Packages Descriptions review campaign

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, an updated proposal will be elaborated.

Also, it'd be useful to check ITP bug submissions. Let's prevent any further bad descriptions from entering the archive.

Organization

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

A Web-based interface has been developed to (hopefully) allow easy centralization of the current reviews, and easy generation of reports. It is available at http://zorglub.diwi.org/pkg-descriptions/

Here is how the work will be organized:

When we have finished, a repository of the proposed descriptions with attached patches will be made available and an announcement will be sent out.

What we can hope is that maintainers will use this repository to fix their descriptions. After a few weeks, we'll start submitting bugs with suggested patches. (As it will represent a mass bug filing, we'll coordinate with qa).

Things to look for

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

Obvious stuff

Policy violations

See http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s-descriptions for full details, but in short:

The further requirements in http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Description are, in short:

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.

Automatically detectible mistakes

Please list here the most common mistakes you have seen, if their detection can be automated. For these ones, don't mark the package as wrong. Lintian checks will be added for them

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

An IRC channel has been created : #debian-descriptions on Freenode. I think it could be useful (and nice, too). Feel free to join

How to use the web interface

First of all, you need to pick up a login. No authentication is provided, its only use is to know who made reviews.

You then need to select a section to begin working on. Sections with many packages have been split up into smaller chunks.

You are then taken to the main review page. For each package, you can enter a status "Ok", or "Needs fixing" and a comment. (Two review fields are provided).

If you want to enter aditionnal comments, work on a proposal, or comment on the current proposal, you need to go tho the package details page by clicking the package name.

Work repartition

Top priority should be given to desktop applications (gnome, kde, x11, ...) Lowest priority sections are libs, devel, ... and generally speaking stuff users don't often search for.

Large sections have been split up into four pieces. Pick one piece at a time. (Sorry, the tool doesn't tell exactly how large each piece is, so the listed number of packages is just exactly 1/4 of the total.)

Section

Nb packages

1st reviewer

Status

2nd reviewer

Status

admin/1

176

0%

0%

admin/2

176

0%

0%

admin/3

176

0%

0%

admin/4

176

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

joewerner

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

davrieb

95%

0%

contrib/utils

10

0%

0%

contrib/web

11

0%

0%

contrib/x11

12

0%

0%

devel/1

332.75

0%

0%

devel/2

332.75

0%

0%

devel/3

332.75

0%

0%

devel/4

332.75

0%

0%

doc/1

231.25

0%

0%

doc/2

231.25

0%

0%

doc/3

231.25

0%

0%

doc/4

231.25

0%

0%

editors/1

55

0%

0%

editors/2

55

0%

0%

editors/3

55

0%

0%

editors/4

55

0%

0%

electronics

63

0%

0%

embedded

9

0%

0%

games/1

168.75

0%

0%

games/2

168.75

0%

0%

games/3

168.75

0%

0%

games/4

168.75

0%

0%

gnome/1

81

zorglub

90%

0%

gnome/2

81

zorglub

90%

0%

gnome/3

81

zorglub

90%

0%

gnome/4

81

zorglub

90%

0%

graphics/1

87.25

0%

0%

graphics/2

87.25

0%

0%

graphics/3

87.25

0%

0%

graphics/4

87.25

0%

0%

hamradio

75

0%

0%

interpreters/1

114.75

0%

0%

interpreters/2

114.75

0%

0%

interpreters/3

114.75

0%

0%

interpreters/4

114.75

0%

0%

kde/1

69.5

0%

0%

kde/2

69.5

0%

0%

kde/3

69.5

0%

0%

kde/4

69.5

0%

0%

libdevel/1

362.25

0%

0%

libdevel/2

362.25

0%

0%

libdevel/3

362.25

0%

0%

libdevel/4

362.25

0%

0%

libs/1

447.75

0%

0%

libs/2

447.75

0%

0%

libs/3

447.75

0%

0%

libs/4

447.75

0%

0%

mail/1

84.75

0%

0%

mail/2

84.75

0%

0%

mail/3

84.75

0%

0%

mail/4

84.75

0%

0%

math/1

61.25

0%

0%

math/2

61.25

0%

0%

math/3

61.25

0%

0%

math/4

61.25

0%

0%

misc/1

109

0%

0%

misc/2

109

0%

0%

misc/3

109

0%

0%

misc/4

109

0%

0%

net/1

282

0%

0%

net/2

282

0%

0%

net/3

282

0%

0%

net/4

282

0%

0%

news

37

anthony

DONE

zorglub

97%

non-free/admin

5

anthony

DONE

era

DONE

non-free/comm

4

anthony

0%

0%

non-free/devel

15

anthony

0%

0%

non-free/doc

48

0%

0%

non-free/editors

2

era

DONE

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/1

218.25

0%

0%

perl/2

218.25

0%

0%

perl/3

218.25

0%

0%

perl/4

218.25

0%

0%

python/1

176.75

0%

0%

python/2

176.75

0%

0%

python/3

176.75

0%

0%

python/4

176.75

0%

0%

science

143

0%

0%

shells

32

0%

0%

sound/1

109.5

0%

0%

sound/2

109.5

0%

0%

sound/3

109.5

0%

0%

sound/4

109.5

0%

0%

tex

151

0%

0%

text/1

139.75

0%

0%

text/2

139.75

0%

0%

text/3

139.75

0%

0%

text/4

139.75

0%

0%

utils/1

188

0%

0%

utils/2

188

0%

0%

utils/3

188

0%

0%

utils/4

188

0%

0%

web/1

219.25

0%

0%

web/2

219.25

0%

0%

web/3

219.25

0%

0%

web/4

219.25

0%

0%

x11/1

184.25

0%

0%

x11/2

184.25

0%

0%

x11/3

184.25

0%

0%

x11/4

184.25

0%

0%