Re: Talk: Reflections of a bigtime Debian bug reporter
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:46:31 +0530, Kartik Mistry wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> > Especially the 'what did you expect' is important, as it often make it
> > possible to differentiate between software bugs, documentation bugs
> > and plan simple user expectation issues.
>
> May be 'reportbug' can give more template options like 'Steps to
> reproduce 1... 2... 3.. etc' as we see in bugzilla etc. And may be
> automatic stact trace etc.
hi,
i personally hope that this does not happen. one of the virtues of the
debian bts is that it is an email-based system where at least a certain
level of etiquette and cordiality is expected/commonplace. as soon as
you start forcing users to fill in the blanks, it no longer becomes a
one-on-one human correspondence, but instead a battle with an
unyielding inhuman system. this is why i hate dealing with bugzillas.
the answer to the real problem is education. if a user didn't submit
sufficient details in their report, politely ask them for more. show
them a guide for strace, or bug writing guides, or debian
documentation, or whatever may be useful. this may be more work, but as
that user gains more skill, they will become less of a burden, and more
importantly, more capable of solving problems and writing good reports
on their own.
if you want to add something useful to reportbug, i would recommend
kind opening and closing remarks. for example, i've noticed that a bug
starting with 'hi' seems a lot friendlier and gets attention more
quickly than one with a 'hello', which seems more drawn out and
formal. more importantly, something like this will help guide the
submitter's tone, and subsequently the maintainer's response;
ultimately leading to a more peaceful coexistence with the people for
which your work matters. this is something that debian mentors does
well, which makes that system very friendly and productive.
mike
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