OK, I'll have a go. TO refresh our memory, this was the message: [quote] Hi, you are the assignee for the following bugs for Mageia and we would like to know whether they were assigned correctly. For each of them: * Please change status to ASSIGNED if it is, or put OK on the whiteboard instead. * If you don't have a clue and don't see a way to find out, then please put NEEDHELP on the whiteboard. * Please assign back to Bug Squad or to the correct person to solve this bug if we were wrong to assign it to you, and explain why. * You will not be pinged for this again, if the status is set to ASSIGNED or if the whiteboard contains the string OK. Thanks a lot! [/quote]
First thing I couldn't understand was the first sentence. I found it difficult to imagine how anyone could be so certain about an assertion which I found so absurd. The rest of the message did little to explain what I should do about correcting the absurd assertion. I deduced, after visiting the BUG, that I should put "OK" on the whiteboard, so I went looking to see what that meant and how I should achieve it. I found that a "whiteboard" field exists in the BUG record and that it contained "NEEDHELP". I did not immediately see how making that read "NEEDHELP OK" would fix things so I went on looking. The next sentence in the message quoted seemed to predict my situation; it suggests I should put "NEEDHELP" on the whiteboard if I hadn't a clue what to do - it seems someone got there before me, so there is little point in tacking on another NEEDHELP. As a third thing to do (is that in addition or instead?) the quoted message tells me I should "assign" the bug back to the bug-squad, or in the alternative, to the correct person (if known). The "Assigned To" field in the bug report requires free-text entry. What is the correct form of address to use for the bug squad?? There is also the tempting tick-box enigmatically labelled "Reset Assignee to default". Would that do the trick, or would that set off the time-delay fuse in a bomb which might destroy the world? In short - too many unknowns and not enough relevant guidance. Richard
