Re: [gentoo-dev] Response to a "friendly note" about changing bug reports

[Tom Wijsman]

On Tue, 6 Aug 2013 23:46:08 +0200
Jeroen Roovers <jer@g.o> wrote:

> 23:37:25  <willikins> rej, you have notes! [21:13] <mrueg> Let me
> rephrase this: Just a friendly notice to please refrain from
> rephrasing bug summaries from "Stabilize ${P}" to "${P} stable req".
> This just adds unneeded noise to the bug. I don't want this on bugs
> I've reported or am assigned to.
>
> This is my equally short and "friendly" note: It's not going to
> happen. Forget about it. They are not "your" bug reports and anyone is
> actually /welcome/ to improve them. Get used to it.

This note doesn't really hold well; if two people, not necessarily the
reporter or assignee of a bug, want to do opposing improvements then
you get an edit war as a result. In mrueg's words, "unneeded noise".

The concern is valid; if a person is bothered by changes you make, that
person won't get used to those changes at all if they can be undone.

-> Why do you think there's only one way of doing it?

While I don't know how to search for such change; the last unneeded
noise I remember you doing to a bug is adding or removing the dot at
the end of a bug summary, doing nothing else to the bug.

There are sites, like Stack Exchange, where you are forced to edit
multiple characters and type out a summary that explains what you did,
as well as providing an easy rollback option; to avoid unneeded edits.
It's hand holding because almost anyone can edit on such site; from
what I've saw, it really works out well but shouldn't be necessary.

-> What does such small unimportant change gain you?

Not that I'm bothered, because that was just one extra mail; but
repetitively doing stuff similar to this generates much more than just
one extra mail, so I get to see multiple mails of this type over the
place. And while you're just one person, there are others too; it adds
up, up to the point that it's really just a waste of time.

-> Why do you think the burden generated from this is worth it?

> To get technical on the "improvement" bit, we have agreed time on time
> that stating the atom and then the action is the way to go.

Who is "we"? Why is it the "way to go"? If you use such language you
need to link to the actual evidence; otherwise, despite the reasoning
you give, it will be seen as an authoritative contradiction instead of
an actual counterargument. You and I know when that was decided, but a
new developer doesn't; well, at least I know of the last time it did:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/85647

You do the same thing there with "we agreed a little while ago"; and
upon request of djc, phajdan.jr and myself there appears to have been
no response, only to later be answered by someone else that knows:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/dev/173889

As far as I know, there is no requirement to read the entire mail
archives and this is undocumented; so, as it is not always as easy to
search matters like this (wrong search terms, result on last page, ...)
it would help a lot if things were referred to.

Otherwise people might simply ignore your statements, discuss it again
or just apply the opposite changes; neither of which is what you want.

> The main reasons is that it helps people who need to regularly
> read /lists/ of bug summaries sort them better. Until we get a
> specific [Atoms] field implemented, it will need to stay this way.

Has someone already filed a bug with a request for this?

> Besides the finer technical points of bug maintenance, it simply
> infuriates me that anyone would think of bug reports in the
> possessive.

It's actually more natural. Again using Stack Exchange as an example, a
lot of question titles there tend to be an actual question because
some people think it reads much better; I don't think that this is
necessarily a good idea for bug summaries, but just want to point out
that it is a possibility.

Putting the atom first focuses on a summary that feels a bit more
machine readable; whereas if you put it into a sentence, it gives a bit
more freedom to express it as an actual sentence. It's weird to think
about the other way if you're used to one way; but, I consider the end
result rather equal, which you probably do as well as it is easy to
change between the formats.

We can go on for this for a long time, but that would be bike shedding;
s,o I just wanted to demonstrate that there are at actually at least two
sides on the matter. As agreed in earlier threads, the list readability
is indeed a valid reason until a more proper field becomes implemented.

Besides that, I think there are much bigger concerns; let me take a
random bug title "dnsmasq systemd unit file improvement" and point out
that it bothers me more not knowing what the improvement is, let's say
you have another bug like this then how would you tell them apart?

Knowing which improvements the bug consists of, helps to process the list.

> This is not the way to improve the distro. You're on the
> wrong track there. And you weren't being friendly.

Have you friendly explained the bug list reasoning to him before posting
this to the mailing list? Your mail reads more like a personal message
to him; this mailing list is for technical discussions, this is none.

-- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@g.o
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D