Project:Bug-cleaners

Goal
Our goal is twofold, the main purpose of this project is to close bugs on Bugzilla that do no longer apply due to versions and/or packages that are no longer present in the Portage tree; as a side effect, it also tries to look for solutions to the oldest bugs. For those that still have use, it attempts to inform the persons involved in the bug that the bug is still open if the bug is important; inviting them to take a decision on it.

Resources
Queries that can be handy for finding old bugs are:


 * Bug Cleaners: Oldest bugs: Any bugs or filtered bugs (no retirement, games or m-w), both filter out bugs that block useful trackers.
 * Bug Cleaners: Long time untouched bugs: Any bugs or filtered bugs (no retirement, games or m-w), both filter out bugs that block useful trackers.
 * QA-Reports: Bugs last touched by year: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

First steps
Because one cannot just rush in and go hunt at random bugs and expect people to agree with one's actions; the very first steps we will take is to raise the necessary discussion to get feedback on what the community wants us to do exactly, which clarifies the further limits and scope of the project.

Questions to be answered
We will need to get some questions answered to proceed:


 * How old is "oldest"?
 * When is a bug considered still useful?
 * Are there other types of bugs we could or need to look into?
 * Can this effort replace the Bug Day that does not receive interest lately?
 * Do we need a mail alias so we can get CC-ed on bugs? (Effectively allowing users to help as well.)
 * Do we need a mail alias so we can get assigned on bugs? (*unsure*)
 * What to do in exceptional cases? (Cannot be answered until we identified them)

This will be discussed on the mailing lists.

This page is to be extended
We will need to document our practices and useful resources here (QA reports, good bug queries, ...)

Project's relationship to Bug Wranglers and QA
This project attempts to fit side by side with Bug Wranglers, Bug Wranglers is a project for bug assignment. Having a separate mail alias and project page makes it easier for people as a separate form of contact, documentation and recognition.

At this moment, we made this a separate page as this project is not fully defined yet (in limit and scope); thus its relationship with QA is not fully clear yet. We foresee that this project might be moved as a sub project under QA in the near future, which we will ask the new QA team.