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.

Suggestions

Automatically discoverable mistakes

Please list here the most common mistakes you have seen, so their discovery can be automated. For these mistakes, do not mark the package as incorrect. Lintian checks will be added for them.

Rules which can never be broken are best for automated checking. Rules which may indicate that something is wrong, but which will sometimes misfire, are heuristic, and might in the end not be suitable for Lintian checks.

Rules

Heuristics

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

(Comments on the tool and ideas for how to improve it can be added to the PackagesDescriptionsReviewTool page.)

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

Now, you can do a proper review, or you can just browse.

Review

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 additional comments, work on a proposal, or comment on the current proposal, you need to go to the package details page by clicking the package name.

Browsing

As above, but don't sign up for reviewing, and don't put anything in the Review fields. If you find something to comment on, click on the package name to get to the details page for that package, where you can write free-form comments, etc.

Dividing up the work

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.

On the other hand, if you are unsure where to begin or what to do, perhaps starting out with a small, low-priority section would feel safer. (If you're not feeling ready for it, you don't have to be the first reviewer, though; feel free to just add comments via the "package details" page.)

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

kkubasik

0%

0%

contrib/comm

3

kkubasik

0%

0%

contrib/devel

52

0%

0%

contrib/doc

15

0%

0%

contrib/games

20

joewerner

DONE

arjen

DONE

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

DONE

kkubasik

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

joewerner

DONE

kkubasik

0%

contrib/sound

8

0%

0%

contrib/text

22

davrieb

95%

kkubasik

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

unknown

0%

0%

embedded

9

era

DONE

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%

kkubasik

0%

gnome/2

81

zorglub

90%

kkubasik

0%

gnome/3

81

zorglub

90%

kkubasik

0%

gnome/4

81

zorglub

90%

kkubasik

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

unknown

0%

0%

mail/2

84.75

unknown

0%

0%

mail/3

84.75

unknown

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

joewerner

DONE

non-free/electronics

3

joewerner

DONE

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

joewerner

DONE

0%

non-free/text

14

0%

0%

non-free/utils

6

0%

0%

non-free/web

4

unknown

0%

kkubasik

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

davrieb

10%

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

jeremiah

0%

0%

web/2

219.25

jeremiah

0%

0%

web/3

219.25

jeremiah

0%

0%

web/4

219.25

jeremiah

0%

0%

x11/1

184.25

zorglub

0%

0%

x11/2

184.25

zorglub

0%

0%

x11/3

184.25

zorglub

0%

0%

x11/4

184.25

zorglub

0%

0%