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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/08/2015 06:29, Mike Connor wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAKx4dk1f8bY5z7jzxFdNxeacP87fyn4bQPgMU_7RzjxG4NvgLQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">So, the one thing that firefox-backlog+ has that an
unrestricted fields don't is an unambiguous signal that this bug
you're picking up is something we've said is worth fixing (at
some point). Otherwise it could be something mistagged by the
bug filer, etc, and we risk wasting people's time that way
instead.</div>
</blockquote>
If this is the only reason to keep it around, I bet we could make
the Priority, Rank and any other fields that we'd use instead
editbugs-only even for bugfilers. It'd save me time and effort when
doing triage-type stuff as well.<br>
<br>
~ Gijs<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAKx4dk1f8bY5z7jzxFdNxeacP87fyn4bQPgMU_7RzjxG4NvgLQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Right now, in theory, the flag state will produce a clear,
relatively unambiguous set of bugs that are known to be worth
fixing. I'd want to hear from someone like Mike Hoye who's
all about connecting new developers with bugs about how we'd
reliably do this without that sort of global filter.</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 12 August 2015 at 00:41, Justin
Dolske <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dolske@mozilla.com" target="_blank">dolske@mozilla.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>I also don't think this flag is useful.<br>
<br>
</div>
The basic problem is that Firefox is a huge,
complicated piece of software and the set of people
working on it (staff + volunteers) is tiny. The flag
was intended as a mechanism to help track relevant
bugs that we're not currently working on, but I
think we just ended up with (1) varying criteria for
what bugs should be marked backlog+ (2) a smaller
but still unwieldy set of of bugs and (3) some
people simply stopping usage of it because it's
effectiveness was unclear.<br>
<br>
</div>
AFAIK the backlog+ list has never been triaged or
prioritized. Nor is it clear to me that would actually
be an effective use of time -- it would be spending a
lot of time to maintain a wishlist of bugs that will
mostly not be worked on. And priorities quickly become
stale as the browser market evolves.<br>
<br>
</div>
So, to make this thread a bit more actionable: I propose
that that we go ahead and deprecate this flag. As a
first step we can freeze the existing set of bugs with
it set, and remove the ability to set/request it on
further bugs. Projects areas can track their own
project-specific backlogs with priorities, whiteboard
tags, metabugs, spreadsheets, etc. If you have a
demonstrably useful need for the flag, speak now or
forever hold your peace. :)<span class="HOEnZb"><font
color="#888888"><br>
<br>
</font></span></div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Justin<br>
</font></span></div>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 3, 2015 at 10:53
AM, Christopher Karlof <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ckarlof@mozilla.com"
target="_blank">ckarlof@mozilla.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Now that my role has become more
of, as my wife says, “one of those people that
flips a lot bugzilla flags”, I’m guilty as
charged.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I largely adopted it because it was trying
to adopt the larger convention, but I agree
that filtering searches to P1-Px for a backlog
would work equally well of me.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A quick test of that would require me to
triage/de-prioritize an additional legacy 100
bugs to get back to the curated backlog I
created with firefox-backlog, but that’s the
cost of doing business.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I don’t have a lot of context around the
original intention of the flag, and am happy
to learn any new spells.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-chris</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 3, 2015
at 12:35 AM, Sebastian Zartner <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:sebastianzartner@gmail.com" target="_blank">sebastianzartner@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>As far as I understand
firefox-backlog it is for issues
that are lying around for long and
need prioritization.[1] So it sounds
like it fulfills a different purpose
than P1 to P5.<br>
<br>
</div>
The question is whether this flag is
still used as Gavin imagined it to
work, i.e. if there's still some
backlog management as described in the
wiki[2].<br>
<div><br>
I guess it needs to be clarified how
the process of prioritizing bugs
works and there need to people
tasked to do this priorization and
keep track of it for all bugs, e.g.
the module owners.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>My opinion is that the
firefox-backlog flag would not be
needed if P1, P2, etc. were set
consistently and always be
considered. E.g. at the moment there
are a lot of old bugs having P1.[3]<br>
Also, prioritization needs to be
based on many factors like security,
number of affected people, severity,
votes, other implementations,
specifications, etc.<br>
</div>
<br>
<div>Sebastian<br>
</div>
<div><br>
[1] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2014-April/001551.html"
target="_blank">https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2014-April/001551.html</a><br>
[2] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/IterativeDevelopment#Product_Backlog"
target="_blank">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/IterativeDevelopment#Product_Backlog</a><br>
</div>
<div>[3] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?priority=P1&list_id=12440512&resolution=---&chfieldto=2010-12-31&query_format=advanced&chfield=[Bug%20creation]"
target="_blank">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?priority=P1&list_id=12440512&resolution=---&chfieldto=2010-12-31&query_format=advanced&chfield=[Bug%20creation]</a><br>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 3
August 2015 at 04:45, Matthew N.
