BMO/Request Queue Proposal

Problems

• We have a large backlog of un-serviced requests, particularly requests for review
• New and existing contributors get discouraged by long wait times for review, or request fulfilment

Proposal

Declare Request Bankruptcy

Let's keep it simple. We should unilaterally cancel all requests older than 6 months. We would add an explanatory apologetic comment, inviting requesters to re-request the flag if they felt it was still relevant. bug 688464

Set Up Whines

• Write a Bugzilla extension which whines about outstanding requests - bug 682847.
• Emails about this are sent to every account with requests outstanding.

Change Expectations

• Set up a community expectation that all requests should be addressed within two weeks at the very most, or reassigned.
• Those paid to work on Mozilla are free to set tighter expectations for themselves or their managees, such as daily reviews.
• Help reviewers to understand that fulfilling a request is not the only way of resolving it; they can ask for more information, or for a discussion, or for a patch breakup.

Metrics

• Start gathering per-product metrics on how many requests are older than a week, and other relevant metrics - bug 679080.

Corner Cases

Requests With No Requestee

(Also known as 'requests from the wind'). Usually this isn't what the user wants, and I think the right way to deal with it is to set up a query listing all such requests older than a week. We could then auto-add a comment saying "is this really what you meant to do?". Another alternative is cancelling the request, but that seems a bit drastic; sometimes people don't _know_ who the right person is. The last option is reassigning it to the default owner of the selected component.

Requests On Closed Bugs

This is generally a bad practice, but perhaps out of scope for this initiative. As long as the requests are of a particular person, they will still get notified and nagged.