I started writing another comment for Visualize contribution in commit messages - Discuss Topics - TYPO3 Decisions but the thing is: A number of people have suggested to use Forge (and not commit messages) for adding / visualizing contributors.
Now, first of all, I don’t think it’s possible to achieve the things that were suggested with Forge, but a totally different question is: Can we improve Forge in any way or should we think about replacing it? How important is this for current contributors and for possible new contributors?
Current problems with Forge (for core development)
- #83398 No template for creating issues
- #83397 No voting plugin
- #80921: Everyone can modify fields they have no business of modifying like Assignee, Target version, Priority etc. Usage of this is being misused so you can’t use these fields to properly categorize the issues. Having 2000+ issues open currently, this and the voting plugin just might be useful to do
- Redmine markup is not what everyone is used to. Who actually knows how to embed images, use links properly and in any way actually make the description more readable?
- The UI in general takes some getting used to. E.g. changing a description is not something I would call intuitive to do
- User interface not responsive, not really usable on mobile devices
- User interface not “pretty” (ok, this is a matter of taste, but it’s not really what I would call modern design)
- Core contribution not visible on profile page by default, see #84494 If we want to visualize contribution, why is this not considered to be important?
General observations
- 4 different issue trackers currently being used: Forge for the core and some extensions, github for the docs and some extensions, gitlab for typo3.org and some other stuff and Jira for the TYPO3 GmbH.
- Bitbucket and github. Why?
Why is this relevant?
- every hour that goes into maintaining tools does not go into core development and other things.
- Every single different workflow is extra overhead. For maintaining it (even the stuff that is not self-hosted, you have to manage access rights etc.) and using it. Try contributing to docs and core. You will see what I mean.
I don’t know, maybe there are good reasons for doing everything the way it’s done right now. I once saw a comment from Linus Torvalds where he explains why he does not accept PR for Linux on Github. Totally made sense to me. (The answer is not in this comment but it’s in the thread.)
So maybe we can’t change anything.
Or can we? At least a little? To make things easier for core developers, potential new core developers, people reporting issues, handling issues, people maintaining the tools. Every one of these people are contributors too. To use resources more efficiently. To make the issue tracker more fun to use. To better manage open issues and focus on the relevant ones.
I’m not suggesting anything specific at this point, because I can’t. If this is in any way possible, a new theme for Forge, and solving at least some of the mentioned issues might already be a huge step.
