On Oct 18, 2004, at 23:34, lex at cc.gatech.edu wrote:

> Frank Caggiano <frank at crystal-objects.com> wrote:
>> The Mantis Category for this bug report (#261) is set to 'Network'.
>> Without opening the bug report and then looking at the debug log there
>> is no way I would have seen that this is a bug against IRCe. No system
>> (Mantis, BFAV or ....) will be any good if the bug reports themselves
>> are uninformative.
>>
>> There is no way I (or most anyone else) can sit and look through each
>> entry to decide if the bug is against something I'm responsible for.
>
> If it is impossible to assign a bug to a package, then that is 
> something
> we should fix eventually.
>
> If it is possible, then please let's not hassle the initial poster of a
> bug.  Instead of trying to insist that they get the bug report correct
> at the beginning, let's focus on the ability to re-assign a bug to a
> different package later on.  Bug reports are a precious resource and
> every tiny barrier means there are fewer we will have.
>
>
> -Lex


I hope it didn't appear that I was hassling the reporter of the bug,  I 
wasn't.

It is possible in Mantis to change the category of a bug report, this 
one is now set to IRC. Also my other concern regarding package 
maintainers; if they would have the same ability in Mantis as they now 
do in BFAV, was addressed. My Mantis account was upgraded so that I can 
manipulate reports that concern IRC (as an added bonus I am also  
getting lots of mail from Mantis now).

I definitely agree with you, Lex, bug reports are needed and we need to 
make sure they are as easy to submit as possible. Nothing more 
frustrating then to find out that there is a bug in some of code of 
yours that people have been living with or working around and not 
reporting it.

On the other hand bug reports that are vague or don't accurately 
reflect what the bug reporter was doing when the bug happened can cause 
a lot of extra unnecessary work. We've all been in the position of 
spending hours trying to recreate a bug only to find out that the 
report submitted is wrong or incomplete.

We can't expect users to know the system well enough to reliably report 
where in the system a bug is occurring (IRC, file system, network) but 
we can expect that the information  reported is an accurate account of 
the condition of the system at the time of the bug  and of the steps 
leading up to the bug.

regards


Frank Caggiano
frank at crystal-objects dot com
http://www.crystal-objects.com

The best educaion for the best is the best education for all.
					Robert Maynard Hutchins