Status "draft: true" name is at odds with how it's used

[jpmedley]

Recently an article was accidentally merged with draft: true field set. The writer in question was under the impression that this was needed to correctly indicate the state of the article. However this designation is redundant with the fact that the article is unapproved and unmerged. It would seem to be unneeded for this use.

What the flag is intended to do is hide a finished article publishing on the site. A finished article is definitely not a draft.

I propose that draft: true be changed to something like hidden: true or unpublished: true. I care less about what this field is called than I do about clearing the ambiguity around it.

If draft: true has another use case I've overlooked, then I further propose taking some action to address that case rather than maintaining the status quo.

[kaycebasques]

I'm fine with the change but it seems like a fair of amount of work for not much gain. If @robdodson also agrees to the change and you want to submit the PR, @jpmedley, then I think that would be the path forward. I'm doubtful that Rob's team would prioritize fixing the bug but that's just my take and I'll let Rob agree or disagree with that. So if no one agrees to work on this we should close it.

[kaycebasques]

@jpmedley in the example that you mentioned, did the author intend for the article to get published and they were confused about why it wasn't showing up?

[jpmedley]

That is correct.

[jpmedley]

Sure, you could make sure this is clear in the handbook. I'd do that anyway. If the handbook is the solution to every problem, especially one's we could automate, it will get bigger, while the number of people who have completely internalized it gets smaller.

[robdodson]

Based on this comment it seems that Thomas was confused as to who was supposed to actually change the flag. It seems like he may have added the original draft: true out of an abundance of caution (not wanting the post to get published too early) but it's just as likely he would have done the same thing if the property was named unpublished: true.

FWIW, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to put draft: true on an article while you're still working on it in a PR. It provides an extra level of protection in case it does, for whatever reason, get accidentally merged. It also seems like the person submitting the PR should be the one to remove draft: true as they're ultimately the one deciding when the article should go live.

A reviewer can give them a heads up, and we can probably add a linter warning of some kind to flag that draft: true is set.

[jpmedley]

I'm not sure I agree with all of that, but I agree with adding to the linter warning.

[stale]

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