What's Wrong with the Project Application Queue?
In April 2012, I submitted a module called twitter_signin_callback to the project application queue. The concept was simple, my module was meant to add functionality to the twitter_signin module that allowed a developer to specify a path for where to send the user after logging in via Twitter OAuth. My thought was to get approval on a simple module to meet my goals for my job, and get commit access to be able to contribute some bigger ideas later.
Disclaimer: I understand that the drupal.org project reviewers are extremely overloaded, this post is not to complain, but rather to point out some problems and open it up for discussion.
First, I'd like to start by sharing my experience with the project application queue:
In April 2012 I submitted a module called twitter_signin_callback to the project application queue. The concept was simple: my module was meant to add functionality to the twitter_signin module that allowed a developer to specify a path to send the user after logging in via Twitter OAuth. My thought was to get approval on a simple module to meet my goals for my job, and get commit access to be able to contribute some bigger ideas later.
After about 6 months of review by other users, and running my project through the PAReview app, it finally passed inspection and moved onto the next phase - review by a drupal.org project reviewer. At this point I was informed that in order to have my project reviewed, I needed to complete the review bonus. So, I spent some free-time painstakingly reviewing other projects to get the bonus. Shortly thereafter, my project was rejected. I was told to submit my module to the Twitter module issue queue as a feature request.
Currently, I still do not have commit access, wasted 6 months, and I have to start all over again. I'm fairly certain that I'm not the only one this has happened to, and honestly, my experience has almost made me not want to try again.
Rejection is fine, but...
Why did it take 6 months to get an answer?
Why didn't anyone tell me to commit it as a Twitter feature in the beginning?
My code was flawless, so why can't I still get commit access so I can meet my goals?
These issues are a big detractor to new Drupalers who might be willing to put in the time and effort to contribute back. Being that Drupal's open-source community is such a big selling point, these problems are not conducive to community growth.
The review bonus is a start, but I think some kind of incentive needs to be in place for senior contributors to do these reviews, or mentor other developers. After all, how can you expect people who haven't even gone through the project application process to be reviewing other projects?
Ideas?
