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Bug#527557: marked as done (general: should have a help tracker for each package)

Your message dated Fri, 8 May 2009 13:15:18 +0200
with message-id <200905081315.25576.holger@layer-acht.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#527557: general: should have a help tracker for each package
has caused the Debian Bug report #527557,
regarding general: should have a help tracker for each package
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
527557: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=527557
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: general
Severity: wishlist

Just an idea.

Currently, when I am using a new package, or if I have queries
regarding the new package, my friends are upstream and the web.
Usually, not much authentic information.

I am requesting a tracker kind approach for each package.
It could be very similar to Debian BTS. When a user has some query
regarding a package, she cannot file a bug report directly unless she's
sure that it is a bug (and not an odd behavior).

I have a query regarding fdm. Then probably I could just file a "help
report" against fdm. It'd go to the same package maintainer.
Most of the times, the package maintainer would be one of the best
person to give helping instructions about queries against any package.

We already have mailing lists, forums et cetera. So why this approach.
Well, when the user has a package, and has some query, asking her to
subscribe to the mailing list (upstream or distrib's) is not really the
very best help.

This definitely would be an extra add-on to the maintainers and there
will be high chances of users asking questions without RTFMing. For
that, we could make the Debian Policy that the "Debian HTS - Debian Help
Tracking System", will in no way relate to release schedule or quality
of the Debian distribution.


I hope my english is play and understandable.

Ritesh

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Hi Ritesh,

thank you for your suggestion on how to improve Debian! Even though I'm 
closing this bug on the assumption that it ain't useful to report arbitary 
wishlist bugs about things which could be implemented to improve Debian, no 
matter how sensible they are. 

This assumption is based on three main arguments:

First, there are several places to collect such ideas which IMO are better 
suited, like the Debian wiki or personal idea collections. 

Second and more importantly, if you want such a system, I think *you* should 
implement a working prototype. For example, wiki.debian.net was just done and 
then, as the Debian community liked+used it, it was moved to wiki.debian.org.

Third, yes, discussion in advance of doing such a prototype is useful. But you 
don't need to file bugs to discuss. 


And even though I agree with Neils points in his reply, please don't be 
discouraged by all of this. If you think it's a good idea, by all means go 
for it and show its a cool thing! forums.debian.net is probably an example of 
something which many Debian developers don't (or didnt, when it was started) 
consider particulary useful, but today it has many happy users :-)


regards,
	Holger

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