parts tracker history

[Steffen]

I just wanted to mention that something simply great is happening on the PT this year:
A major breakthrough in bringing down the huge backlog of parts to get out has been achieved:
the first big flush of parts happened around Christmas last year. It brought many, many parts out officially.
Then, quite quickly following, again over 1000 files were released with the next release.
And now, despite all the server problems etc., again over 800 files are Admin-certified:
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/tracker/activity.cgi
This will again bring a huge parts release with the next coming update.
The - for me - most interesting fact is that the parts waiting for Admin-certify are down to just 2 files right now
(not counting subfiles, ~ files and primitives) - see here:
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptlist.cgi
This can also be seen by the now dramatically shrinked portion of todos for Chris in this graph (blue portion):
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/pthist2.cgi?h=10&i=15
What I find so important about this is that I in the past found the queue of parts waiting for an Admin review
to be the bottleneck of parts releases. This no longer is true now. In fact, we as reviewers are not even able
to bring up so many parts for Admin cert as Chris "consumes" them. So the bottleneck is finally gone,
thanks to Chris' permanent and close-tracked reviews.

The sequence of the upcoming parts release together with its 2 recent predecessors marks
a true milestone in our library.

My hope is that at some point in the future, the parts tracker will only contain a handful of parts,
leading to the effect that a newly submitted part will have a much faster way through it than in the last years,
where it took eons for it to get through. With not so many old parts waiting anymore, "younger" parts
will have a better chance being seen.

Just wanted to share these thoughts with you.

[Chris Dee]

Thanks ... and yes, the 2012-02 Parts Update is on the way, but has been delayed a little by work on switching the authentication.

[Jude Parrill]

I totally agree with this sentiment, Steffen. I don't know whether Chris recently took over from an old Parts admin or if he just has more time to devote now, but you're absolutely right about him no longer being "a bottleneck".

I also have to give credit to the parts reviewers and authors as well, though, as it seems like they've been stepping up their game as well lately. You're absolutely right in stating that, if you guys continue at the pace you've been working at, soon all the parts will be out and there will be nothing for disgruntled jerks like myself to complain about (although I still will).