Autoselect patches for stable (Was: Re: [PATCH AUTOSEL for 4.9 36/56] drm/i915: Fix the level 0 max_wm hack on VLV/CHV)

[Emil Velikov]

On 21 November 2017 at 15:07,  <alexander.levin at verizon.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 11:21:52AM +0000, Emil Velikov wrote:
>> - Document the autoselect process
>>Information about about What, Why, and [ideally] How - analogous to
>>the normal stable nominations.
>>Insert reference to the process in the patch notification email.
>
> I agree with this one, and it'll definitely happen. The story behind
> this is that this is all based on Julia Lawall's work which is well
> documented in a published paper here:
>
>         https://soarsmu.github.io/papers/icse12-patch.pdf
>
> I have modified inputs and process, but it essentially is very similar
> to what's described in that paper.
>
> While I have no problem with sharing what I have so far, this is
> still very much work in progress, and things keep constantly changing
> based on comments I receive from reviewers and Greg, so I want to
> reach a more stable point before trying to explain things and change
> my mind the day after :)
>
> If anyone is really interested in seeing the guts of this mess I
> currently have I can push it to github, but bear in mind that in it's
> current state it's very custom to the configuration I have, and is
> a borderline unreadable mix of bash scripts and LUA.
>
> Ideally it'll all get cleaned up and pushed anyways once I feel
> comfortable with the quality of the process.
>
At first I would focus on What and Why. Getting that information out
and publicising it via that blogs, G+, meetings, etc. is essential.
Reference to the current [WIP or not] heuristics is nice but can
follow-up in due time. A placeholder must be available though.

>> - Make the autoselect nominations _more_ distinct than the normal stable ones.
>>Maintainers will want to put more cognitive effort into the patches.
>
> So this came up before, and the participants of that thread agreed
> that adding "AUTOSEL" in the patch prefix is sufficient. What else
> would you suggest adding?
>
Being consistent [with existing stable nominations style] is good, but
first focus* should be on making it noticeable and distinct.
In other words - do _not_ be consistent.

Flipping the order AUTOSEL PATCH, using WARN, NOTE or just dropping
PATCH should help.
People tend to read PATC..... /xx: ... last words of commit message.

Additionally, different template + a big note/warning in the email
body is a good idea. Say:
WARNING: This patch is nominated via the autosel procedure as defined at $ref.

HTH
Emil

* Regardless if autosel patches default to "ACK to merge" or not.