Quoting Falk Hueffner <falk@debian.org>:
The thing is, the first step, which is creating a minimal testcase, does not require alpha expertise, but it does require knowledge of the package (how to rebuild parts, knowing which parts can be left out etc). Therefore, it makes much more sense if the maintainer does it.
I don't agree that it requires intimate knowledge of the package in question. I think it requires more skill with a debugger and knowledge of alpha internals. For the case in question, it is an executable that is failing. So you have your test case. Just fire up a debugger to see what's going wrong and work out the minimal example from there. My bet is that it's likely to require someone with alpha knowledge to spot the problem.
If you can't find an account on an Alpha machine, I can give you one.
Sure. Send me the details encrypted to smr@debian.org. -Steve