Talk:Modules and plugins improvements

Anthony: I agree that this would be very helpful. Three suggestions:

• We should look at how other GNU web applications which have high rates of community contributions work, for example Drupal, MediaWiki, and WordPress. Perhaps a page (or section) of "Lesson's learned" from these projects would be useful for this discussion.
• I think it would be a good idea to expand the list of possible reviewers so that it does not focus too much only only the employees of Moodle.com (and I suspect that most of them would agree as well). Perhaps a way to do this is to have greater weight be given to those who have either contributed already certified code (that could include partners,HQ staff, or other contributors), or who have given effective reviews of a number of other modules, etc. To not discourage new-comers in the process, perhaps an review may need three net positive votes, where a new-comer can give one vote, but a pre-certified individual could give two or three votes, etc.
• Obviously, we need to keep it simple and not make the certification process too difficult. One way to do that may be to have a Wiki page on each contribution, and people could use the page comments to offer their reviews. Those wanting their contribution to be certified could solicit review. Before certification was given, they would need a certain amount of positive feedback, and all concerns raised in the feedback would need to be addressed (either with a fix or with a discussion that attempted to reach a consensus on any issues raised).--Gary Anderson 17:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks Gary for your feedback and ideas.

• I will be attending the http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/unconference so that I can meet with some of the Drupal folks. I am trying to get feedback from other open source projects and will create a lessons learned section or what I'm hearing from others.
• Your ideas here make me wonder if we need to have a Moodle Certified Code Reviewer similar to the MCT program. The challenge here is what is understood by code review and keeping it very specific and measurable. One argument I would anticipate hearing back would be just because someone shares code or has written code does not mean that they are writing good code. Since the purpose of code review is quality control, we need to be as clear as possible on the evaluation process and what the various ratings meeting.
• I like the idea of looking at the responsiveness of the contributor to issues but think expecting all issues to be addressed is probably not realistic. But it is important that contributors be responsive to user input by responding even if the decision is made to not fix or implement a suggestion.

Tags

At the 2010 OKMoot the idea came up of adding tags so that it would be easier to see groups of plugins (for example question types). I believe the current system already has this somewhat but we may want to improve the UI. Peace - Anthony

Yes, the existing database already has plugin type as one of the fields, and you can search on it using advanced search.--Tim Hunt 17:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)