On Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 11:20 AM Peter Dimov via Boost < boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
We're between a rock and a hard place here; on one hand, we suffer from a lack of volunteers who would want to manage reviews, on the other, when Klemens volunteers, people don't like the way he manages the reviews.
I think there is a little more to it than that: * Review managers have varying levels of skill * Long-timers have better than average review manager skills * New review managers don't receive implicit knowledge * There is no process for mentoring review managers If we want review managers to get better we have to grow them not find them. This means the old teach the young. And of course we must document oral traditions so they can be learned on demand. Some of the long-term work we are doing is to index and cross-reference ALL historical reviews going back to 1999 so they can be studied and have machine learning tools applied (which reviews were good, which were bad, can we learn anything from each, and so forth). I can't even answer a simple task, to find an old review that was very well written and informative. When I saw the first review result write up for async-mqtt5 I was disappointed, as it did not rise to the level of quality that I have seen in years past (no need to belabor this point as Peter has already described this in another post). And my response was to go to the review manager privately, and offer assistance so an improved write up could be published. Among other things I advised, to not name people directly (as this can come across as hostile) and rather, to name the ideas instead. And other stuff. We have at least two reviews scheduled, and I have concerns that our pool of review managers is light on experience and knowledge of the review process and its culture. If we want to avoid unsatisfying outcomes, then we need to be proactive. It would be nice if a long-timer skilled in the review process could volunteer to act as a mentor for the review-manager-in-training. Peter Turcan can assist with transcribing cultural aspects into the documentation. And we can all take a pause and maybe consider how we can take active steps to improve outcomes instead of criticizing them after the fact. Thanks