This idea comes from @kristiaanvandeneynde, and I think it is awesome! :D
We have a series of tags at https://www.drupal.org/issue-tags/special that we use as a means of "checklist" of what's left to get an issue to RTBC and committed.
For example, #540008: Add a container parameter that can remove the special behavior of UID#1 has been blocked on "Needs usability review" for 4 months (!).
Completely randomly, I ran into @kristiaanvandeneynde at DrupalCon Vienna, and he asked how to clear that tag. In the case of "Needs usability review", we have weekly meetings in #ux on Drupal Slack which is a forum for people to bring patches like this to the UX team for review/sign-off. However, had he not been sitting right next to me and asked, he would never have known this.
We can/should document this on https://www.drupal.org/issue-tags/special (and I will right after this), but that only helps people the first time they're looking to see how issue tags work; thereafter they're unlikely to ever look at those docs again.
Kristiaan's idea was to create an automated comment, akin to the commit credit and other system message comments, that writes the "how to resolve" steps for each of these special tags. I think this is brilliant, especially if there is a UI for this where project maintainers can adjust these instructions over time as steps to resolve change (e.g. we get better testing, or new processes, or what have you).
Comments
Comment #2
kristiaanvandeneyndeSo the thing we need to be really careful about is the automated replies getting stale. We can't retroactively update certain comments (I think?), so maybe we should have more generic automated comments pointing you to a set of instructions. Something along the lines of:
With the last bit containing a link to the tag's documented steps to take for the issue to move forward.
I'm not a UX expert, though, so I don't know if that's the best way to phrase it. The only concern I have is that the automated reply an issue got several months ago might no longer apply when someone actually picks it up again.
Comment #3
drummWe can update comments.
I’d be worried about the comments getting out of hand, like something needing multiple rounds of usability review, and getting the tag added & removed multiple times. Or the description getting too wordy. We don’t want something that gets in the way of people who know the tags, although a reminder about what exactly a tag means is good for everyone.
Maybe there is a way to get these explained along with the tags in the sidebar.
Comment #4
kristiaanvandeneyndeIf we can retroactively edit comments, we can clean up the previous ones regarding the same tag. Gets rid of the spam.
Comment #5
drummA tricky part about updating old comments is finding them. We either need to rely on string matching, add a field, or otherwise track special comment IDs.
Comment #6
webchickThat might be another reason to use the sidebar for this vs. comments; this way there's only one thing to update and it updates everywhere at once.
Changing the issue title to be a bit more generic and less prescriptive about the solution. The main thing is that there's some indicator on the issue of what things are left to sort out and how.
Comment #7
drummLooks like this is not a new idea: #2013222: Add "Issue tasks" to project issues and correlate tasks with handbook documentation