Questions about file review process

Discussion in 'BukkitDev Information and Feedback' started by freefish, Feb 16, 2012.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Offline

    freefish

    Disclaimer: I like DevBukkit for the most part and have not felt a need to use the forum for any part of my plugin releases so far. However I have some questions about how the file upload review process works.
    1. Consider a project that has had several stable releases and has author(s) that have shown themselves to be competent coders that respond to important problems in their plugin when necessary. Why does every file release for such a project need a (potentially lengthy) review? I can understand reviewing the first couple releases to make sure the plugin is at least of reasonable quality, but after a plugin has developed a reasonably-sized user base, why is there this significant lag between release and getting it out to users?
    2. My other issue revolves around the review process itself: what does it accomplish? I ask this not in a complaining tone; I am just looking for a little insight into what takes place when a file is reviewed. Is it actually downloaded and tested in some way? Are potential security issues (hidden backdoors and the like) looked for? If not, what is the review for? Is it just verification of stuff like the changelog to make sure it looks ok? I am aware the DevBukkit mods are volunteers but the lag time to review files seems to be increasing, and I am wondering if there is some reason for this beyond "our mods are busy".
    Thanks!
     
  2. Offline

    pyraetos

    Concerning your first question, we definitely do take less caution when reviewing a submission if it's from someone well-known, i.e. bPermissions. However, most of the time you wait is due to the queue. We review them in order of time submitted, so even if it's a very well known and trusted plugin, if its new version was submitted just now, it will have to wait on the rest of the queue.

    Secondly, there are indeed a number of things we do to check files. See my other thread for some of the most important things, but we check the change log, version, and other format-related things first. We'll download each file and look through its contents, decompiling and reviewing.

    The queue has been pretty large recently, in part because of the new RB and also we are very busy (I definitely am). Bear with us. :)
     
    Don Redhorse likes this.
  3. Offline

    freefish

    Thanks for the reply. That answers my questions for the most part. Any chance of some kind of reputation-based system to give established authors some priority in the queue? I understand the fairness aspect but it penalizes people who post frequent releases.
     
  4. Offline

    pyraetos

    I know, but undesirable wait times shouldn't happen for anyone to be honest. We'll tackle the current queue and try to keep it down from now on so that everyone can have faster approvals.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page