Remove or replace "(blessed)" from the "Task" ticket type label

[azaozz]

I'm a bit uncomfortable using religious terms in Trac ticket labels. The meaning of "blessed" outside of religious texts in English seems somewhat different. Looking at dictionaries, it is:

• made holy; consecrated
• of or enjoying happiness
• bringing pleasure, contentment, or good fortune
• used in mild expressions of annoyance or exasperation

Seems lately the task (blessed) ticket type is being mentioned more and more in documentation. However "blessed" may get even further away from the meaning it is used on Trac when translated. Also perhaps offensive for certain groups of people and in certain languages/locales.

In that terms I think "(blessed)" should be removed from the ticket type label, or replaced with something more appropriate. Perhaps approved or confirmed or pre-approved or authorized.

[azaozz]

Thinking that perhaps confirmed or approved best describe the way how Task tickets are being used currently. Any other ideas for a replacement?

[Otto42]

may get even further away from the meaning it is used on Trac when translated

Do we have any current examples of how it's translated now?

[dd32]

I'm surprised at the level of religiousness documented as the description of it, because as a non-religious person the meaning of the word has always been this one to me:

​https://www.dictionary.com/browse/blessing

6. approval or good wishes:
   The proposed law had the blessing of the governor.

(With blessed being the noun of blessing - but yes, I acknowledge the religious origins of the word and origin of that usage of the word)

It's worth noting that task is specifically excluded from non-bug-gardeners being able to select it, so to change the text the only is only to convey the "internal meaning" (task/defect) into something others understand (thing-we-need-to-do/bug).

In that spirit, while the explanation could be changed to approved, authorised, etc those convey some kind of process that the ticket has gone through that otherwise doesn't exist (ie. Does that mean an enhancement is not approved/authorised?).

I'm not 100% familiar with how the task label is used today, but looking at the ​list of open tasks on core.trac and meta.trac the majority seem to be enhancements/bugs/todo-list items, but then there's some like Prepare for PHP 8.2 which are both enhancements and bugs at the same time, but something that just needs to happen, and thus, is a task.

It feels to me, that we could simply drop the (blessed) suffix and get the same meaning. As non-gardeners can no longer select it, we don't need to deal with bug reporters selecting it as we once did (which is I think why it was added in the first place maybe?)

[azaozz]

Replying to Otto42:

Do we have any current examples of how it's translated now?

Not sure, couldn't find any in a language I understand. However I got asked to explain what task (blessed) means by a person who speaks English as a second language. They were confused as the straight translation had very strong religious context. That's what made me look it up in the dictionaries.

[azaozz]

Replying to dd32:

I'm surprised at the level of religiousness documented as the description of it

I was quite surprised too but seems (even just in English) the meaning is way off from what I expected.

I'm not 100% familiar with how the task label is used today, but looking at the ​list of open tasks on core.trac and meta.trac the majority seem to be enhancements/bugs/todo-list items, but then there's some like Prepare for PHP 8.2 which are both enhancements and bugs at the same time, but something that just needs to happen, and thus, is a task.

Yep, currently the task ticket type is used for two different things:

• For tickets that are "tasks", not bugs and not enhancements, or a bit of both. Prepare for PHP 8.2 is a good example. These tasks usually run for longer time and are not milestone dependent.
• To extend the feature freeze deadline for specific enhancement past beta 1. This relies on the "not milestone dependent" status of tasks and used to be a rare exception. Recently many enhancements coming from Gutenberg are marked as tasks just before beta 1. This doesn't seem as the "proper" use of this ticket type. Hopefully this will change soon (made a proposal to change it: ​https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/18/proposal-updates-to-the-wordpress-release-cycle/).

It feels to me, that we could simply drop the (blessed) suffix and get the same meaning. As non-gardeners can no longer select it, we don't need to deal with bug reporters selecting it as we once did

Dropping it sounds good.

(which is I think why it was added in the first place maybe?)

Yep, think this was the reason too, but can't remember exactly.

[dd32]

In 12415:

Trac: Allow for the task ticket type to be renamed.

This changes the JS to simply look for a ticket type with 'task' in it, rather than the hard-coded 'task (blessed)' text.

See #6783.

[dd32]

In 12555:

Trac: Don't throw a JS error on non-ticket pages for non-Gardeners.

In r12415 I failed to gate the code properly which has caused a JS error, which caused some functionalities of the page to not be rendered for logged out users.

See #6783.

[dd32]

Just noting that the code used on Make p2's for the components page will need updating too:

$ grep 'blessed' *plugins -ri
plugins/trac-notifications/customisations/trac-components.php:		$type_filled = array_fill_keys( array( 'defect (bug)', 'enhancement', 'feature request', 'task (blessed)' ), 0 );
plugins/trac-notifications/customisations/trac-components.php:			'task (blessed)'  => 'Open tasks',
plugins/trac-notifications/trac-components.php:		$type_filled = array_fill_keys( array( 'defect (bug)', 'enhancement', 'feature request', 'task (blessed)' ), 0 );
plugins/trac-notifications/trac-components.php:			'task (blessed)'  => 'Open tasks',