community team participation in the ARB

[Allison Randal]

Dear Community Council,

The Application Review Board is a relatively young team, and has
recently gone through a substantial change in process when we adopted
the new developer.ubuntu.com app submission portal. We are a bit behind
in processing submissions, but we're actively working on catching up.
And, the rate of new submissions is low enough that once we catch up, we
anticipate no difficulty keeping on top of it.

Canonical's community team, who we know are only trying to be helpful,
have been sending us email messages asking for status updates, and with
various new ideas for how to do things completely differently, on an
increasingly frequent basis since last October. It's gotten to the point
that the ARB members are spending all available volunteer time answering
their messages, rather than actually working on app submissions. Even
worse, the time demands of their requests have started eating into
workitems for Precise.

I note that Daniel Holbach was incredibly helpful in recruiting new
members for the ARB last year, and that David Planella has been very
helpful in shepherding our feature requests for the submission portal
website. We greatly appreciate their desire to help, and the
contributions they've made. It's really only one area of involvement
that's been problematic.

Or current request is that the Canonical's community team drop
communication with the ARB on status updates or suggestions for changes
until the end of February, at which point we will reassess if there is a
way they can effectively help, instead of disrupting our work. Is this a
reasonable request? If not, can you offer other suggestions on how to
resolve this?

This is not a crisis, we're just seeking a channel and a structure for
Canonical's community team to participate effectively.

Thanks,
Allison

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Becoming Effective
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 12:09:50 -0800
From: Jono Bacon <jono at ubuntu.com>
To: Allison Randal <allison at lohutok.net>
CC: app-review-board at lists.ubuntu.com

On 8 February 2012 11:44, Allison Randal <allison at lohutok.net> wrote:
> On 02/08/2012 11:00 AM, Jono Bacon wrote:
>> I am not saying that our participation isn't annoying (we are annoying
>> at times :-) ), but I do believe we need to ask some uncomfortable
>> questions and bring some urgency that maybe isn't present within the
>> team. In terms of "leaving you alone"; I would be more than happy to
>> step away and work on other things, but we are still seeing extensive
>> lag time in submissions get through the queue (or be rejected) so I
>> feel we should be here to help.
>>
>> In terms of taking this to the TB/CC...I don't want to go to the TB/CC
>> without first working with the ARB to help resolve the issues; I think
>> that would be disrespectful to the ARB.
>
> Great, thanks for offering to step away! If it would make you feel more
> comfortable, let's say you'll check back with us at the end of February,
> and see if there's anything we'd like your help with.
>
> We (the ARB members) would be happy to open a conversation with the
> TB/CC if you need more guidance on what level of involvement is appropriate.

I am not offering to step away. I still feel we have important
challenges to solve, but I am certainly open to ensuring that we can
work together as effectively as possible. My goal here is not to tell
what the ARB to do, but to work together as a team to resolve the
bottleneck around the queue and provide the best possible app
developer experience for Free Software developers.

My email (admittedly pointed) today was about highlighting what I
believe is the bottleneck here...how much time the ARB are committing
to the queue. If you don't feel like this is the issue, lets discuss
that, otherwise, why don't we try and find ways to resolve it.

   Jono

-- 
Jono Bacon
Ubuntu Community Manager
www.ubuntu.com / www.jonobacon.org
www.identi.ca/jonobacon www.twitter.com/jonobacon