4 ms·

Yep. Found out a few months ago that Mozilla’s bug tracker still thinks it’s appropriate to report “zero (matching) bugs found” as “Zarro Boogs Found”: https:/

by SilasX 4y ago

Yep. Found out a few months ago that Mozilla’s bug tracker still thinks it’s appropriate to report “zero (matching) bugs found” as “Zarro Boogs Found”: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1374266 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1374266

shadowgovt 4y ago
As the bug notes, at this point in history it's unlikely this will be changed because it's been this way so long that tooling that works by screen-scraping a bugzilla output would break if "zarro" went away. https://github.com/search?p=3&q=zarro+boogs&type=Code https://github.com/search?p=3&q=zarro+boogs&type=Code At this point it's probably insufficiently confusing to justify the change. The most valuable piece of advice I ever got regarding error messages was "Here's what users do with an error message they don't understand: they Google it." As long as the key words are unambiguous in meaning it can actually be more harmful than beneficial to change a message like that (when people are trying to figure out why their bugzilla installs are showing zero bugs, will they lose all the accreted historical knowledge on StackOverflow for fixing "zarro boogs" issues if Mozilla changes the message?).
- SilasX 4y ago
  Did you know that there are people born every day that haven't been indoctrinated into Mozilla's oh-so-clever inside jokes, and they might start using the software one day[1] -- or at least, that's what Mozilla claims to wait, their organization practices notwithstanding. If it's really important that the parser pick up the string "Zarro Boogs Found", then you can leave it in invisible text, and then leave the rest of the world out of your counterproductive in-joke. [1] But at this rate, that's becoming less likely.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > Did you know that there are people born every day that haven't been indoctrinated into Mozilla's oh-so-clever inside jokes Probably yes. And when they see that error and have more questions about it, many will Google "Zarro Boogs" and find StackOverflow links and various other sources. If the text is changed or made invisible, that search pathway becomes obscured. As inconvenient as it is for making changes to published UI, unique and identifiable strings serve as a sort of "soft URL" in this era of ubiquitous search engines.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      >Probably yes. And when they see that error and have more questions about it, many will Google "Zarro Boogs" and find StackOverflow links and various other sources. The point of a help resource is that you avoid, where at all possible, making the user need other help resources. >If the text is changed or made invisible, that search pathway becomes obscured. That's not how text search works. >As inconvenient as it is for making changes to published UI, unique and identifiable strings serve as a sort of "soft URL" in this era of ubiquitous search engines. So do you think maybe there's a lesson in here about building a culture around being opaque to outsiders? Or do you take it as an indicator to be more opaque, lest we alienate those who like scaring off the users that the project exists to help?
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        > That's not how text search works. Sorry, I don't understand. If the user can't see "zarro boogs" on the page, why would they Google "zarro boogs?" And if they don't, how are they going to find the legacy of comments on StackOverflow, for example, that would tell them that message means no bugs were found but can be caused by a misconfigured backing store? > So do you think maybe there's a lesson in here about building a culture around being opaque to outsiders? In an era where global text search utilities can clear up any confusion within 5 seconds, I don't think that error message teaches us a lesson one way or the other on the question of opacity. It's not a choice I would make for my own project to maximize adoption, but I've never gotten the sense it hurts bugzilla's adoption (the biggest competition I've seen for bugzilla these days are options like Jira that don't require self-hosting the installation, which is a far more significant feature axis than whether the error message is funny).
sacrosancty 4y ago
With a comical name like Mozilla, I think they have license to use comical error messages.
- SilasX 4y ago
  That doesn’t follow at all. They still have an international community that needs technical information and shouldn’t be distracted or confused by oh-so-clever jokes when trying to solve errors and bugs. Firefox is intended as a daily utility for serious stuff, regardless of the name of the organization that makes it.
  - mmmpetrichor 4y ago
    The organization is ultimately a collection of developers who have devoted (In this case) 20+ years of their career. I can understand the utilitarian view, but I can also see how they want to keep some humor or personality alive in their product. It's ultimately the decision of the org. Open source stuff is hard enough, imagine seeing tons of demands daily on something you really care about and then seeing something like this that doesn't, ultimately, even matter. I can understand a tiny bit of hostility. I will add, don't take free software for granted, it doesn't owe you anything. I think the reverse is true.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      There are plenty of ways they can have humor that don’t compromise technical docs. You want to know how to ease the load of maintaining open source? Make onboarding easier. That means good, clear docs that aren’t cluttered with cryptic inside jokes. Seriously, the way they work, you’d almost think they don’t want people to get involved. (In Mozilla’s case, probably because they blew their budget on the latest resume builder.) It would be one thing if I were asking for a special feature of the product. Here, I’m asking for something that saves your support staff from being pestered by people that couldn’t understand the cryptic docs. Why wouldn’t you want that? [1] Why wouldn’t you be thanking anyone who suggests ways to save you time? Sometimes I wonder if noticing this kind of stuff is a superpower, because it’s in really short supply. [1] Maybe because you moonlight as an Optimism maintainer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30294065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30294065

