Re: [gentoo-dev] Bugzilla etiquette suggestions

[Ned Ludd]

Thank you for taking the time to put preXX doc this mail together.

I find it personally inspiring and a reminder to watch how I/we handle 
bugs which is often easy to overlook.




On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 21:11 +0000, Daniel Drake wrote:
> I wrote most of this a while ago but didn't get round to finishing it.
> This seems appropriate at this time, so here it is :)
>
> Here are some small *suggestions* for how I think we can motivate users
> on Bugzilla to contribute more, and to contribute more often. I'm not
> suggesting this be enforced as policy, but it would be nice to see other
> developers giving this some thought. I'm far from perfect here, but I am
> working on sticking to my own suggestions more and more.
>
> Remember that Bugzilla is the only way we communicate with most of our
> external contributors so it is important to make them feel appreciated
> and give them a good impression of the Gentoo developer community.
>
> 1. Don't bitch at contributors
>
> Even if they did something totally wrong, violated all known policies,
> and you are *sure* they just filed the bug to annoy you, don't write
> aggressive sounding responses.
>
> Reasons being:
> - You'll reduce the chances they'll think about contributing again in
> the future
> - They probably won't listen to a word you say, yet will feel the need
> to respond
> - Bugzilla is a public medium, and other potential contributors (who
> maybe wouldn't have made such 'obvious' mistakes) will be put off when
> reading the aggressive dialog.
> (I'm not suggesting that you send abuse privately instead!)
> - Like we aren't paid to fix bugs, the users aren't paid to file them:
> at the end of the day, someone went out of his/her way to file the bug,
> to try and help.
>
> 2. Be careful with INVALID resolutions
>
> The term invalid _is_ harsh in bugzilla context, so make sure you write
> a quick thankful-sounding comment to go with it.
>
> Maybe we should consider alternatives. I quite like the NOTABUG
> resolution they have on the GNOME bugzilla.
>
> Marking bugs as duplicates is also dodgy ground: Comments like "Please
> search" can easily be taken the wrong way. I'm probably asking too much
> for people to spend lots of time thinking up appreciative duplicate
> messages, however...
>
> 3. Always record contributions by name
>
> If you commit something in response to a bug report that has been filed,
> always thank the user by full name (and bug number) in the ChangeLog and
> commit message.
>
> Do the above even if you already knew about the bug (i.e. you would have
> committed the same fix even if the user hadn't alerted you).
>
> This also applies for ebuild requests, ebuild submissions, and version
> bump requests/submissions. Might sound pointless for 'trivial'
> reports/requests but it is important to credit the user if they have
> gone to the trouble of filing a bug.
>
> This also applies to contributors who you know well, contributors who
> you have named 9999 times before, and other Gentoo developers too.
>
> 4. Give the user a chance to make minor corrections
>
> If a user contributes a patch/ebuild which is slightly wrong, and the
> issue is non-critical, don't immediately correct it on their behalf and
> commit it to get the bug out of the way.
>
> Instead, provide an explanation of their mistake and give the user a day
> or two to correct it and attach an updated version. This has the bonuses
> that the user definately won't repeat that mistake in future
> contributions, and they will have the nice feeling of full credit for
> the contribution after you name them in the ChangeLog :)
>
> If they don't respond in that time, make the correction yourself and
> commit it anyway.
>
> 5. Be thankful when marking FIXED
>
> When marking a bug as FIXED, I often forget that the user has tested 4
> kernel versions, moved their network card over to another computer,
> filed an identical bug report upstream, tested the solution, and
> reported back to me.
>
> I think a short note of thanks in the bugzilla comment can go a long way
> (suggestion: thank them for something in particular so that it doesn't
> sound so generic).
>
> 6. Don't forget about email
>
> As a Gentoo developer, you have been automatically granted the ability
> to sound important and make others feel important too.
>
> When Seemant mailed me over 2 years ago, I was a relative idiot and was
> a new Gentoo user at that time. It felt great to receive a complimentary
> email from a well-known and respected Gentoo developer, and that email
> eventually led to me becoming a developer myself (amongst other things!).
>
> I've had the same kind of effect on people since then, for example, I
> sent a very quick "thanks" mail to the guy who authored the wordpress
> theme I run on my weblog, and he was overjoyed that I was using it - he
> happened to be a Gentoo user who already read my blog via the Planet site.
>
> There probably aren't many situations where you would email a user who
> communicates with you on bugzilla. But don't forget about this nice
> ability that we have :)
>
>
>
> That's all I can think of for now. I'd certainly be interested to hear
> any comments on the above and similar suggestions that others may have.
>
> Daniel
-- 
Ned Ludd <solar@g.o>
Gentoo Linux

-- 
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list