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"shellpolicy" keyword is badly named - rename to "community-consensus-needed"
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Description

Bugzilla's "shellpolicy" keyword should be renamed "needs-consensus". The current name is very confusing. A bug thread I participated in (49312) went back-and-forth on this keyword without me realizing the implications because I assumed it was simply describing the kind of system permissions needed to deploy the change. To be clear: the error is entirely my own. But I think we can make it less likely that other people will make the same mistake.


Version: wmf-deployment
Severity: normal

Details

Reference
bz49494

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 22 2014, 1:43 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz49494.

I think its also supposed to mean other political things to (Like if somebody requests to disable editing, and we might want to say no on the basis that's not the wiki way). But I agree, the keyword is confusing.

In general: +1.
Maybe even rename it to "needs-community-consensus"?

What is needed for this to be done?

(In reply to comment #3)

What is needed for this to be done?

Just a say so from Andre and his changing the keyword on lots of bugs & updating documentation on MediaWiki.org.

So I think I'd go for "community-consensus-needed".

I am CC'ing the default CC members for "Site requests" on this report (Petr, Dereckson, Tomasz, Snowolf).
The question is: Shall we rename "shellpolicy" to "community-consensus-needed"?
I want you all to be aware (as you need to set this), and would love to get "Good idea"/"Please don't do that"/"I don't care" feedback.

I think this will be an improvement over the current situation; certainly it'll help us avoid confusion and make things easier for new Bugzilla users.

I don't have any opinion about the exact wording of the new keyword; I'm OK with both "needs-community-consensus" and "community-consensus-needed" and will leave it up to you, Andre, to decide which version to introduce.

Aside from updating the necessary documentation on MediaWiki.org, I suggest that you also drop a short announcement e-mail onto wikitech-l so people know about this change. (Yeah, I know that's obvious, but here we go.)

(In reply to comment #3)

What is needed for this to be done?

Not sure what's the purpose of comment 8, Andre seems to be working on the change, or is at least planning to.

@Andre: I haven't been able to find any other documentation on MediaWiki.org, either, but I just remembered we have https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describekeywords.cgi. While updating this page, could you also remove all mentions of the "patch-in-gerrit" keyword since you removed it a while ago? Thanks :-)

Petr, Dereckson, Snowolf: Any comments (or just an "OK, I've seen this and don't care)? If not I'll go ahead soon.

Keyword name changed; description updated to link to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes , small improvement to wikipage made ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes&diff=6331806&oldid=5670215 ), and updated the one wikipage that mentioned "shellpolicy" ( https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Shell_requests&diff=818355&oldid=672352 ).

Closing as RESOLVED FIXED.

(In reply to comment #9)

While updating this page, could you also remove all mentions of the
"patch-in-gerrit" keyword since you removed it a while ago?

Oops, thanks, also fixed now.

Yes, community-consensus-needed is a fine keyword, this will be clearer to understand by bugzilla newcomers. Thank you to have clarified this one.

"shellpolicy" is not only about "community consensus needed", moreover the new name is too broad and vague (despite being so long) and is already causing disruption (see bug 56346). I suggest reverting.

(In reply to comment #14)

"shellpolicy" is not only about "community consensus needed"

What else? (I can imagine a little bit, but your descriptive words might simply be helpful to improve this.)

, moreover the new
name is too broad and vague (despite being so long) and is already causing
disruption (see bug 56346). I suggest reverting.

How was the old name clearer? Or any other proposal you have in mind?

I think it's fine. But if we need to change it (again), maybe something like 'request-needs-consensus'?

(In reply to comment #15)

(In reply to comment #14)

"shellpolicy" is not only about "community consensus needed"

What else? (I can imagine a little bit, but your descriptive words might
simply
be helpful to improve this.)

See comment 1, comment 7 and follow links; e.g. [[m:Limits to configuration changes]].

, moreover the new
name is too broad and vague (despite being so long) and is already causing
disruption (see bug 56346). I suggest reverting.

How was the old name clearer? Or any other proposal you have in mind?

The old name was clearer because it had a clear prefix, shell-, which clearly connected this keyword to its sibling (and opposite) "shell". I suggest to keep "shell" (or shell's new name) as prefix.
If "policy" is not a clear word, we could use "on hold". So shell-onhold for instance.

Nemo: Could the keyword description in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describekeywords.cgi instead be improved (to mention that the request has to come from wiki communities, for example), or information on the linked page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes ?

(In reply to comment #18)

Nemo: Could the keyword description in
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describekeywords.cgi instead be improved (to
mention that the request has to come from wiki communities, for example), or
information on the linked page
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes ?

Maybe, but people don't look at descriptions. Bad names are very hard to compensate, no description will avoid us the confusion with the current onw.

I think the current one is lessing confusing and more descriptive than the previous one.

(In reply to comment #17)

The old name was clearer because it had a clear prefix, shell-, which clearly
connected this keyword to its sibling (and opposite) "shell".

It's pretty lame that the keywords input on the Bugzilla form can't accept "consensus" as a match for "community-consensus-needed". The input appears to be strictly prefix-based for suggestions.

I suggest to keep "shell" (or shell's new name) as prefix.

My general view here is that the keywords field is basically a tool for Bugzilla power-users and any random user who tries to use this field will invariably do it wrong. Even experienced users (like me!) will sometimes screw up, regardless of how clear the keyword _or_ its description text is. (And I agree that nobody ever reads these description texts.)

Bugzilla keywords are simple markers of particular patterns. Let's not overcomplicate this. :-) shellpolicy was bad and community-consensus-needed is better. If we can find something even better than community-consensus-needed, we can use that. shell-onhold doesn't seem to be any better, though.

(In reply to comment #21)

(In reply to comment #17)

The old name was clearer because it had a clear prefix, shell-, which clearly
connected this keyword to its sibling (and opposite) "shell".

It's pretty lame that the keywords input on the Bugzilla form can't accept
"consensus" as a match for "community-consensus-needed".

That's easy to fix, just drop the community- part. :)