In the Django process for making changes, one is encouraged to post on the forum and start a discussion with the goal of gaining consensus.

I drafted a proposal for a change to the Triage Workflow, but I don’t think I will post it. The proposal is flawed in its one-size-fits-all approach to the solution. Attempts to “gain consensus” can drive us into this trap, this belief that a solution should reach agreement from every participant in the discussion.

What if gaining consensus is the wrong goal? What if the real goal is to create a collection of solutions?

What if the proposal is not actually about changing the Triage Workflow, but rather about suggesting different layouts of the Trac web interface, where each layout is tailored towards a contributor role? For example, in some applications such as Salesforce, there is a dropdown menu that allows you to “switch roles” and see different widgets on the dashboards based on your role as an Account Executive, or a Sales Development Representative, or any other role that you would like to create and customize.

The Reports Tab achieves this collection-of-solutions approach already. It provides a rich list of preset filters. But, how easy is it to use? How many people know about it? I’m talking specifically about people who are non-super contributors. This could include new contributors, as well as experts who do not contribute on a high frequency basis, as well as community organizers who use the ticket management system for reasons other than development work.

Is there value in a multi-layout solution? Is there a way to display the information from Reports Tab differently, so it is more easily accessible? For example, display a tab for each section of the reports tab, and labeling the current “View Tickets” tab as “Custom Query”.

Figure 1: Mockup of tabs for each queue

To be continued…