Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

Hi,

I had an unanswered question which was auto-expired overnight.

I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
people going through their lists will see it and answer it?

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Launchpad Janitor <question35010@answers.launchpad.net>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Question #35010]: List of all mailing lists enabled in Launchpad
To: matthew.east@gmail.com


Your question #35010 on Launchpad itself changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/35010

Status: Open => Expired

Launchpad Janitor expired the question:
This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state
without activity for the last 15 days.

--
If you're still having this problem, you can reopen your question either
by replying to this email or by going to the following page and
entering more information about your problem:
https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/35010

You received this question notification because you are a direct
subscriber of the question.

--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

Matthew East sagte:
> I had an unanswered question which was auto-expired overnight.
>
> I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
> wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
> people going through their lists will see it and answer it?


Surely the time frame for expiring questions could be questioned but not
the fact that questions need to be expired if no answer is found or given.

When I look at the list of questions, I look for recent open questions. I
do not go too far back in looking, mostly because there is usually
something I can have a say in within the first page. I cannot imagine
anybody going through the lists and searching for old open questions.

So it makes sense to me to expire unanswered questions at some time.

Henning


--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

On June 18, 2008, Matthew East wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I had an unanswered question which was auto-expired overnight.
>
> I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
> wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
> people going through their lists will see it and answer it?

We expire unanswered questions because if it wasn't answered in 15 days, there
is practically no chance that it will get answered without new information.
For the Launchpad case, it's different because we use it more as an RT
system, so expiry is kind of annoying. We are working on a plan to improve
the response time in that forum.

--
Francis J. Lacoste
francis.lacoste@canonical.com
--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

Hiya,

Thanks for the quick reply.

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Francis J. Lacoste
<francis.lacoste@canonical.com> wrote:
> On June 18, 2008, Matthew East wrote:
>> I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
>> wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
>> people going through their lists will see it and answer it?
>
> We expire unanswered questions because if it wasn't answered in 15 days, there
> is practically no chance that it will get answered without new information.

I'm quite surprised by that, because I know on web forums there is
generally a decent push to address "Unanswered posts", even if they
are quite old. However, if your decision was based on statistical
analysis of the questions that get answered in Launchpad, then I guess
it makes sense.

> For the Launchpad case, it's different because we use it more as an RT
> system, so expiry is kind of annoying. We are working on a plan to improve
> the response time in that forum.

Ok, I will reopen this particular one. I believe a few other projects
use it in a similar way to an RT system though.

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 02:58:09PM +0100, Matthew East wrote:
> I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
> wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
> people going through their lists will see it and answer it?

Ultimately it depends on how burdened the group answering the questions
is. If you never expire and your backlog is gigantic, you end up with
ubuntu-bugs-syndrome, where even though you can improve process dealing
with new bugs, the volume of old bugs dwarfs that.

> From: Launchpad Janitor <question35010@answers.launchpad.net>
> Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 8:38 AM
> Subject: Re: [Question #35010]: List of all mailing lists enabled in Launchpad
> To: matthew.east@gmail.com
>
>
> Your question #35010 on Launchpad itself changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/35010
>
> Status: Open => Expired
>
> Launchpad Janitor expired the question:
> This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state
> without activity for the last 15 days.

In this case, it also helps that expiration raises attention to an
unanswered question: we have many people answering and every once in a
while one falls through the cracks. If you really care about it, you'll
reopen it and I'll definitely notice that.
--
Christian Robottom Reis | http://async.com.br/~kiko/ | [+55 16] 3376 0125

--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Christian Robottom Reis
<kiko@canonical.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 02:58:09PM +0100, Matthew East wrote:
>> I'm slightly surprised that an unanswered question would be expired:
>> wouldn't it be better to leave unanswered questions open so that
>> people going through their lists will see it and answer it?
>
> Ultimately it depends on how burdened the group answering the questions
> is. If you never expire and your backlog is gigantic, you end up with
> ubuntu-bugs-syndrome, where even though you can improve process dealing
> with new bugs, the volume of old bugs dwarfs that.

Ok, so I guess it could be optional for the particular project.

> In this case, it also helps that expiration raises attention to an
> unanswered question: we have many people answering and every once in a
> while one falls through the cracks. If you really care about it, you'll
> reopen it and I'll definitely notice that.

I can't find a button to reopen it... do I file a new one?

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

On June 18, 2008, Matthew East wrote:
> > In this case, it also helps that expiration raises attention to an
> > unanswered question: we have many people answering and every once in a
> > while one falls through the cracks. If you really care about it, you'll
> > reopen it and I'll definitely notice that.
>
> I can't find a button to reopen it... do I file a new one?

You just just add some info to the request.

Something like:

"Hey Kiko, please look at this!"

/me hides

--
Francis J. Lacoste
francis.lacoste@canonical.com
--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

So, as I'm looking to file another support question soon, I decided to
do a straw poll of how many of the most recent expired questions, and
see who hadn't responded to the question.


The URL:
https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/launchpad/+questions?field.search_text=&field.sort=RELEVANCY &field.sort-empty-marker=1&field.actions.search=Search&field.languag e=en&field.language-empty-marker=1&field.status=EXPIRED&field.status-empty-marker=1


The result:
* 11 questions expired because launchpad developers never got back to
their users.
* 1 question expired where the user never got back to the launchpad
developers.


I brought this up a while ago, when my last question got expired twice
without any response, and was told that it would get better. Will it?
Was the most recent 12 questions just a bad indication, and this trend
is not happening?


Or should we use another way of contacting launchpad developers to get
stuff changed, as we can't do it ourselves, or it's broken, so we can't.


