Submitting extras - more transparency?

I've not seen any information about this anywhere thus far (please direct me if it exists and I've just not found it!).

I have one extra in the repo already and submitted a new package a couple of days ago for a new extra.
I found with the first one that i had absolutely no idea the progress of the submission at any point, until around two or three weeks later when I found it in the extras repo looking through other packages. I never received a PM, or email, or anything to say if my submission was/wasn't successful and when it was released where it could be found.

So what I'm wondering is:

What's the process on the other side that we can't see? How long is the usual wait time? How many stages of checking are there in reviewing an extra?

Can notifications be implemented? It would be great to know what stage the review of a package is at a glance without having to sit patiently waiting, or bothering others for info. When you submit an extra, it would be ideal for an email to be sent out as soon as someone confirms receipt of the submission. When an extra is approved and added to the official repo, another notification should be sent. If there are any issues blocking the extra being approved, a notification should be sent detailing the problem so it can be sorted more quickly.

It would also be really useful for submitters to be able to see a "current waiting time" guesstimate during the submission progress, so at busier times they are already aware before the submission process completes that it might take x number of days before it can be checked.

Just wondering what others thoughts are?

I was planning to post a very similar question. I submitted a new extra on December 30th and haven't heard anything back yet. It'd be nice to at least get an automated email acknowledging the submission, giving an approximate wait time ("2-3 weeks" or whatever), and possibly a way to contact whoever reviews submissions.

It's nice to know it's not just me then! My previous submission http://modx.com/extras/package/jsonderulo23 took around 2 - 3 weeks before it showed up on the repo.

Notifications would be ideal for people who want to keep track of their contributions.

You shouldn't see several day long delays (much less weeks) for submissions to the Extras, but sometimes things slip under the radar unfortunately. If you ever run into issues, please feel free to send an email to help at modx dot com and we'll check into it for you.

On the same subject, would love some feedback on how to make the process much better. I know it's not ideal, and can be greatly improved.

Quote from: rethrash at Jan 11, 2013, 12:25 PM

On the same subject, would love some feedback on how to make the process much better. I know it's not ideal, and can be greatly improved.

Hi Ryan,

thanks for the reply! I think simply laying out the steps to approval and providing notifications when each stage is ticked off would be ideal. I don't think it needs anything crazy like a dashboard for submissions you can log into and see (like a tickets system?) - just emails so you know things are happening.

If the usual submission/approval cycle is less than a week then since both myself and Jgrant have had a similar problem with submissions suggests that maybe the submission form is to blame and not any individual person?

Cheers!

Quote from: rethrash at Jan 11, 2013, 12:25 PM

You shouldn't see several day long delays (much less weeks) for submissions to the Extras, but sometimes things slip under the radar unfortunately.

Thanks, that's useful to know. After a week went by and I hadn't heard anything I started to worry that my description was a bit longer than 400 characters and maybe that had caused the submission to be automatically tossed out. Or maybe it had been overlooked because of the holidays. Anyway, I resubmitted it January 6th making sure to keep the description under 400 characters I haven't heard anything from that one either and my extra isn't in the repository. The two confirmation numbers I got are:
50e0c1faf2455411fb00002e-50e0c1fbf2455411fb00002f (12/30/2012)
50e9cb90f245544849000072-50e9cb90f245544849000073 (01/06/2013)

Quote from: rethrash at Jan 11, 2013, 12:25 PM

On the same subject, would love some feedback on how to make the process much better.

I think the minimum should be an email confirming the submission (automated is fine). The email should contain:

• A rough idea idea of the time frame for having the submission reviewed and added to the repository. It doesn't have to be precise, but it'd be helpful to know whether to expect hours, days, or weeks.
• That help at modx email address in case the review process takes longer than it should or other questions arise.

Quote from: jgrant

I think the minimum should be an email confirming the submission (automated is fine). The email should contain:

• A rough idea idea of the time frame for having the submission reviewed and added to the repository. It doesn't have to be precise, but it'd be helpful to know whether to expect hours, days, or weeks.
• That help at modx email address in case the review process takes longer than it should or other questions arise.

Agreed. I didn't know we could email help at modx dot com for this, I tried bothering splittingred on Twitter... that didn't get very far!

Ryan, roughly on average, how long should we expect a submission to be reviewed and approved? One day? A few days? More than a week?

The system is supposed to be sending notifications when your extras are approved. I'm looking into why this stopped happening...

Quote from: opengeek at Jan 11, 2013, 03:15 PM

The system is supposed to be sending notifications when your extras are approved. I'm looking into why this stopped happening...

I'm not sure mine was approved yet; it's not in the repository.

I've approved the most recent versions of all outstanding submissions. I rejected the older versions of a few that had multiple submissions. Still looking into why the approval emails are not going out.