making a suggestion only helps so far, what would be more helpful was if I submitted a patch implementing said suggestion, especially how developers probably do not have the time to implement a quality of life feature. TL;DR I was trying to help, nothing else.
Incomplete requests, duplicated packages to fix an original package issue (X package is buggy, this Y package of mine fixes that, please merge), at the contrary require more time and sometimes the answers I need to have before processing the request, never come, thus burdening the request in an eternal oblivion.
I believe these are the requests which make up the majority of the backlog. Linking back to the point made multiple times is the deletion requests for packages which are broken or unused libraries are very low priority and they take up so little space. In fact, I believe these should be proactively fixed instead of purged. The only packages left for deletion then would be those which can't be fixed (upstream disappeared for example), or for copyright issues or the other few edge cases, which would definitely lower the burden. Also I don't see why having unused libraries in the AUR is a bad thing, some people might link their personal projects against them, who knows. If it works who cares?
MarsSeed requests are often, so far, the most precise, clear, well explained, with external links and frequently updated with additional details. People should instead learn from his way to report packages.
Well there is no denying they have a ton of experience :P
Also, PMs do mistakes, so in the case some wrong thing happens, please contact the PM and ask for a revision or clarification.
I have had to do this in the past, we are all human after all :) I hope this clarifies my point, I did not mean to cause any offence, in fact I wasn't even questioning the role of PM's here, I was trying to offer up solutions to make this problem less of an issue. Can this flame war please end now? It seems like a ton of people have took offence over comments which were made in good faith to try to fix an issue, it does not seem likely any person in this thread has intentionally aimed to cause offence. I think a few reoccurring ideas which have been brought up in multiple threads is the following: - Clarify guidelines for AUR, with the amount of conflict it seems like the AUR wiki page needs serious analysis, maybe with examples of good and bad requests? (maybe this can be made a subpage of "how to make a request") - Discourage deletion requests for unused libraries and broken/outdated packages, at least until the PM's can catch back up with the current ocean of requests. It would also be nice if people stop submitted orphan requests 1 day after a flag because they are impatient, but nothing you can do about this and most of this can be fixed by simply seeing the maintainer respond. - Possibly implementing new features into AURweb? Like the bulk request feature I suggested, but this is a much more long term solution which would require a lot of time to implement too. I apologise to any staff members which took offence here, Muflone might not be the only one. MarsSeed, I was not insulting you in any way, I am aware you are passionate about contributing, but lets not turn passion into a flame war. Nobody here is out to get you, but you got to acknowledge that your requests are causing issues for PMs, whether they are useful or not, slowing down a little won't hurt :) Take care, -- Polarian GPG signature: 0770E5312238C760 Website: https://polarian.dev JID/XMPP: polarian@icebound.dev