Hobbsee

--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

Hi Hobbsee,

I mailed the LP devs internally about this, and Martin Pool correctly
suggested that we should have the discussion on launchpad-users, so
I'll summarise what's been said so far, then things can go from there.

The conversation so far, which I've tried to edit for clarity:

Gavin Panella (me) started:
> Hobbsee is mentioning that it's difficult to reach the LP devs via
> Answers. Looking at it, very few of us are answer contacts for
> Launchpad itself.
>
> If we all became Answer Contacts for Launchpad, would this help get
> questions answered?
>
> Is there anything else tangible we can do to make this better?
>
> Is Hobbsee's observation not actually a problem?


Julian Edwards replied:
> I would rather see questions triaged through someone, maybe Joey's
> team,
> before developers get involved.
> ...
> Having said that, I am an answer contact for Soyuz as it's fairly
> low volume.

Martin Pool:
> Looking at the answers [Hobbsee] linked:
>
> * some of them are misplaced or confused (how to install/uninstall
> Ubuntu)
> * some are things that really need help from a Launchpad admin, I
> think - like removing content or an account - or at least a brief
> reply to say you're not going to do them
> * some really are questions and need someone dedicated to answering
> them (if answering them is a good idea) - or maybe to be put into a
> place where they will be answered by other users
> * some are bugs


Tom Berger:
> Regular traiging by a responsible group, with regular reports on the
> status of the questions queue (maybe in the team meeting?)
>
> We should also arrange for an announcer, similar to the one we have
> for bugs in #launchpad.
> ...
> Responding quickly to user's queries is something we should be
> able to do well (we've got near universal coverage).


That's all so far.

My feeling is that this is a matter of (un)awareness rather than devs
ignoring users. Martin's comment shows that we are missing things,
and, regardless of our intent (or lack of), this gets perceived as the
devs ignoring users. I like Tom's ideas about regular reports and an
announcer, and I think doing one or both of those would help.

I've added an item about this to the agenda for today's developer
meeting.

Gavin.


On 17 Jul 2008, at 05:15, Sarah Hobbs wrote:

> So, as I'm looking to file another support question soon, I decided
> to do a straw poll of how many of the most recent expired questions,
> and see who hadn't responded to the question.
>
> The URL: https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/launchpad/+questions?field.search_text=&field.sort=RELEVANCY &field.sort-empty-marker=1&field.actions.search=Search&field.languag e=en&field.language-empty-marker=1&field.status=EXPIRED&field.status-empty-marker=1
>
> The result:
> * 11 questions expired because launchpad developers never got back
> to their users.
> * 1 question expired where the user never got back to the launchpad
> developers.
>
> I brought this up a while ago, when my last question got expired
> twice without any response, and was told that it would get better.
> Will it? Was the most recent 12 questions just a bad indication, and
> this trend is not happening?
>
> Or should we use another way of contacting launchpad developers to
> get stuff changed, as we can't do it ourselves, or it's broken, so
> we can't.
>
> Hobbsee


--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

Launchpad janitor / expiry of unanswered questions
 

On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 12:07 +0100, Gavin Panella wrote:
> Hi Hobbsee,
>
> I mailed the LP devs internally about this, and Martin Pool correctly
> suggested that we should have the discussion on launchpad-users, so
> I'll summarise what's been said so far, then things can go from there.
>
> The conversation so far, which I've tried to edit for clarity:
>
> Gavin Panella (me) started:
> > Hobbsee is mentioning that it's difficult to reach the LP devs via
> > Answers. Looking at it, very few of us are answer contacts for
> > Launchpad itself.
> >
> > If we all became Answer Contacts for Launchpad, would this help get
> > questions answered?
> >
> > Is there anything else tangible we can do to make this better?
> >
> > Is Hobbsee's observation not actually a problem?
>
>
> Julian Edwards replied:
> > I would rather see questions triaged through someone, maybe Joey's
> > team,
> > before developers get involved.
> > ...
> > Having said that, I am an answer contact for Soyuz as it's fairly
> > low volume.
>
> Martin Pool:
> > Looking at the answers [Hobbsee] linked:
> >
> > * some of them are misplaced or confused (how to install/uninstall
> > Ubuntu)
> > * some are things that really need help from a Launchpad admin, I
> > think - like removing content or an account - or at least a brief
> > reply to say you're not going to do them
> > * some really are questions and need someone dedicated to answering
> > them (if answering them is a good idea) - or maybe to be put into a
> > place where they will be answered by other users
> > * some are bugs
>
>
> Tom Berger:
> > Regular traiging by a responsible group, with regular reports on the
> > status of the questions queue (maybe in the team meeting?)
> >
> > We should also arrange for an announcer, similar to the one we have
> > for bugs in #launchpad.
> > ...
> > Responding quickly to user's queries is something we should be
> > able to do well (we've got near universal coverage).
>
>
> That's all so far.
>
> My feeling is that this is a matter of (un)awareness rather than devs
> ignoring users. Martin's comment shows that we are missing things,
> and, regardless of our intent (or lack of), this gets perceived as the
> devs ignoring users. I like Tom's ideas about regular reports and an
> announcer, and I think doing one or both of those would help.
>
> I've added an item about this to the agenda for today's developer
> meeting.

I think the Release Team should be answer contacts. Their first
responsibility is to do triage *by assigning* questions to developers
from the right team. Questions will not expire if they are assigned.

I would have said this was the Foundations Team's responsibility, but
most of the questions are not pertinent to the team. Maybe that is the
problem, questions are not being reassigned to the correct project, like
launchpad-code or launchpad-translation.

--
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/
--
launchpad-users mailing list
launchpad-users@lists.canonical.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users