Improving the validation process

[RMcGirr83]

Not that it's a whole lot better, but the only extension of yours in the queue is from 10/20 (which is now set to be approved, according to the previously stated changes, so should make it out soon). If you have something you think you sent on 10/11 that hasn't been validated please point it out.

Sorry should have said October mea culpa. Due to the amount of extensions I have submitted it is entirely impossible for me to point out which one's are still in the queue...unless I'm missing it somewhere in the CDB. However I'm pretty sure it's easy enough for the team leader to find out as there are currently 13 in the queue.

The rest of your comment seems to imply that I somehow have the power as team lead to force others to do work, which I don't, or that I should maybe punish those that go missing for some time by removing them, which does the exact opposite of what we're trying to accomplish.

No one said "force" but you can prod or query, yes?

phpBB is an organization that is comprised of teams led by the project manager (to this day I have zero idea what that person does). Typically in an organization leaders of teams "lead from the front", "lead by example", etc. It is also common for other teams to reach out if a team is falling behind in obligations or not meeting deadlines or just asking if they need assistance. I left the validation team because, quite honestly, I got burned out as it seemed, at least to me at the time, that I was the only one code reviewing extensions. A leader should recognize when that may, or will, happen with a member of that particular team.

The very definition of the word "team" when used as a verb is "come together as a team to achieve a common goal."

I'm in Natural Stone, out of healthcare, as the CFO of a company with 4 locations. When I see or know the warehouse is struggling with emptying 19 tons of granite/marble/quartzite/etc. from a shipping container (and we have received 5 containers on one day mind you with 2 workers in the warehouse), I reach out to see if I can somehow help. It's, generally, waved off as my forklift skills suck but it has also been accepted and thanked as I know how to work a sawzall and a pry bar. At least I ask...but I digress.

All the teams in phpBB seem to be in their own private Idaho. Y'all are Islands incapable of spanning the vast sea to lend a hand to another Island.

As someone that has served in various capacities in at least 2 different phpBB Teams I would have expected you to have more empathy or understanding.

I think I've been quite a bit empathetic and understanding as I haven't raised a stink about the very lengthy validation process. For two months, October and November, there was zero activity from the validation team, as far as I remember, when looking at the queue statistics. Is it beyond the leader of the team to validate or is that "not my job"? I'm curious what power you think you have if any. On second thought I don't really care anymore. I'm completely apathetic with the whole phpBB "open source community" concept.

OFF TOPIC: It seems completely odd that the team leader of the infrastructure team sends out the validation PM's. Why wouldn't that come from the team leader of the customization team? But again, I really don't care.

[Crizzo]

OFF TOPIC: It seems completely odd that the team leader of the infrastructure team sends out the validation PM's. Why wouldn't that come from the team leader of the customization team? But again, I really don't care.

God may save us, people who have time, use them to speed up the process. We are still looking for speed it up, not make it slower, right?

[Paul]

OFF TOPIC: It seems completely odd that the team leader of the infrastructure team sends out the validation PM's. Why wouldn't that come from the team leader of the customization team? But again, I really don't care.

Because he was jumping from his private island to hand some help with another team that needed help. And also because he is actually part of the extensions team. And also because we have the internal policy that someone else handles the approve/deny as the validator that did the validation.

[warmweer]

The very mistery to me is to see you as a Jr Ext. validator, as you did not contribute in any way with MODs or Extensions in all your life here.

I overlooked something in this phrase.
In phpBB2 there was no option for a user to save a preferred post sort order. I made a mod which did exactly that (for subsilver and Aeolus style). That feature actually became a default feature in phpBB 3.0
And, I also assisted (in private) with a couple of other phpBB2 mods (there's no record of that).
For 3.0 I made quite a large mod for myself for identifying double accounts ((later adapted for phpBB3.2 as heavy custom coding), not released publicly due to the privacy implications and the subject of one of my boards ( terminated last year). This was also used by another member of phpBB (still active).
As to other phpBB3.0 mods, I tested quite a few (a hobby of mine) and (when necessary) informed the authors about errors, both functional and code-wise.
And almost forgot, there was a problem with emailing in phpBB2 at one time or another and a phpBB developer ask me to test the emailer as he was developing/modifying. (which I did and the feedback I gave helped in identifying and solving the problem).
So strictly speaking "not contribute in any way" isn't correct, unless you add "as far as I'm aware of"

So if I were you I'd be asking myself some questions, as the pond is small and only leeches circulate, ...

I'm not taking this personally (in fact I don't think this was directed at me anyway, I could be wrong) but there's a difference between being blunt and being outrightly rude. Statements like that draw the attention away from the valid points you make, which is a pity.



edited: apparently the word rude was missing, added that now

[DavidIQ]

Is it beyond the leader of the team to validate or is that "not my job"?

