Bugzilla Reward System

[Paul Backus]

On Friday, 17 September 2021 at 12:39:42 UTC, RazvanN wrote:
>
> Given that points are obtained depending on severity, my 
> expectation is that reviewers will pay more attention to it 
> when a PR is submitted. In addition, people that try to score 
> as much points as possible will be interested in making sure 
> that the competition does get the right amount of points. 
> Therefore, I think that the rewarding system will improve the 
> status quo with regards to labeling bugs.

My "null hypothesis" expectation is that, absent guidance, 
reviewers will continue to do what they have always done, which 
is to pay no attention to the severity at all (except for 
regressions).

I think that this system has the *potential* to improve the 
status quo, but it will take some effort to actually get 
reviewers to change their habits. At minimum, we will need to

1. Write down a set of guidelines for how to use the "severity" 
field on Bugzilla.
2. Copy+paste and/or link to those guidelines in all of our 
existing instructions for contributors, including:
     * The `CONTRIBUTING.md` files of the `dmd`, `druntime`, and 
`phobos` repositories.
     * Wiki articles like [Get involved][1], [Starting as a 
Contributor][2], and [Guidelines for maintainers][3].
     * The comment that [dlang-bot][4] adds automatically to all 
new PRs.

[1]: https://wiki.dlang.org/Get_involved
[2]: https://wiki.dlang.org/Starting_as_a_Contributor
[3]: https://wiki.dlang.org/Guidelines_for_maintainers
[4]: https://github.com/dlang/dlang-bot