[maemo-developers] External Repository and HAM

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Monday 08 March 2010 16:34:21 Attila Csipa wrote:
> On Monday 08 March 2010 16:21:13 Benoît HERVIER wrote:
> > - It s look like some users are here just to put thumb down just to
> > gain some karma.
>
> To elaborate on this a bit...
>
> The mass-downthumbing people might see is just a temporary (?) solution to
> optimize testing resources. The idea is that it should be immediately
> visible that this package is NOT going to be promoted, so testers should
> not vaste their time on a particular package, since there is going to be a
> newer version which will require testing anyway. 

It must be made clear to testers that giving a thumbs down (or up) MUST always 
be on the basis of their own, direct observation.  It would be unacceptable 
for a tester to give a thumbs down "because Attila has already given a thumbs 
down and added a comment" as it is possible that you had made a mistake, or 
it is possible that the developer has added a comment which explains why the 
thumbs down was incorrect in this case.

As long as each tester personally verifies that they can see that the problem 
is there, and it is a showstopper, then it seems a reasonable optimisation.

> On a side note I would make screenshots (where applicable) also mandatory
> for promotion to -testing, on the same grounds as a bugtracker, but the
> ideas/message counter is in the red zone already, so I'm going to stop
> here... :)

I strongly disagree.  The Extras-Testing process should be about safety: 
someone browsing extras should be comfortable that if they look at an app 
they can get a reasonable description, they can install it without 
endangering their device, they can remove it if they don't like it.  It is 
not about the quality of the app itself: its usability, its GUI, how well it 
works, whether it is useful, whether it has screen shots, etc -- that is what 
crowd-sourced rating systems are about (the stars, the reviews, the 
comments).  Any app without a screenshot is not going to get good comments or 
make its way to the front page of the Downloads section.  Poor apps will drop 
to the bottom -- but being at the bottom does NOT mean they should be 
excluded.

Also, we need a way for niche applications, which expect very few users, to be 
able to be available to those users (without putting their devices at risk). 
Otherwise we just go back to repository hell.

Anyway, let's leave the screenshots issue for a separate discussion!

Graham