Free Software Directory:Workflow

Bugs and suggestions

Requested updates to existing submissions get categorized as "Bug report":

• Category:Bug_report

When completed, the category gets changed to "Bug report-done"

• Category:Bug_report-done

If you edit a bug report using "edit with form", you can mark the it as having been reviewed. (The category changes automatically.)

Updating existing entries

To update an existing entry, click an individual bug link, then click the "edit the page" link.

Some important things to do when updating a submission:

• In the Documentation note and Version comment fields, make sure all URLs are formatted as external links. Simply pasting the URL is bad because it does not create a clickable link and because long URLs create formatting errors due to poor line wrap support.
• Make sure IRC channels are formatted as URIs in the formatted like such: irc://irc.gnu.org/channelname — notice that the hash tag of the channelname is optional.
• The Submitted by and Submitted date should only be edited the first time a project is submitted.
• If you are making a very minor change, do not bother updating the Last reviewed fields. However, if you are updating the software to indicate a new version has been released or have improved it in other substantial and interesting ways, make sure you updated the Last reviewed by and Last reviewed date. This will add it to an RSS feed of recent updates.
• The licensing section deserves its own wiki page, but for now:
  • When updating license info for a package, please ask another FSD administrator to review your work. (You can do that either via a checkbox on the review's "Edit with form" tab, or by clicking "Problem with this listing?" at the bottom of a project's page). Also, if you do update the license info or have confirmed that it is correct in a newer version, be sure to update the License reviewed by and License reviewed date fields for that package.
  • When updating an existing package in the Directory, if you suspect the package has changed and become proprietary software, then this should be flagged for urgent review immediately. Also, contact another administrator letting them know about the situation.
  • If you are having trouble updating or checking the license for a package, don't let this halt updating other aspects of the package's information. Simply update the information you can and then either update the existing Bug in the Review: namespace or create a new Bug that states the package license info needs to be checked and updated.

Viewing submissions (requests)

New entry requests are created with "Form:Submit":

• Form:Submit

Submissions are categorized as Review:

• Category:Review

When review is complete the category is changed to Reviewed.

• Category:Reviewed

If you edit the "Finished review=No" field to say "Yes," then this will happen automatically.

Accepting/rejecting submissions

Please note: When publishing a new entry to the Free Software Directory, please make sure that it meets our requirements, and that another administrator who is experienced in publishing new submissions to the directory reviews your work.

• If you conclude that we can't admit a submission into the Directory, then change the status to reviewed and add your comments explaining why (nicely) above the template. See Review:0_A.D.-REV-ID-1 for an example.

About editing with forms

• Form:Submit: Anyone with a user account can submit a package for review
• Form:Entry: Admins can use this to create new project pages

At the top of pages in the Review: namespace is a link that will allow you to create or edit entries without typing URLs or entering a name into Form:Entry. Currently, to make changes to an entry's content you must type in your own sentences, and copy and paste basic info. To avoid copyright infringement, please use your own wording for program descriptions.

When you want to edit a page, you have the option of using "Edit" or "Edit with Form". The first allows you to see the source code of the page and offers more flexibility, whereas the second one presents you with a convenient form layout, allowing you to edit current values.

Organization of FSD

Here are some pages that an admin will find useful:

Categories mentioned above

• Category:Review: Submissions for (usually) new packages
• Category:Reviewed: Submissions that have been processed
• Category:Bug report: User submitted bugs and suggestions
• Category:Bug_report-done: Update requests that have been processed

Not mentioned above

• Category:Alert: Packages that have been marked as containing non-free software or using non-free documentation
• Category:Alert-done: Packages marked as non-free that have been processed
• Category:GNU_review: Submissions marked as GNU
• Category:GNU_review-done: GNU submissions that have been processed
• Category:Review_license: Packages whose license details require double-checking by an experienced administrator
• Category:Documentation: All documentation pages
• Category:Test: Test pages

Site development

These links are useful for people working on fixing and brining new features to the directory:

• FSD:Hack: Tutorial links
• FSD:Bugs: Triaged bugs
• FSD:Features: Potential site improvements