Many packages in Debian have low quality descriptions. This affects the general quality of the distribution by making searching difficult.

The idea (first mentioned by Lars Wirzenius in http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg01095.html) is to make a general package descriptions review campaign

What needs to be done

All packages descriptions for packages in unstable (maybe only in main) should be reviewed. A large number of common "mistakes" can easily be spotted. Please have a look at the "Things to look for" section.

For descriptions which are identified as problematic, a patch must be elaborated and a wishlist bug filed.

Organization proposal

To ensure maximal quality, all reviews and updates should probably be made by at least two people. Native English speakers are of course appreciated.

A Web-based interface has been developed and is available at http://zorglub.diwi.org/pkg-descriptions

Such an interface will (hopefully) allow easy centralization of the current reviews, and easy generation of reports.

For work coordination, a wiki appears to be the best solution, either this one or another one....

Things to look for

In general, anything that does not help or confuse the user is probably worth fixing

Obvious stuff

Other

Controversial stuff

A consensus might be that some details are OK/needed, but that should remain reasonable.

Generally speaking, these details should rather be at the end of the descriptions, after describing what the package is/does, or at least not be too intrusive.

Volunteers

If you want to help, please register your name here and/or drop a mail to zorglub _a_t_ diwi _d_o_t_ org

Work repartition

Section

Nb packages

1st reviewer

Status

2nd reviewer

Status

admin

704

0%

0%

base

151

0%

0%

comm

102

0%

0%

contrib/admin

8

0%

0%

contrib/comm

3

0%

0%

contrib/devel

52

0%

0%

contrib/doc

15

0%

0%

contrib/games

20

0%

0%

contrib/graphics

6

0%

0%

contrib/interpreters

2

0%

0%

contrib/kde

1

0%

0%

contrib/libdevel

4

0%

0%

contrib/libs

34

0%

0%

contrib/mail

14

0%

0%

contrib/math

3

0%

0%

contrib/misc

12

0%

0%

contrib/net

15

0%

0%

contrib/otherosfs

22

0%

0%

contrib/perl

2

0%

0%

contrib/python

1

0%

0%

contrib/science

2

0%

0%

contrib/sound

8

0%

0%

contrib/text

22

0%

0%

contrib/utils

10

0%

0%

contrib/web

11

0%

0%

contrib/x11

12

0%

0%

devel

1331

0%

0%

doc

925

0%

0%

editors

220

0%

0%

electronics

63

0%

0%

embedded

9

0%

0%

games

675

0%

0%

gnome

324

0%

0%

graphics

349

0%

0%

hamradio

75

0%

0%

interpreters

459

0%

0%

kde

278

0%

0%

libdevel

1449

0%

0%

libs

1791

0%

0%

mail

339

0%

0%

math

245

0%

0%

misc

436

0%

0%

net

1128

0%

0%

news

37

0%

0%

non-free/admin

5

0%

0%

non-free/comm

4

0%

0%

non-free/devel

15

0%

0%

non-free/doc

48

0%

0%

non-free/editors

2

0%

0%

non-free/electronics

3

0%

0%

non-free/games

34

0%

0%

non-free/graphics

18

0%

0%

non-free/hamradio

2

0%

0%

non-free/libdevel

5

0%

0%

non-free/libs

8

0%

0%

non-free/mail

3

0%

0%

non-free/math

9

0%

0%

non-free/misc

10

0%

0%

non-free/net

13

0%

0%

non-free/news

6

0%

0%

non-free/otherosfs

4

0%

0%

non-free/python

5

0%

0%

non-free/science

16

0%

0%

non-free/sound

7

0%

0%

non-free/tex

8

0%

0%

non-free/text

14

0%

0%

non-free/utils

6

0%

0%

non-free/web

4

0%

0%

non-free/x11

26

0%

0%

oldlibs

104

0%

0%

otherosfs

98

0%

0%

perl

873

0%

0%

python

707

0%

0%

science

143

0%

0%

shells

32

0%

0%

sound

438

0%

0%

tex

151

0%

0%

text

559

0%

0%

utils

752

0%

0%

web

877

0%

0%

x11

737

0%

0%