<span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:MattN+firefox-dev@mozilla.com"
target="_blank">MattN+firefox-dev@mozilla.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">I
had the same reaction: the
priority field overlaps
with the backlog flag.<br>
<br>
One thing that that the
backlog flag has that the
priority flag doesn't is a
way to nominate a bug for
review of the priority via
"firefox-backlog?". One
could argue that every bug
without an assigned
priority could fall into
this category but then we
would want to either
regularly triage recently
filed bugs to set a
priority on them or do a
pass on all existing bugs
to assign a priority
making it easy to see
unprioritized bugs. In
general I'm not a fan of
new BMO fields or
whiteboard/keyword
metadata that duplicate or
overlap with existing
metadata.<br>
<br>
On a related note, I'm not
a fan of fine-grained
prioritization for low
priority bugs (e.g. like
the Rank field is doing).
In general, it seems like
either a bug is important
(represented as P1, maybe
P2) or it's not and so
thinking about P4 vs. P5
doesn't seem useful as the
reality is that neither of
them are going to end up
in a prioritized backlog.
The only way they'll get
fixed is if someone is
scratching their own itch
or the priority changes.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Another
"feature" of
firefox-backlog+ is that
only a limited set of
users can set this state.
This avoids having to
manually police people
marking pet bugs as a
priority despite the views
of the module owner/peers.
Maybe the existing BMO
groups like
canconfirm/editbugs
already cover the priority
field though (maybe not
for bugs by the
reporter?).<span><font
color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></div>
<span><font color="#888888">
<div
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div
class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Matthew<br>
</div>
</font></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On
Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at
5:53 PM, Mark Hammond
<span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:mhammond@mozilla.com"
target="_blank">mhammond@mozilla.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex"><span>On
1/08/2015 9:34 AM,
Christopher Karlof
wrote:<br>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0
0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
I just started
using the flag
today to build a
Desktop Sync
backlog.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</span>
I've noticed bugs
being changed in
this way, and also
the same set of bugs
having the
"importance" field
changed (ie, a
number of bugs set
to P1, P2, etc).<br>
<br>
I don't understand
the use of both of
these. Can't the
current Sync backlog
be determined based
on the importance?
What would a P1 bug
without that flag
mean relative to a
P5 with it?<br>
<br>
So I agree with Matt
- it became clear to
me very soon after
the backlog flag was
added that the sheer
number of items
marked with the flag
made it useless for
both filtering and
prioritization, and
I expect this to
continue to be true
for Sync. I don't
mind continuing to
ignore it
completely, but I'd
prefer to just see
it die.<br>
<br>
Mark<br>
<br>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0
0
.8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex"><span>
<br>
-chris<br>
<br>
<br>
On Fri, Jul 31,
2015 at 2:08 PM,
Matthew N.<br>
</span>
<<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:MattN%2Bfirefox-dev@mozilla.com" target="_blank">MattN+firefox-dev@mozilla.com</a>
<mailto:<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:MattN%2Bfirefox-dev@mozilla.com" target="_blank">MattN+firefox-dev@mozilla.com</a>>>
<div>
<div><br>
wrote:<br>
<br>
I just had
a realization
that now that
we're not
using a single<br>
backlog
for all
desktop work
(we have
various
smaller
project<br>
teams),
it's not clear
to me what the
purpose of the
firefox-backlog<br>
flag is.
There are 1629
bugs set to
'+'[1] which
seems like a
lot<br>
given that
this flag was
intended as a
way to mark
bugs that we<br>
would
likely work on
in
approximately
the next 6
months. There
are<br>
bugs in
there that
don't seem
like they are
actually
things we want<br>
to do.<br>
<br>
I'm
curious to
hear how/if
people are
currently
using the flag
and<br>
whether
anyone is
actually
pulling bugs
from there
outside of
bugs<br>
identified
for a specific
project. There
are searches
for good bugs<br>
from<br>
<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/IterativeDevelopment#Contribute_to_Firefox_Desktop"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/IterativeDevelopment#Contribute_to_Firefox_Desktop</a><br>
but I
don't know if
contributors
are using them
over bugsahoy.<br>
<br>
Perhaps
the backlog is
the place
where the
upcoming
quality teams<br>
will pull
from as its
ideally
identifying
important
issues in all<br>
of our
components. A
follow-up
question would
be if anyone
is<br>
pruning
this list?<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Matthew N.
(:MattN)<br>
<br>
[1]<br>
<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=flagtypes.name&list_id=12437184&o1=equals&query_format=advanced&resolution=---&v1=firefox-backlog%2B&order=bug_id&limit=0"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=flagtypes.name&list_id=12437184&o1=equals&query_format=advanced&resolution=---&v1=firefox-backlog%2B&order=bug_id&limit=0</a><br>
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