[Debtags-devel] Re: Recent progress

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:10:24 +0100

On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 12:16:16AM -0800, Erich Schubert wrote:

> Otherwise, the result is similar (except for a few parameters) to this:
> http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/index.cgi?tags=media::mail

> So the big problem - again - is the incompleteness of tags.

Yes, but not only... Let me come again with the same remarks that I
did from the beginning:
- the tagging is currently quite incomplete: of course it is, and I
  think it may always be, because there seems to be no way to "force"
  Debian maintainers to do anything. :-) For me, the tagging of a package
  should primarily be done by the maintainer itself, even if anyone can
  still help with this, of course. Having noone responsible for a given
  task is the best way to increase the probability that it may never be
  achieved at all, or at least in a complete way. But if you ask
  maintainers to complete tags for the packages they manage, most of
  them won't do it, I fear. If you fill a bug against these packages
  (requiring tag completeness), it may sleep for ages (like some other
  bug reports)
- even if the tagging of a package is complete at a given moment,
  there is currently no way to know it _is_ complete. And even if we knew
  it was, there is currently no way of knowing which tags were introduced
  after that, that might make the tagging (given the whole new set)
  incomplete again.
- So, as a maintainer responsible for the tagging of a package
  wanting to ensure that the tagging of my package is up-to-date, I really
  wouldn't want to wander through the list of tags from time to time,
  trying to find some new dispersed tags that may apply to my package.
  It's in no way efficient (long and repetitive process), and you might
  still miss some new interesting tags.
- the current interface (http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/index.=
cgi)
  is (IMHO) hardly usable for any of the two important tasks it
  should help with:
  * enable a maintainer to ensure complete tagging of a given package :
    Ok, I go to http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/... but I
    don't even see any direct way that it would take me directly to the
    tagging of a package I know the name of. For the moment, I have to
    first click in any subgroup so he shows me a list of packages,
    click on the name of a package, and then change the name of the
    package for the one I want in the URL. Oh my...
    Well, I am now at
    http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/edit.cgi?package=wflogs
    Ok... is the tagging considered complete for now? I don't know. :-(
    So I look to the "tags that can be attached to this package". But
    what do some tags exactly mean? Mystery... For example, I see
    "Administration and System Maintainance::Logging". Ok, wflogs is
    a log analyzer. Shouldn't it be tagged with "Logging"? Frankly, I
    don't know, because I can't figure out if the Logging tag is about
    applications that log something themselves or not.
    Ok, let's suppose now that I'm done. I would like to inform others
    that I checked wflogs exhaustively. But I can't. And when will I
    have to recheck wflogs again to ensure that it's still complete?
    Noone knows... :-( So I'll probably do that in a few months, and
    recheck everything again. :-(
    Frankly, as a maintainer, that doesn't make me enthousiastic about
    taking care of tagging.
  * finding an application that does exactly what you want :
    Ok, let's suppose that I search an application that will enable me
    to convert a sound file into another format (like sox, but we
    still don't know the name at this stage, right? ;-)
    Ok, let's go to http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/.
    Well, I go through the list of "Automatic Subgroups"... I'm not
    convinced by things like "Service tags" (what does it mean?),
    "Role of the package in the system" (my sound converter doesn't
    play any particular role in the system, right?), "Purpose of the
    package" (oh... my search is all about this, but why is it an
    entry in a so much disparate list?... mmmh... dodgy)
    Ok, the first that I'm sure it's related to what I'm looking for
    is "Sound and music". I click on it. Then, I have to look at
    the list of 15 packages that are presented to me. And it's long,
    because I have to read the whole description of the 8 first ones.
    Nothing matches. Then I read the description of the next ones,
    before realizing that they are grouped by tags. So I read the tags
    only, but nothing really suits my needs.
    Well, then I read the list of "Automatic Subgroups". What I'm
    looking for is a thing like "converter", but there no such
    subgroup is listed.
    And the list is not convincing (nothing really matches). "Media
    with which the package works": well I already clicked on
    "Sound and music", isn't that enough?  No, really, nothing suits.
    In despair, after having clicked in some random subgroups to see
    what it breads (and going back, because nothing is convincing)
    I click on "Role of the package in the system". :-( Oh!
    In the end of the 18 packages, I see :
    "wav2cdr  Converts wav files into CD-ROM audio file format".
    Yes!! But... only .wav to CD-ROM?? Oh... wait, it's in the
    "Application, Converting data, File formats, Purpose of the package,
    Utilities" category! Probably wav2cdr is the only sound converter
    that exists, then... :-( But, just to be sure, I would like to add
    "Converting data" to my search criteria. How can I do that? I
    can't... :-(
    Ok, now, let's suppose I'm really not discouraged (!), and that I
    click on the subgroup "Media with which the package works" (but we
    already said I had clicked on "sound and music", right? so why
    should I want to do that? ok... let's suppose I do).
    Well, I now find "sox  A universal sound sample translator".
    BTW, the minor subgroups listed for sox is "Application, Audio,
    Converting data, File formats, Purpose of the package, Utilities".
    That's ok, but the group "Purpose of the package" seems
    ridiculous here... which purpose? And is there a package that has
    "no purpose"? ;-)
    So, where is wav2cdr, now? Ok, tag incompleteness here, I know (so
    don't take that into account). But same question as before: what
    if I only want "Audio, Converting data"? I can't without groking
    the URL, what 90% of average users will never be able to do.

    Well, I'm sorry to have to say that again (we've had this
    conversation before, Erich), but I think this way of presenting
    things is really unusable in practice for average users... :-(
    And it's not even good for maintainers either, for all the reasons
    I've given above.

I really would have been happy to make more positive comments, but I
just wanted to let you know why I think that if nothing is done, the
state of Debian tags won't be much better than it is today in 5 years. :-(

This post, as well as {the previous discussions we had about this Web
interface, tag timestamps and methodology for ensuring completeness},
gives plenty of hints about how this could be improved, IMHO.

 Hervé

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