Re: [boost] [xint] Formal Review Result

Subject: Re: [boost] [xint] Formal Review Result
From: Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. (jeffrey.hellrung_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-05-03 14:14:17

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 10:37 AM, Barend Gehrels <barend_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Hi Vladimir,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
>
>
>  The overall picture is still that the votes are split, and I did not use
>>>> specific percentages to make a decision.
>>>>
>>>
>>> In this case it goes (fraction fully counted) from 5/7 to 10/8, flips
>>> from negative to positive. Quite a difference. Even if the decision
>>> stays the same, it requires an extra motivation for rejecting the
>>> library.
>>>
>> This is not something I'd agree with. 10/8 is actually 55%. That's not
>> a sufficiently wide margin that the simple counting of votes can
>> reasonably
>> determine outcome.
>>
>
> I meant going from -2 to +2, but I agree that a negative decision is still
> valid with this percentage, votes are still split.
>
> What happened has happened, apologies accepted. We have to prevent this
> from happening again in the future.
>
[snip suggestions]

I don't know, I think Vladimir did his job as review manager more than
adequately.  I trust he went through the (many, many) list emails to
objectively form a big picture community consensus as to the standing of the
library, and reported that.  There's much, much more to the review process
than counting positive and negative votes.  Many negative votes shouldn't
prevent a library from being accepted, if the reasons for rejection are weak
(in the opinion of the review manager); likewise, I can see one negative
vote could be grounds for the rejection, if it raises sufficiently
concerning and major issues (again, in the opinion of the review manager),
although only under very particular circumstances.

It's pretty clear not all of us like the current review process methodology
(I remember past threads concerning improvements to the review process), and
it's far from perfect, but, I think, it's working: libraries *are* getting
reviewed (although they may languish in the queue for quite some time),
generally with a fair amount of participation from several parties; and
accepted libraries *are* getting added to Boost releases (although some
review results are delayed for quite some time after the review period has
ended).

Seems to me that nothing's going to get done by a lot of talk on the mailing
list, same as before.  If someone feels strongly about the review process,
they would probably have to take a more active role in managing of the next
review and coordinate with the review manager and library author to
implement and test the desired changes.

- Jeff