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That falsely presupposes that only people with poor quality bug reports would be put off from reporting bugs due to the interface. I've known people who can pr

That falsely presupposes that only people with poor quality bug reports would be put off from reporting bugs due to the interface. I've known people who can provide high quality, detailed bugs, decide not to because the extra hassles in reporting to Debian just aren't worth it to them.

geofft 8y ago
And I've seen people who learn how to report bugs to the Debian bugtracker and then proceed to spend tons of time filing low-quality bugs now that they've acquired that skill, until (maybe) they get banned from the bugtracker. And I've seen Debian package maintainers fail to file bugs correctly....
tedunangst 8y ago
No, it assumes that quality ratio varies by reporting mechanism. 9 good reports and 1 bad report are better than 18 good reports and 82 bad reports.
- geofft 8y ago
  That's subjective - I would much rather spend a few minutes sorting out the 82 bad ones than miss 9 good reports. (Actually, I would much rather have 18 good reports and spend several minutes trying to see if there's anything of value in the 82 bad ones: see for instance the high-school kid who found the Apple FaceTime vulnerability and who couldn't figure out how to report it.) One of the principles of the Debian Social Contract reads: We will not hide problems. We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible to others. Dissuading people from filing bug reports feels like it's not in the spirit of this principle. You're basically hiding problems because you don't think the problem reporter is worthy.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    If only it were possible to sort a hundred reports in a few minutes.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Assuming there's no way to triage or filter?
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I guess if you want to discourage ordinary users then this is the way to go: You might have a massive problem with a default option, but it's not reported because the people savvy enough to handle the bug reporting can fix it themselves. But that might mean most people using your software are getting a bad impression and most ordinary users are put off. Depends on whether you're trying to create an elitist grouping or create something to fill people's needs. It's an interesting, though not unexpected, position that demonstrates technocratic societies can have the same problems of control of power that capitalist societies have; except instead of the elite controlling access to money resources, they control access to technological abilities: "fix it yourself" might be the parallel to saying to a homeless person "get a job". It's an interesting revelation to me of how a meritocratic society can fail to be egalitarian.
- rleigh 8y ago
  Bad reports can be closed with a message. But you can't do much about good reports which never got filed because the process was unnecessarily complicated. There are tools like reportbug which already help to filter out inappropriate use by asking simple questions and doing basic checks. I'm sure that could be further improved to help triage and improve submissions.

geofft 8y ago

And I've seen people who learn how to report bugs to the Debian bugtracker and then proceed to spend tons of time filing low-quality bugs now that they've acquired that skill, until (maybe) they get banned from the bugtracker. And I've seen Debian package maintainers fail to file bugs correctly....

tedunangst 8y ago

No, it assumes that quality ratio varies by reporting mechanism. 9 good reports and 1 bad report are better than 18 good reports and 82 bad reports.

geofft 8y ago
That's subjective - I would much rather spend a few minutes sorting out the 82 bad ones than miss 9 good reports. (Actually, I would much rather have 18 good reports and spend several minutes trying to see if there's anything of value in the 82 bad ones: see for instance the high-school kid who found the Apple FaceTime vulnerability and who couldn't figure out how to report it.) One of the principles of the Debian Social Contract reads: We will not hide problems. We will keep our entire bug report database open for public view at all times. Reports that people file online will promptly become visible to others. Dissuading people from filing bug reports feels like it's not in the spirit of this principle. You're basically hiding problems because you don't think the problem reporter is worthy.
- user5994461 8y ago
  If only it were possible to sort a hundred reports in a few minutes.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Assuming there's no way to triage or filter?
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I guess if you want to discourage ordinary users then this is the way to go: You might have a massive problem with a default option, but it's not reported because the people savvy enough to handle the bug reporting can fix it themselves. But that might mean most people using your software are getting a bad impression and most ordinary users are put off. Depends on whether you're trying to create an elitist grouping or create something to fill people's needs. It's an interesting, though not unexpected, position that demonstrates technocratic societies can have the same problems of control of power that capitalist societies have; except instead of the elite controlling access to money resources, they control access to technological abilities: "fix it yourself" might be the parallel to saying to a homeless person "get a job". It's an interesting revelation to me of how a meritocratic society can fail to be egalitarian.
rleigh 8y ago
Bad reports can be closed with a message. But you can't do much about good reports which never got filed because the process was unnecessarily complicated. There are tools like reportbug which already help to filter out inappropriate use by asking simple questions and doing basic checks. I'm sure that could be further improved to help triage and improve submissions.