by SilasX 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago

As the bug notes, at this point in history it's unlikely this will be changed because it's been this way so long that tooling that works by screen-scraping a bugzilla output would break if "zarro" went away. https://github.com/search?p=3&q=zarro+boogs&type=Code https://github.com/search?p=3&q=zarro+boogs&type=Code At this point it's probably insufficiently confusing to justify the change. The most valuable piece of advice I ever got regarding error messages was "Here's what users do with an error message they don't understand: they Google it." As long as the key words are unambiguous in meaning it can actually be more harmful than beneficial to change a message like that (when people are trying to figure out why their bugzilla installs are showing zero bugs, will they lose all the accreted historical knowledge on StackOverflow for fixing "zarro boogs" issues if Mozilla changes the message?).

SilasX 4y ago
Did you know that there are people born every day that haven't been indoctrinated into Mozilla's oh-so-clever inside jokes, and they might start using the software one day[1] -- or at least, that's what Mozilla claims to wait, their organization practices notwithstanding. If it's really important that the parser pick up the string "Zarro Boogs Found", then you can leave it in invisible text, and then leave the rest of the world out of your counterproductive in-joke. [1] But at this rate, that's becoming less likely.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  > Did you know that there are people born every day that haven't been indoctrinated into Mozilla's oh-so-clever inside jokes Probably yes. And when they see that error and have more questions about it, many will Google "Zarro Boogs" and find StackOverflow links and various other sources. If the text is changed or made invisible, that search pathway becomes obscured. As inconvenient as it is for making changes to published UI, unique and identifiable strings serve as a sort of "soft URL" in this era of ubiquitous search engines.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    >Probably yes. And when they see that error and have more questions about it, many will Google "Zarro Boogs" and find StackOverflow links and various other sources. The point of a help resource is that you avoid, where at all possible, making the user need other help resources. >If the text is changed or made invisible, that search pathway becomes obscured. That's not how text search works. >As inconvenient as it is for making changes to published UI, unique and identifiable strings serve as a sort of "soft URL" in this era of ubiquitous search engines. So do you think maybe there's a lesson in here about building a culture around being opaque to outsiders? Or do you take it as an indicator to be more opaque, lest we alienate those who like scaring off the users that the project exists to help?
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      > That's not how text search works. Sorry, I don't understand. If the user can't see "zarro boogs" on the page, why would they Google "zarro boogs?" And if they don't, how are they going to find the legacy of comments on StackOverflow, for example, that would tell them that message means no bugs were found but can be caused by a misconfigured backing store? > So do you think maybe there's a lesson in here about building a culture around being opaque to outsiders? In an era where global text search utilities can clear up any confusion within 5 seconds, I don't think that error message teaches us a lesson one way or the other on the question of opacity. It's not a choice I would make for my own project to maximize adoption, but I've never gotten the sense it hurts bugzilla's adoption (the biggest competition I've seen for bugzilla these days are options like Jira that don't require self-hosting the installation, which is a far more significant feature axis than whether the error message is funny).

sacrosancty 4y ago

With a comical name like Mozilla, I think they have license to use comical error messages.

SilasX 4y ago
That doesn’t follow at all. They still have an international community that needs technical information and shouldn’t be distracted or confused by oh-so-clever jokes when trying to solve errors and bugs. Firefox is intended as a daily utility for serious stuff, regardless of the name of the organization that makes it.
- mmmpetrichor 4y ago
  The organization is ultimately a collection of developers who have devoted (In this case) 20+ years of their career. I can understand the utilitarian view, but I can also see how they want to keep some humor or personality alive in their product. It's ultimately the decision of the org. Open source stuff is hard enough, imagine seeing tons of demands daily on something you really care about and then seeing something like this that doesn't, ultimately, even matter. I can understand a tiny bit of hostility. I will add, don't take free software for granted, it doesn't owe you anything. I think the reverse is true.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    There are plenty of ways they can have humor that don’t compromise technical docs. You want to know how to ease the load of maintaining open source? Make onboarding easier. That means good, clear docs that aren’t cluttered with cryptic inside jokes. Seriously, the way they work, you’d almost think they don’t want people to get involved. (In Mozilla’s case, probably because they blew their budget on the latest resume builder.) It would be one thing if I were asking for a special feature of the product. Here, I’m asking for something that saves your support staff from being pestered by people that couldn’t understand the cryptic docs. Why wouldn’t you want that? [1] Why wouldn’t you be thanking anyone who suggests ways to save you time? Sometimes I wonder if noticing this kind of stuff is a superpower, because it’s in really short supply. [1] Maybe because you moonlight as an Optimism maintainer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30294065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30294065