[meta] Improve issue management

Problem/Motivation

A recent Slack discussion indicated that there isn't a single solution for improving the way we work on issues. This issue is to gather all the core issues about that. I hope it will provide one place to see the big picture of what problems people are having and the existing range of possible solutions.

The intention of most of these issues is to make it easier and faster to get an issue resolved and committed. In, other words to remove blockers that are slowing us down. Also included are issues about the Core Gates because they define what must be done for a commit.

I have included any issue I found related to 'issue management'. They do not have to be addressed in this meta but I think it helps to provide the big picture. An example, is the issues in the Coding Standards project about reducing boilerplate documentation.

The issue(s) currently being worked on

• #3385864: [Plan] Simplify core component list

This issue is waiting for various manager review and subsystem maintainer review

Related wiki documentation

Getting an issue addressed sooner

The issues

Core Gates

• #3029206: [policy, no patch] Require functional test coverage for keyboard accessibility
• #3229101: [policy, no patch] Image optimization performance core gate

Issue Queue Management

• #3436864: [Policy, no patch] closing older issues
• #2492173: [policy, no patch] Establish a system for dealing with feature requests
• #2328093: Establish policies for external bots or tools that post or modify content on drupal.org

Git

Components

• #3385864: [Plan] Simplify core component list

Tooling

Drupal.org customizations issues

• #3199887: [meta] Tools to improve issue triage
  • #19386: Automatically search for duplicate issues/questions before submitting new issue/question
  • #1060798: Enable apachsolr 'related posts' block for issues (and forums?)
  • #2021489: [Policy] Automatically check whether 'needs review' patches apply and pass linting
  • #3199891: New block to highlight stale issues
  • #3199894: Bulk update issues to Closed (outdated) for abandoned projects and unsupported branches
  • #3357307: Get patch download statistics to inform core issue triage

Suggested improvements from other issues

From #1791872: [Policy, no patch] Add special tag to identify issues ready for a high level only review

• Do more self-RTBCs and keeping issues RTBC after posting changes
• Another options, 'E' Add status 'In progress' with tag 'Needs architectural review'
• An approval process (apparantly GitLab has this).
• More room for 'fixed on commit' from committers.
• Add a baseline for phpcs.
• Ignore non automated nitpicks, possible followup. These followup can be good for new contributors. However, there is concern about this due to the credit farming behaviors. Also, longer time to get stable state for new features (from #85).
• If you find nit-pick standard reviews, then update the patch yourself.
• Coding standards - remove boilerplate no longer needed

From #2706483: [policy, no patch] Policy to help less interested Patch move forward.

• Allowing self signing patched, with restrictions. See the issue summary for details.
• #3. Create a review swap area on d.o. A formal place to establish connections to do swaps.
• Wish Drupal has https://github.com/facebook/mention-bot. (also @see: https://code.facebook.com/posts/597378980427792/). See #5
• In general all stuff in https://github.com/servo/highfive/tree/master/handlers would be just amazing. See #9
• What we need here is a mark that "I think this is a change limited to its own namespace".. See #12

From #2972776: [policy, no patch] Better scoping for bug fix test coverage

• Allow trivial bug reports to be committed without test coverage, when generic test coverage scoped at a wider level, or CS/rector rules would be more appropriate.
• For non-trivial or low level bugfixes, continue to require test coverage on the issue since in these cases we need be able to demonstrate the bug is fixed without manual testing.

Proposed resolution

As a community work on one of these issues at a time to make incremental improvements. Although, the coding standards issues have a separate process, independent of this meta. They are listed for reference.

Completed

Core gates

• #2972776: [policy, no patch] Better scoping for bug fix test coverage
• #3002762: Defining the Drupal 8 frontend gate

Remove blockers

• #1272266: Strategies for far-reaching core patches
• #1791872: [Policy, no patch] Add special tag to identify issues ready for a high level only review
• #2706483: [policy, no patch] Policy to help less interested Patch move forward.
• #2729061: [policy, no patch] Agile process for bigger changes in core (Part B: Implementation)
• #3364512: [Meta] Run tests with phpcs fail

Issue Queue Management

• #2094585: [policy, no patch] Core review bonus
• #3156572: [policy, no patch] Adopt a set of guidelines for closing stale bug reports
• #3226762: Agree on policy on repeated posts
• #3323229: Proposal: consolidation period for D10.0.0

Git

• #1717676: Core commit credit and log messages are inconsistent between patches and merges
• #2323715: [policy, no patch] Determine format for commit credit for individuals/organizations/customers
• #2785539: [policy] Start using --author on drupal core as well
• #2811033: Discuss if git commit messages should be multiple lines
• #3220688: [policy] Use conventional commit format

Components

• #2147677: Sort values of "Component" field for core issues alphabetically
• #2660144: [Plan] Update core components

Coding standards project

• #3238192: Allow omitting @var for strictly typed class properties
• #2140961: Allow constructor methods to omit docblocks

Infrastructure issues

• #3317273: Set up a Drupal.org GitLab issues bot
• #3486271: Change format for git commit message for the Drupal Core project.