Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Recruitment (Reviewers, Testers, Maintainers, Hobbyists)

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 11:28:28AM -0700, Frank Rowand wrote:
> On 7/8/2015 9:06 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> > On Wed, 2015-07-08 at 13:08 -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> >> On 07/08/2015 11:53 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 08 Jul 2015 09:00:32 +0100
> >>> jic23@jic23.retrosnub.co.uk wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>> We can alter that somewhat.  We used to run a Maintainers lottery for
> >>>>> the kernel summit ... we could instead offer places based on the number
> >>>>> of Reviewed-by: tags ... we have all the machinery to calculate that.  I
> >>>>> know an invitation to the kernel summit isn't a huge incentive, but it's
> >>>>> a useful one.
> >>>>
> >>>> Sounds like a good idea to me, though it would only effect a tiny
> >>>> percentage of our reviewers.  I suppose publishing a short list of the top
> >>>> n% of reviewers from which the lottery runs might give some
> >>>> recognition.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> I personally don't trust a Reviewed-by tag much, as I sometimes see
> >>> them appear without any comments.
> 
> I don't expect my Reviewed-by tag with no extra comments to carry much weight
> if I send it to a maintainer who does not know me.
> 
> But if I have a history of good reviews to a specific maintainer, then why
> should I have to add a message that says: Yes, I really, really did review
> the patch.  I truly mean that the patch "has been reviewed and found acceptable
> according to the Reviewer's Statement" as listed in SubmittingPatches.
> 
> And I read Steve's qualification of "don't trust ... _much_" as being
> consistent with what I am saying, so I'm fine with that.  The point I
> want to make is that a Reviewed-by tag without comments should not
> always be assumed to be without meaning or value.
> 
Absolutely agree.

It looks like we have yet another set of diverging maintainer expectations.
Some maintainers will expect me to provide an extra comment, which I'll
have to phrase carefully to avoid it being misinterpreted as "I just
glanced at the code and didn't find an obvious issue with it".
Others will get annoyed at me providing the extra comment.

Guenter