I also posted a comment in the BlueMaemo page but doesn't show up either.

Actually I just posted a simple test comment again at http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...0.5.3-1maemo2/ but it doesn't show up.

Can someone else try, please?

Please don't use the BlueMaemo version on extras-testing as reference, as I said it's outdated and wasn't promoted by me.
Version 0.3.6 on extras-devel is the correct one

Thanks !!!

Ps -> My comment doesn't show up either

There seems to be a rights problem for adding comments. I'm investigating this now.

Comment issue should be fixed now. *bangs head against table*

I'll work on package removal from the QA queue, as some packages obviously shouldn't be there. (They were promoted before some checks were in place)

I have started adding quality criteria at http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing#Quality_criteria based on various previous discussions. Have a look and comment, please.

The criteria need to be as discrete as possible, so it's easy for testers to give their thumbs up or down. They also need to be easy to evaluate, of course.

For instance, let's take the example of Security. Everybody agrees that an app causing security risks shouldn't make it to Extras. Fine. But how a tester can detect that? I guess the answer is that those testers should check that there are not known security bugs filed in bmo, or perhaps even security reports against dependent packages upstream. But in no way they are going to do the security checks themselves. Another problem is "how insecure" an app can be.

Similar examples can be found with missing features, system performance affected, etc.

Another question that comes to mind is the content: would maemo.org distribute apps dealing with pornography, racism...?

And then something that is not clear (to me at least) is what happens really when pressing thumbs up/down. Right, thumbs up means that to me this looks good to Extras. But does a thumb down mean that it should go back to extras-devel? Or just stay in extras-testing? How do we tell "still not ready for Extras but don't send it back to extras-devel"?

And finally, what are the criteria that needs to be met to push an app to extras? What about this:

- Minimum 11 days quarantine.
- Minimum 10 testers + 1 admin giving thumbs up.
- No thumbs down.

I think we have 3 possible outcomes:

Minimum age and minimum thumbs up reached:
Automatic promotion.

Minimum age reached, not enough votes:
Admin should evaluate app and promote/reject.

Minimum age reached, karma above value, but with some thumbs down:
Admin should evaluate app and promote/reject.

I don't think we should make a difference between admins and power users when counting karma. Voting an application down should not be a direct rejection, I'm leaning towards what we do in social news. A vote down there is a penalty of -4 votes.

Karma > 10, can mean 15 votes up and one vote down.

Thanks!

I don't know that there are any acceptable ones, maybe change it to "verified"?

There's a flip side to this: security fixes for packages that were already in extras should probably get a karma bump and prioritised for promotion, even if they come with some more "minor" faults (eg missing features or no screenshot).

Sounds good in principle, though the list of dependencies can be long and cumbersome to check in some cases.

But: what about security issues in libraries that could affect several (otherwise secure) apps? Should the insecure library packages be demoted thus making the apps that depend on them non-installable? Should those apps also be demoted until the dependencies are fixed? Maybe, maybe not, but the severity is multiplied in a case like this. Perhaps we need some sort of "emergency response" team for security issues in general, but that's starting to get off-topic.

That should be grounds for removal from all repositories IMHO.

Hm, a can of worms that one. I'd prefer we never saw those kinds of apps personally, but I would like arbitrary censorship even less. I guess ultimately Nokia would be legally responsible for whatever is published, so we should go with whatever Finnish law allows.

(I assume that content refers to what is present in the packages themselves, rather than content that could potentially be accessed by the application, so it wouldn't apply for example to an email client that could at some point receive a v!@gra spam containing dubious images).

IMHO, I think there should be a nice documented way to allow the non-usual group of testers to pull the apps they want from the extras-testing repository then disable it (so not to mess with other parts of the system or applications they do not want to test).This may help obscurer applications.

Ok, but... If the entry barrier to become a extras-testing evaluator is as low as just registering to maemo.org then it would be quite easy to abuse the system. Not getting a news piece in the maemo.org frontpage because of 1-2 thumbs down of unclear reasoning is not that bad, but having an app stuck in extras-testing for a similar reason because of 1-2 "unknown" votes might be more problematic.

Would a minimum karma requirement (say 100) make sense here?

A list of voters is shown in the details page, so you can see who voted. This makes it easier to spot if somebody is creating a lot of accounts.

How about this:

The application needs to have > 10 karma, of which at least 3 positive votes of (people with karma > 100 OR people in specially created community testers group)

We could create a community testers group where we add people who have a proven track record within the maemo.org community?