Originally Posted by ivgalvez

Another thing we need is administrators that could give maintenance over packages to those that request it.

Originally Posted by demolition

meant say - I'like to volunteer to contribute to this revamped testing effort that aims to get all & sundry from -devel.to full extras. My skills are native english(en-gb) speaker. I can read C/C++ (& edit badly), as well as other languages with C-style structure and syntacx. Been Maemo-ised nearly a year, well and truly! Also, I'd like a way into developing, eventually so by testing is good.

Originally Posted by ivgalvez

Would it be possible for these supertesters to do some basic packaging tasks to clean some unmaintained packages?

I'm thinking, for example, in changing categories, adding better descriptions, adding icons, etc. For all these tasks (packagers tasks) there is no need to know the underlying code of the applications and a bit of polishing is needed in our badly managed repos.

Originally Posted by SD69

Thank you for volunteering demolition. Would you be willing to be a testing admin? I like your ideas and think you would be great at it!

Originally Posted by demolition

Glad you like the suggestions. Count me in, so long as I pass community-approved selection criteria!

While there is some urgency to get the ball rolling, taking a few weeks to iron out the fine print is worthwhile, I think, anyway.
Today is Mon 20th Feb. How about aiming for Mon 19th Mar, as a date to have the hows and wherefores complete? With a view to verifying*/selecting testing-admins' credentials by 9th April (Easter Monday) so work can start from 10th April 2012.
How does that sound?

*verifiying:
- as much as is necessary to get access, so these people can do the actual promotion.
- possibly a job for the likes of former/current members of The Council?

Matters to resolve...

• The basic remit for prospective testing-admins (TAs) and testers (e.g. activities, procedures, etc.),
• Eligibility and selection of TAs (i.e. pre-requisites and whether a vote is necessary),
• Procedures for initiation and termination (self- or forced) of TAs,
• The target number of TAs, thus how to divide up the repos between the testing teams,
• Standard testing tools (already refernced KISStester, should anything else be used instead or in addition?)
• The relationship(s) between developers and testing teams (what are members' comments on my suggestions above?)
• What happens if a TA makes an error e.g. passes a poor package, especially if it's a dependency for many other packages and ends up breaking a lot of things!?

... and many besides, I'm sure!

Promotion of tester and TA roles:
Although this thread is getting OK hits, it's quite technical/dry so probably turns off quite a few people. To get this project off the ground, we need to make a massive hullaballoo about how easy it is and how beneficial it is, as an average user, to be a tester*/TA. Otherwise if only a few people do it, we'll be in the same state in quite a short time (e.g. when devices start to give up!).
*tester - there's nothing to say that there cannot be grades of tester, based on <criteria> ranging from, say, novice to super-expert-plus-plus-plus?

Aside: Release Repository:
- Should the release repository (i.e. maemo extras) have finer sub-catgories seeing as there are likely to be a few thousand packages in extras, when things get underway?
- Can packages be cross-referrenced into two+ categories e.g. a note programme could be considered both "Office" and "Utility"; if so, how can this point-to mechanism be made to work?

Originally Posted by SD69

There is a testing mailing list, but it's been unused for a year. How about resurrecting that?

Originally Posted by demolition

Just added my email address to the testing list on the wiki page about lists. Is that the one you were thinking of? If so, who fancies sending out an initial message to get things moving?