Minetest_game: 'Concept approved' issues to help people contribute to MTGame

[paramat]

I was contacted by someone concerned about the experienced difficulty of contributing to MTGame due to not knowing what is acceptable or wanted.

When we have a task that we want to offer to contributors to code, the request is often buried in discussions and not easily findable or searchable. In this situation i suggest that we open a new issue, labelled 'Concept approved' that specifies what is essential in the contribution, so that the contributor at least knows there is a fair chance of their work being accepted and not wasted.

I'll add the label and start with one i have in mind.

[rubenwardy]

how about an approved label? To indicate that we're willing to accept fixes

[paramat]

Maybe i misunderstand but you mean the issue needs to be approved by 2 core devs? Certainly each issue will be the place core devs can discuss what is required so i guess the list of requirements do need approving.

[rubenwardy]

No, just one can mark it as approved. No need to be so strict.
"Contributor task" is oddly phrased imo.
Maybe something like "Concept Approved" or "PRs Accepted"

[paramat]

Changed label to 'Specific PR request'.

[Fixer-007]

Just rename it to "Outside help needed"

[rubenwardy]

Specific PR request is still vague, I do think it should be Concept approved or PR Guidance Given

or maybe "Contributions Welcome"

[Ezhh]

I like Concept Approved. Not knowing when a concept is approved seems to be the problem, so that would help a great deal.

The only issue I see is if one dev likes a suggestion and marks it Concept Approved, then the others don't... but marking them as such would also give the other devs opportunity to speak up if they don't agree, and we'd then (hopefully) see a debate to settle it.

[Fixer-007]

"Contributions Welcome"

nice one

[MarkuBu]

Well, I don't contribute anymore because it is gauntlet running to make a PR. You sometimes have to wait weeks until something happens, than you should make dozens of changes an you have to rebase over and over again because something else has changed while you wait.

And all of that just because of a few lines of code.

[Ezhh]

About "Contributions Welcome" - I'd like to think they are always welcome! What I want to know is when a concept/idea has approval. It's possible to say "Contributions Welcome" on any issue without offering any concept as to how the issue should be solved, whereas "Concept Approved" would actually require a concept.

[paramat]

Ok thanks i was finding it difficult to come up with a suitable label.

MarkBu, i can understand anyone feeling that way, contributing to an understaffed free open source project is difficult. It's almost inevitable since the number of contributions is likely to always exceed the ability of unpaid devs' to give the necessary attention.
I suspect what then happens is that many get fed up and stop contributing, so the number of contributors falls (which then improves the attention the remaining contributions get) until the system finds a balance =)

I can assure you being a MT core dev is even more difficult =)

[MarkuBu]

I can understand, that being a core dev is difficult. This doesn't change the fact that merging a PR is sometimes more strenuous than writing and testing the actual code. That takes away the fun.

[paramat]

Yes i agree that the submission and arguments, dealing with people, is the hardest part (not even sometimes, most of the time). When i was a contributor it didn't remove the fun for me, it was still worth it, just. However i can understand some people not finding it worthwhile.

I think open source development is inherently the hardest form of development, and you have to be crazy to be a core dev, luckily there are crazy people around, like me and others, the "random bunch of lunatics" as described by c55.

[rubenwardy]

done