I've been the one doing the validating for the past month. I can't help that my speed isn't up to your standards. I'll admit that I haven't been paying enough attention to the queue, but it's being remediated. As an aside your continued attacks on the leadership here says more about your management and leadership skills, or lack thereof, than ours.

[DavidIQ]

Validated or not users will be able to download and install extensions via the ACP.

Of course the current status quo will continue, but browsing for and directly downloading from our site in the ACP will only be possible through the CDB, unless of course you change the packages source.

[david63]

but browsing for and directly downloading from our site in the ACP will only be possible through the CDB, unless of course you change the packages source.

Well unless there is to be some hard coding in place anything that is in packagist will be accessible as that is a basic option.

This topic seems to be going off course and might as well be closed because from what has been said even though things are not working, nothing is going to change in the foreseeable future.

[RMcGirr83]

As an aside your continued attacks on the leadership here says more about your management and leadership skills, or lack thereof, than ours.

And that right there is enough for me. What you see as an attack, I see as constructive criticism. Learn the difference. Ciao!

[warmweer]

And that right there is enough for me. What you see as an attack, I see as constructive criticism. Learn the difference. Ciao!

Although not entirely unbiased, I can look at this discussion in an objective way (part of my professional experience) and frankly speaking, the way the criticism is outed (I'll keep it general) is far from constructive.
Neither is leaving phpBB, the board in which you have put a lot energy, be it as Team Member, extension author or member providing (appreciated) support in the forums (BTW that also applies to 3Di).
There will be always be differences in opinion about methods but the point is (well ?!, at least I think so) to find common ground, not to dig a trench.

An outsider reading this topic would get the impression that the current Validators are lazy, the Jr Validators worthless, the validation system inherently flawed, oh almost forgot, the Team leader incompetent, etc... but I haven't seen anything positive mentioned yet, except perhaps for the cliché that it was so much better in the old days. (and if there were positive things mentioned, for me they were completely drowned by the finger pointing).

Added after rereading the whole topic: I think the topic started OK with some proposals by david63, Ger and rxu (forgive me if forgot to mention others - failing short term memory).

[GTI]

The problem here is there are too many funny attitudes on this board,

For example if you (and two people in this topic do) write posts and finish them with "no need to reply" this says a lot about your ability to have a discussion. (3Di and warmweer) this basically says "I have had my say - your say is irrelevant"

3Di I see lots of rude posts from you on here, maybe it is translation, you seem to have adopted a moderating approach of moaning about things that are off topic recently when often you do exactly that, the other day you replied to axe70's topic in this very forum and started going off onto why you wouldn't use his extension - he wasn't asking you to use it.

david63 I see you moaning about the validation process but there are a couple of posts in your extensions in development topics asking for help which you haven't bothered to reply to or you have said you would look at it in a few days and then never bothered.

The point here is we can all pick faults with others but can we say we don't have faults ourselves? i don't think so.

Overall there are people in this topic who are moaning at or moaning about team members and validators, picking out various issues - but they aren't putting forward their idea of how they think things should be... if they have a vision about the future of phpBB put it in an appropriate topic, if they have a vision about the validation process put it here,

My thoughts...

1. We know there is a shortage of validators - this is what is needed.
2. There are plenty of experienced extension writers on this site.
3. Are they capable of validating extensions?
4. Do they want to?
5. If not - why not?

I think that if extension writers / style developers were allowed to advertise their premium extensions / styles on here - they may well be more inclined to want to help the project going forward.

Xenforo has paid for styles listed in their customisation area.

So if there was a threshold, say 3 x validated extensions or 3 x validated styles qualifies you to be able to advertise your extension / style on here - they may be more willing to take on roles as volunteer validators - they wouldn't be able to validate their own work.

3Di rightly pointed out that extensions are one of the reasons phpBB is still going strong, a volunteer project isn't going to get the best people wanting to work for free, why would you want to spend your time doing something you are good at for free? you wouldn't

However if there is incentives like having your paid extensions and styles listed in the database besides the free ones - the experienced ones may be more willing to help and also a wave of newbies would take more interest in the project.

The end result is - they will be helping phpBB by volunteering, phpBB will be helping them - some people would not need to use sites like ThemeForest etc.

I'm sure this post will get taken down but this is the white elephant in the room, at the minute volunteers don't get anything in return, they have their own jobs/lives, they don't want money but small incentives like the ability to advertise their paid work - would inspire them being more motivated to put the time in to the project.

