[Engineering] [Wikitech-l] Gerrit now automatically adds reviewers

Fri Jan 18 13:25:40 UTC 2019

Hi Thiemo, hi all,

given my strong support for T78768 and the connection to this change,
I would like to express my regrets to the engineers blocked by the
change in Gerrit. As typical for strike actions, it disrupts the usual
business. However, I see the positive effect that people are made
aware of the fact that the code review process needs to be improved.

While I am happy with the code review duration of the patches I submit
today, I had problems to get the (obviously bad) code I wrote in the
beginning reviewed. I guess one of the main reasons for the
improvement is that I know the reviewers in person, today.

However, visiting Hackathons and annoying WMF employees in their
offices is not something that scales. Therefore, the review process
needs to be changed. After years of discussion and only little changes
to the process, this change brings this important but not urgent topic
to the agenda, which I appreciate.

To my experience Thiemo ist one of the most predictable (=good) code
reviewers. I am more than happy that he shared his process in his
email. I think his code reviewing procedure is exemplary and should
act as a general template. Thank you Thiemo.

One last hopefully constructive point. To my experience, the most
annoying experience in waiting for CR is when multiple reviewers are
requested and no feedback is provided. My wish would be that the state
of the patch is visualized in the (Gerrit) UI. So that the submitter
of the patch knows the state of the change and can estimate how long
it might take until the patch proceeds to the next stage.

Happy coding
physikerwelt

On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 1:25 PM MA <strigiwm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I agree with what Giuseppe Lavagetto and Jaime Crespo said.
>
> In my case, I am now getting review requests from several repos I
> contributed some time in the past, but for which I'm not a qualified
> reviewer. The plugin is also adding bots to review changes such as in
> <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/485174>.
>
> While I think it is certainly a good idea to help people find
> reviewers for their patches, I feel this plugin as it is now is going
> to achieve the contrary (mail blindness due to too many emails).
>
> I suggest we disable the plugin until at least Paladox's blacklist
> could be implemented and so we are given the choice to opt-out from
> it.
>
> Thank you, M.
>
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