121399 - clean up keyword descriptions - icon

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Administration, task)

Description

[timeless]

remove 'icon' due to lack of use. [Comment 5 Bug 108760 Add "icon" keyword] -
Total uses until this morning: 4. Current keyword lifespan: 1 month.

Case in point: 2002-01-22 13:30, morse filed Bugzilla Bug 121299 Need cookie
icon for status bar, but did not add the icon keyword. This is not morse's
fault, but if we're going to keep this keyword then someone (not me, i'm opposed
to it) should be responsible for explaining to people when they should use it,
and encouraging its use.

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

it is fairly under-utilized. Marlon, can we just do this in status whiteboard
since there does not appear to be any widespread need for a defined keyword?

Comment 2

[marlon bishop]

go ahead and remove the keyword.  go ahead and remove all future need for icons
as well.  

Comment 3

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

marlon, a keyword is more valuable than a status whiteboard comment in exactly
two ways. The fist is that it has a published description so people new to the
system  know when it should be used.  The second value of using a keyword rather
than a status whiteboard flag is that keywords enforce spelling. These two
features are important when a flag is in widespread use and prone to being
misapplied or mistyped. These two features wouldn't seem to be so important for
such a limited usage flag that it is worth making the list that much longer and
that much less useful to the masses. For every low volume keyword we add to the
list the discoverability of the other keywords is further diminished. Run a
couple of queries on bugs which contain the comment "hang", "freeze", or "crash"
but do not contain the hang or crash keyword and you will see what we are facing
with the watering down of the keyword system.

Comment 4

[marlon bishop]

so my question is by what metric do we justify the existance of a keyword?  How
many bugs need to be using it?  what is more important, a keyword which vastly
improves a task for a few people (such as myself and icon help we contract) or
that it generally meet the needs of greater bugzilla users as a whole, on a
daily basis?  It would be great if the system could accomodate both types of
needs. asa, i understand since bugzilla does not easily adapt, and since many of
us are under a variety of enormous pressures, especially you, i am willing to
let you call this one.  Although this was going to save an enormous amount of
work for me, i hope my sacrifice will in some small way be a catalyst for
improving bugzilla, or, at least facilitate the concept of improvement.

Comment 5

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

It's always a tradeoff. When we have "keyword groups" in Bugzilla (and a couple
other keyword changes) then we won't have to balance the two. I'll be able to
add all the keywords in the world to bugzilla without making it too much harder
to find the most important ones. 
Will adding "icon" to the status whiteboard be any more difficult that adding it
to the keyword field if it's indeed a small group of people? The only loss of
usability there is the lack of spelling enforcement and a public description
(and some performance on queries). If a small group of careful people are using
the status whitboard for this it shouldn't be too difficult to keep track. 

Comment 6

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

->me

Comment 7

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

WONTFIX. 21 bugs use this keyword now.