[ckan-dev] Issues/Questions/Cry for help.

Tue Jan 12 14:43:07 UTC 2016

Hi Marianne,

Understood, and that really shouldn't happen.  We discussed today on the tech team call about how we can better make sure this doesn't happen with external contributions, because we all realise how important it is.

Please don't give up on us just yet, if you reference me in the ticket (@rossjones) and I'll make sure it gets raised again.

It's a bit of a vicious circle for us in that the tech team for core CKAN is very small, and nobody is really working full-time on CKAN core - even though there is more than enough work to support that. So sometimes we're possibly not as responsive as we could be, or PRs slip through the cracks and don't get processed in a timely manner. I realise this probably sounds like an excuse (and it is), but unless we grow the team it'll only get worse, unless we respond to PRs in a timely manner we'll never grow the team.

Apologies again for missing your issue (and anybody else's who thinks they've waited too long for a response).

Ross.

> On 12 Jan 2016, at 14:29, Marianne Bellotti <marianne at exversion.com> wrote:
> 
> On point four:
> 
> I would love to contribute more often to core, problem is when I open a pull request it usually takes months for someone to look at it. One of the things I would really like to work on is improving CKAN's user management: stop allowing people to have multiple accounts under one email, validate those emails using conventional methods, etc. This is obviously a large breaking change, and when I opened an issue asking if there was any reason why such dev work would not be accepted.... I have yet to hear anything back almost a year later.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 5:48 AM, Adrià Mercader <adria.mercader at okfn.org> wrote:
> Great points Ross, Stefan and Steven,
> 
> I'm definitely +1 on points 1-3, let's nail them down on today's meeting.
> 
> Point 4 is definitely where we need to focus this year to encourage more involvement. If we can do something from the tech team to help in that regard I'm happy to give it a go.
> 
> 
> 
> Adrià
> 
> On 8 January 2016 at 05:41, Steven De Costa <steven.decosta at linkdigital.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Ross,
> 
> 1-3 sound good to me. I like the idea of taking some time to refocus and re-delegate/renominate on issues.
> 
> For 4 we can certainly do a blog post as a minimum. One of the things I think should be great for anyone contributing to CKAN is their ability to make a big difference and support so many substantial open data initiatives around the world.
> 
> More than a year ago I gave myself the todo item of running a few jobs through fiverr.com to get flyers posted up in the ICT bulletin boards of campuses around the world (although I'm yet to get it done!). I think the message to promote is that the CKAN project is a great place to learn how to be a part of an open source community and get deeply involved in release planning and management as well as coding and contributions. Business Analysts can assist with user stories, use cases and test plans. Coders can work with both data and code to give them exposure to a wide variety of techniques that will advance their skills greatly.
> 
> We'd have some compelling stats to promote the project if we looked at the number datasets and resources within just the top 20 or so open data portals using CKAN. Comparing this to the number of people contributing via GitHub stats would make it pretty clear that there is quite a bit of opportunity to gain significant exposure and self promotion for those who invest a few years or even a few months into the project during their studies or early years in ICT. The job prospects for those who have a strong grasp on CKAN look very good - potential for working with national Governments, major Cities, global non-profits, industry and academia. And, the option to found their own services business on the back of their niche skills.
> 
> My limited experience is that those already working with CKAN professionally are typically flooded with client work. Their employers generally are happy for them to contribute where their contributions align with core duties but reality conspires against this more often than not and it remains up to individuals to go above and beyond to make extra time to contribute more. I think we could break this pattern by tapping into the greater time available to students and young professionals.
> 
> Late last year I started and APAC meetup for those in a timezone which made it tough to join tech team meetings. I'm hoping to grow this more over the year ahead and will be encouraging people to become more active contributors via those fortnightly meetups. 
> 
> The first one for 2016 is 4 Feb and details are found here: http://www.meetup.com/Asia-Pacific-CKAN-Meetup/events/227933553/
> 
> I'd be very happy to see folks at that next meetup, which can be joined via video, wherever you may be based :)
> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
> 
> 
> 
> STEVEN DE COSTA | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
> www.linkdigital.com.au
> 
>    
> 
> On 8 January 2016 at 02:27, Ross Jones <ross at servercode.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I hope everyone that had holidays recently had a relaxing break, and have managed to start 2016 with lots of energy!  I almost managed 1 out of the 2 ;)
> 
> After a marathon tech-team meeting today I noticed that we’ve got to 320 open issues, which are not evenly distributed and I thought it would be worth taking steps to rectify this before it gets even more out of hand.
> 
> My suggestions are:
> 
> 1. Remove the assignee if something has been marked good for contribution
> 
> 2. Close anything over 18 months old with a message asking for it to be re-opened if this is still an issue, and/or the reporter is willing to help.
> 
> 3. Hold an amnesty for users with large numbers of assigned bugs to allow the bugs to get re-distributed, specifically for issues that they don’t realistically think they’ll get around to.
> 
> 4. Encourage more people working with CKAN to contribute to core if/when they have time to do so.
> 
> 
> 1-3 are really just general ticket gardening, but I think #4 is a pretty important one that is necessary if we’re to make CKAN ‘more awesome’ in 2016 and it is obviously very important for sustainability.
> 
> I’m not sure how to encourage more people to contribute to core - not necessarily a huge investment in time, just the occasional ticket or whatever they feel comfortable with.
> 
> So my questions are:
> 
> 1. Is everyone okay with points 1-3?
> 
> 2. Does anyone have suggestions for 4?
> 
> 3. Does anyone on the ML who uses CKAN (by writing extensions for instance) want to contribute more?  Is there something that impacts your decision to contribute or not? What can we do to help you start contributing?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Ross
> 
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