You could even say they must create 1 x free validated extension or style per year on top of the 3 x threshold to ensure they are giving back to the project.

At the end of the day - everyone who creates an extension or a style is helping keep phpBB going, if phpBB gives them the opportunity to get something in return - more people will be willing to help and give their free time to phpBB.

The harsh reality is, those volunteers who are here - are not going to be here forever, take warmweer - with 3Di's personal attacks on him, if he didn't have thick skin he could have easily been alienated and said he wanted out, people don't volunteer to get abused do they... and why does being a 'former team member' allow you to get away with such personal attacks which would get any standard member banned, these personal attacks are from a guy in his 50's, any youngster looking in from the outside will be put straight off volunteering by that behaviour.

At some point you have to say - yes you make valuable contributions but that doesn't mean you can treat people the way you do, NO individual is bigger than phpBB - but with no incentives volunteers aren't going to step up to replace.

In order to succeed you have to make sure standards are the same ALL across the board, people with no respect become a disease and that demoralises and brings the whole team down, the captain of the team must insure respect is there.

I have been user of phpBB since long time but this topic shows that volunteers are drying up and that means the project will dry up, it's time to have an attitude change, how many times do we see ideas shot down and mocked, this doesn't encourage said person to come up with a better idea, it just makes them run.

We have to remember a lot of the ideas posted are from forum administrators and reflect the views of their forum users... some of those who mock and shoot down their ideas no longer run or never have run a forum themselves, so we should be more approachable by forum administrators because ultimately without them the project would not be what it is today... who knows what forum users want? people that actually run a forum.

No need to reply

[warmweer]

The harsh reality is, those volunteers who are here - are not going to be here forever, take warmweer - with 3Di's personal attacks on him, if he didn't have thick skin he could have easily been alienated and said he wanted out, people don't volunteer to get abused do they... and why does being a 'former team member' allow you to get away with such personal attacks which would get any standard member banned, these personal attacks are from a guy in his 50's, any youngster looking in from the outside will be put straight off volunteering by that behaviour.

For what it's worth - the "verbal assaults", be they from 3Di or anyone else don't bother me too much. Each has his/her own style of expressing him/herself but the content is usually more important than the packaging. I respect 3Di for what he has done (and still does) for phpBB but differences in opinion will always be there and is some cases he' ll be right and in most cases I'll be right (for the sake of clarity : I'm joking - I don't really mean that).

I do agree that (particularly in this topic because it's public) we should stick to productive remarks (that does include the mentioning of things that go wrong), perhaps even limit this discussion to contributors only (phpBB staff, extension authors, perhaps also members with some seniority, IMHO not guests) but it's a bit late for that.

[david63]

david63 I see you moaning about the validation process but there are a couple of posts in your extensions in development topics asking for help which you haven't bothered to reply to or you have said you would look at it in a few days and then never bothered.

I have not been "moaning" about the validation process but answering the original quest of how it can be improved. In order to improve something it is necessary to identify what/where the problems are.

As for not responding to questions perhaps you should consider that some of us have, at times, more important things going on in their life - such as serious health issues.

but they aren't putting forward their idea of how they think things should be

I trust you are not including me in that statement, in which case you must have missed this viewtopic.php?p=15795446#p15795446

if they have a vision about the future of phpBB put it in an appropriate topic

I already have, perhaps you missed this viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2607651

this topic shows that volunteers are drying up and that means the project will dry up

This is a point I have been trying to get across for a few years now

[rxu]

That's all interesting battles to read, but I see only 2 options here:
1) make validation team having more members actively reviewing the code;
2) make validation process more effective/simple/automated/less-strict-codewise/etc to speed up validation having same or less validation team members count.
Ideally - both ways (doesn't seem to be reachable I guess). Currently 2nd is the only option to go imho.

[3Di]

The problem here is there are too many funny attitudes on this board,

SNIP

No need to reply

The point

I thought this topic was devoted to extension writers only. (Which applies to everyone here)
That is, everyone who has at least one experience of validating their code in the CDB, nobody cares, at least here in this topic, whether you have written code in your life or not, but if you have (in case) submitted it for validation and could then report back on that.

Unless I am getting lost in translation?

As per the topic starter:

Hello Extension Writers,

SNIP

This topic is so that you, the Extension Writers, can share your feedback on the validation process and share ideas that you think can improve the process.

All other off-topic comments, at least on my part, are ignored as not deserving of attention.
BTW, if you have problems with who posts and what, you can report the posts, I should not be the one to tell you. Not to be rude you know, but please reply here only if you are eligible, see The point.

[david63]

Well if nothing else it would appear that this topic has suddenly managed to reduce the validation queue to one