Documenting team leaders for webmasters issue queue components

I think this is a bit too much organisation.

I somehow feel that maybe we should split up the queues a bit.

All the stuff that is "promotional", ie the things that you've listed under "content moderation", have always been of little interest to me and my finger hurts from deleting all the mails they generate. Today, I've actually set up a filter to move the marketplace stuff elsewhere.

I wonder if other webmasters feel the same?

I think killes proposal (splitting the queue to sub-queues) could make sense, but I also agree with tvn's goal of having more formalized groups handling specific areas (e.g. content promotion stuff). Both proposals can be done together.

Added project ownership guidelines

Can I please be involved in discussion around the marketplace queue? I used to be a maintainer of those pages, so I'd like to see if it's something I can get involved with.

@sime - makes total sense to me. I think http://groups.drupal.org/node/255718 has some good pointers on the state of those queues.

Most of the spam / forum moderation tasks are done by WorldFallz, Heine, silverwing, VM, dman (based on the activity log).

As I understand it, this post is directed to current webmasters and, following their input, may be opened to others who might be interested in taking the lead on an area. I would be interested in continuing to work with the Content Moderation/Marketplace issues in that capacity, if needed.

FWIW, I support DSquaredB in that role and in becoming a webmaster to be able to fully carry out the work of that role.

@Heine - care to add those folks to that area? Or at least yourself?

I too would like to continue to review Marketplace Listings and Case Studies. This has been something that I have been regularly trying to do (as much time as I can each day). I would be willing to help in whatever capacity you can use me (I will continue to go through and review and give my +1's as necessary)!

While I'm not a webmaster, I agree with @tvn in terms of creating more structure. When I first started providing reviews, it was initially confusing and seemed to lack a "point person". Kudos to @tvn, @Alex UA, @greggles, and @stevepurkiss for providing me guidance and a more full understanding.

Alex

I haven't been very active in the last 6 months but am starting to get back into Drupal again. I don't feel comfortable, at this point, in signing up for a specific responsibility but I do try to help out where I can. I used to do a lot more back when the community was smaller and less rigid but, now, I mostly delete spam, especially on api.d.o which gets missed a lot.

The big frustration for me is that, often, I have the "power" to fix something but am unclear on the "rules" in that area. Whereas in the past I could just use my judgment and take care of something, these days there are a lot more hoops and complications and headache that I don't have time to keep on top of. Having clear documentation for how things are resolved would help a lot for anyone like me that wants to help when we have a minute without having to be actively involved in that area at all times.

Michelle

Added name to project ownership

I agree with @killes and @Michelle re concern over over-compartmentalizing webmaster duties. The bigger need is clarifying of rules and criteria for action, not designating separate czars. People come and go, get busy and then have tons of time, etc. Clear rules allow more people to act on items that heretofore have been ambiguous.

If we need leaders in areas, I'm supportive of that, as long as it doesn't tie the hands of webmasters with more concerns over stepping on toes.

I note that some of these areas require better tools. a.d.o is a separate site with separate permissions. Spam control requires all hands on deck, at least until we have some sort of automated system in place.

I am happy to help where ever the need is, as long as I have time. (E.g., case studies are difficult for me as they require a continuous block of an hour or more for careful reading and feedback, and I rarely have more than small windows. I tend to pop onto d.o issues as a break from other stuff.)

But the areas of unclarity are a concern, or (I feel) might be open to review. For example, our front-page promotion is appalling, but it's an extension of the policy in place with the old design. Even so, d.o with it's high activity should have much more happening in "promoted" posts than the odd announcement. But that's just my opinion, perhaps not held by others.

tl;dr:

• +1 for leads, as long as it's not restrictive
• +1 for clarifying policies and rules, so more webmasters feel free to act
• -1 for restrictive teams where webmasters end up not addressing an issue due to concern of stepping on toes, etc.

I was surprised to see so much concern over this proposal. I can perhaps give a different perspective, as someone who hasn't been working in the webmaster queue very long. I volunteered to be a "team lead" on project ownership issues. I started working on those issues when I noticed there was a backlog. But I had no idea what I was doing, and no idea who to ask about it. So I spent a couple hours looking at past issues to figure out how those issues are handled before I started addressing issues myself. Having established team leads seems like a good way to give everyone else someone to ask questions, which seems pretty crucial to getting new people involved. And getting new people involved seems pretty crucial to sustainability.

@sreynen ++

Well said and completely valid :)

I definitely support this effort, both to provide more transparency around existing "de-facto" leadership within the team, to provide more visible people to contact for new contributors, as well as the general move to de-couple those who expunge spammers and administer access permissions ("webmasters team") from those who administer d.o content like the front page and Drupal planet/marketplace additions ("content team").

We came up with a similar idea at the governance sprint, but won't have time to work on this for awhile. Grassroots organization++

I myself cannot sign up for leadership of any teams, but am more of a generalist who helps out in random bursts.

FWIW, I'd be happy to help out with the api.drupal.org component, as I have a fair familiarity with the functionality, since I maintain http://api.aegirproject.org. Of course all the heavy lifting happens over in http://drupal.org/project/api, et. al., and almost all the closed issues are spam reports...

I have no problem with team leaders. In fact, I've been practically begging for that very thing for probably 5 years now and was always told it was a bad idea. My only concern is making sure there is still a place for the "generalist who helps out in random bursts". That's me as well. I want to help out but can't spend hours researching how to respond to something. I just want to be able to go to a problem and fix it and move on.

Michelle

I haven't done any of this before, will watch out for Team leads for support. But would definitely be interested.

In a fairly related note, #1802492: Promote DSquaredB to be a site maintainer so she can work on marketplace issues is now fixed. Thanks for your work, DSquaredB! I think it would be appropriate for you to edit the original post and add yourself as a team lead on Marketplace.

Thanks, @greggles. Happy to help.

added myself as lead for site organization

I've had some great support since joining the case study team, and I'm sure this will continue, so I'm happy to put myself forward as case study lead.

Volunteered to be team lead for Marketplace issues and added name to the post

I think API.drupal.org should be removed - textual changes are handled in Drupal Core, UI/backend problems should be in Infra. (Spam, of course, is handled in webmasters but a seperate component isn't really necessary.

adding Tezza per his comment

If no one else wants to step forward, I am happy to add my name on Books since it is now grouped with Marketplace.

adding myself

moved my name to the Other content category

This would also be useful in:
https://drupal.org/project/content
https://drupal.org/project/infrastructure

Lots of projects have long issue, not particularly well maintained issue queues.

Lots of good ideas have gone to die in them. Lots of great work has been done too, but we need gnomes or gardeners to try to manage some of this.

We should probably have an alert or something to even remind us that an issue like this one has been inactive for so long. Someone should be prompted to do something about it.