Bug Triage Privileges

[Rocco Stanzione]

When I say "triage" I refer to setting the importance of a bug, which I was 
sure until recently was the same thing.

I understand the reasoning behind restricting the privilege.  I'm not sure I 
understand why it's been restricted to such a small group.  It's probably 
quite safe, for example, to give triaging privileges to all ubuntu members, 
and probably to all bugsquad members, though the selection process there is 
less formal.  Triaging bugs is, according to piles of wiki pages, a very 
useful way for a non-developer to contribute, but all or nearly all of those 
who are *able* to triage are developers.  Still more wiki pages and docs 
explain how to triage correctly, but none (that I could find) indicate how to 
get those privileges.  When I found out that it was restricted to -qa 
(and -dev and -core-dev), I inquired about getting membership in -qa and was 
told that it was a very elite group.  My opinion is that triaging bugs is not 
something that needs to be restricted to an elite group, most of whom have 
much more useful skills to apply to much more directly useful activities than 
triaging.  Was this policy not fully thought out, or has it not yet been 
fully implemented?  Or do I have a completely distorted view of the degree of 
reverence and solemnity appropriate for triaging bugs?

ps.  It occurred to me to post this to a launchpad list, but I assume the 
policy was set by ubuntu developers, not launchpad developers.

Thanks,

Rocco