On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:42:42 -0500 (EST), Charlie Brady wrote: >>> The forum could then be read only for ordinary users. >> >> Then ordinary users won't be able to tell the devs about bugs. IMHO the >> current stock response to many problem reports in the forums of "Looks >> like a bug, create a bug report in bugzilla" simply doesn't work. > > That depends on how you measure whether it works or not. I think that SME > server software has a reputation for being reliable, and the strong > encouragement to report all bugs to bugzilla, where they can be tracked to > resolution, plays a significant role in preserving that good record.
I'll agree with that but you don't know how many little, minor, non-critical bugs are there that haven't been reported because the steps up to report them in bugzilla are too big compared to the "bug"? I'll own up and say there is one that niggles me and that has been niggling me for ages, I've just reported it... B-) >> Bugzilla is not the most friendly bit of software, it's far too complex >> and geeky for many > > Most users need do nothing more than fill text into a box and occasionally > attach files. Is that really so hard? A new user needs a lot of hand holding. There are five steps (if you can find 'em...) from starting as new bugzilla user to getting to the new bug entry screen. Which has loads of fields and drop down boxes, OK most aren't required,(*) only 5 are but it's not all that obvious which are required and it is safe to ignore all the others. To help the novice, I think there could be some useful changes to the bugzilla screens. How much control do we have over say text colour? Could one have a "green trail" to follow that leads through the pages/steps of filing a new bug, with the required field names also in green? I appreciate that duplicate bugs are a PITA but on almost every page there are "nag" reminders to search, read the instructions etc. This runs some what counter to the begging "please file a bug" requests. B-) >> and it requires you to create yet another login. > > If that is a big impediment, then work should be done to create a unified > login. Looks like that is a non-starter ATM. As I said: >> All little steps but little steps all add up to a big one and it's not >> long before the person with the problem says to themselves "WTF, I can't >> be bothered. I've told 'em in the forum anyway". > > You and I both know that isn't sufficient. If people do adopt that > attitude, is it really our problem, and something that we can fix? You can > lead a horse to water ... True enough but you can lower or remove the fences around the pond. > I don't see this working now. I see a few of these trouble shooters in the > forum, interacting with users about bug reports, but very little of the > information flows through to bugzilla. May be because it's not occurred to them to act as such a bridge? It may even be that those that use the forums, dislike bugzilla and the mailing lists. Personally I detest forums as slow, bandwidth wasting, eye candy ridden, heaps of poo. Give me a plain text email that just arrives. I don't have to go looking just in case there is something new. >> (*) Bugzilla already has the NEEDINFO status. Is it possible for an >> automatic process to update the bug after say 10 days of that flag being >> set thus triggering an email to the "troubleshooter group" that perhaps >> the info request needs to be transferred to the relevant bugs forum >> thread. > > Probably. It's all ones and zeros. I don't whether we have any bugzilla > experts though - that might require modification of the bugzilla code. Be useful to find out, I know that bugzilla can do time based notifications of some sort as there have been automatic "there has been no progress in this bug for 6 months, is it dead?" messages. -- Cheers Dave. _______________________________________________ Discussion about project organisation and overall direction To unsubscribe, e-mail [email protected] Searchable archive at http://lists.contribs.org/mailman/public/discussion/
