Martijn is on to something here. I write as a non-developer who has identified bugs and has been pressed to report them via Bugzilla, despite the fact that I feel very much out of my depth there. For those of us who can report problems but not solve them (other than to test solutions), a simpler process would probably help to ensure that the bugs are reported in a more standard way that is most likely to be useful to the developer team.
On a side note, Bugzilla is also used not just to report bugs but to request enhancements and/or activation of extensions. This can be the developer equivalent of walking through a field of landmines, as many are not familiar enough with the disparate communities to determine whether this is actually a community request or just a bunch of guys on a little-watched page asking for something. The communities can get pretty nasty with the developer team if an unexpected change is made, so finding a better way to resolve these issues would be mutually beneficial. Risker/Anne On 14 May 2012 12:07, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoeks...@gmail.com> wrote: > Thats actually quite an interesting thought, and it could well be > true, even if it is the opposite of the Wiki philosophy. > > On the other hand, it might also be true that non-developers do find > bugs, but fail to report them exactly because of the BZ user > experience. It's quite important that reporters don't 'get in the way' > of development. Keeping them out of the devolopers shouldn't be done > by erecting walls of artificial difficulties - which is what BZ'ed > user experience is, it hides the difficulty of finding and properly > reporting a bug in itself behind the difficulty of going through the > technical process of reporting a bug. > > How it should be done is a more difficult question though. Hardly > anyone equipped to do proper triage from the firehose of a > low-boundries bugtracker is interested in actually doing that triage > (see also: code review) > > On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Diederik van Liere <dvanli...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > I don't think we should aim to cater to non-developers at all. The > changes that a non-developer finds a real bug are very very small (in my > previous life as an academic I have done a lot of research on Bugzilla and > developer productivity and it's based on that experience that I am making > this statement). I think that if a newbie / non-developer finds bugzilla > then he /she should be redirected to either IRC / Teahouse / Talk pages / > FAQ or any other support channel that we have. They can always be send back > to file a bug report. > > > > If we are going to spend effort on improving bugzilla then it should be > focused (IMHO) on matching a bug with the right developer (right meaning a > person who can actually fix the problem). It is this area that Bugzilla (or > any other bug tracker AFAIK) provides very limited support. > > > > -- Diederik > > On 2012-05-14, at 1:10 AM, Ryan Lane wrote: > > > >>> I don't think you'll ever find a finished bug-/issue-tracking solution > that > >>> caters just as well for newbies and developers. The main reason is (of > >>> course?) that most issue tracking software is written for developers, > by > >>> developers with little or no experience or thought as to what makes a > good > >>> end-user experience. Also, most issue tracking tools are *made > >>> deliberately* to work best for developers - with human (end-user) > >>> interaction kept to a minimum. That's also why most issue tracking > >>> solutions end up looking like glorified (not the good kind) > spreadsheets > >>> (Mantis, Flyspray, others?), something the IRS would want you to fill > out > >>> (BZ, OTRS, RT, others?), or some kind of bastard child in-between (The > Bug > >>> Genie, Redmine, Jira, Fogbugz, others?). > >>> > >> > >> I'd like to go one step further. There is not a single good bug/issue > >> tracking system in existence. Yes, I'm completely serious too. I've > >> come to believe that it's impossible to make one that anyone will be > >> happy with. That includes most developers of tracking systems too > >> (I've written one, and I hated it, though I liked it better than what > >> I was using before). > >> > >> We can complain about this till the end of time. This discussion is > >> even worse than bikeshedding discussions. At least with bikeshedding > >> discussions you end up with a color for the bikeshed. When discussing > >> bug/issue trackers you just end up with the same tracker, or another > >> crappy tracker. > >> > >> - Ryan > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikitech-l mailing list > >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
