Let failed Jenkins builds set Verified: -1 in Gerrit?

[Stephan Bergmann]

On 30.11.2017 09:00, Miklos Vajna wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 12:16:24PM +0100, Stephan Bergmann <sbergman at redhat.com> wrote:
>> Is there any good reason why a failed Gerrit/Jenkins build does not set the
>> corresponding Gerrit change's Verified flag to -1 (similar to how a
>> successful such build sets the flag to +1)?
>>
>> Especially with the poor Jenkins turnaround times, it is hard to tell on a
>> page like <https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/dashboard/self> whether a change
>> is not yet ready for submission because Jenkins has not yet built it or
>> because the Jenkins build failed.  The "V" ("Verified") column is empty in
>> both cases.  (And I assume it would contain something like a red cross if
>> the Verified flag is -1.)
> 
> I think this was a decision from Norbert, probably because he was worried
> about false negatives. A workaround is to watch your inbox (which gets a
> mail, whatever is the outcome), rather than the above URL.

Except, you never get a mail about Jenkins success/failure if it wasn't 
you who sent the patch set to Gerrit.

I just happened to run into this scenario:  Reviewed a Gerrit change 
from somebody else without commit rights.  The Jenkins build had not yet 
finished when I reviewed the change.  But the change looked good to me, 
and I was pretty sure it wouldn't cause build problems, so I set it to 
Code-Review +2.  I wanted to wait for Jenkins' Verified +1 (to be on the 
save side after all) before submitting it.  And I couldn't rely on the 
original author eventually submitting it once Jenkins gave it a Verified 
+1, as the author didn't have commit rights.  So I felt obliged to see 
that change through until it was submitted.  But how would I learn that 
the Jenkins build had failed after all?  Only by polling on the change's 
specific URL, not by polling merely my dashboard page.  Oh my.