Trying to get a grip on how to handle bug reports.

[Alexander Dorofeyev]

James Hawkins wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 5:14 PM, Kai Blin <kai.blin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>>  I seem to have done something wrong referring a user to a closed bug report
>>  that seemed to be related to the problem he was having. (See bug 11639 for
>>  more context)
>>
>>  So in order to avoid me being the cause a user defiles the holy status of a
>>  closed bug, I'd like to have some clear rules on how to handle related bug
>>  reports.
>>
> 
> It's actually a lot simpler than that.  While we don't want users
> filing duplicate bug reports, a bug can't be a duplicate of another
> bug that is already fixed.  The right thing to do would be to tell
> that user to file a new bug report, referring to the closed bug report
> if he really feels like it.  Sure they very well maybe be related, but
> the fact remains that one bug is fixed, while another bug is not
> fixed.  Thus, they're not the same bug.  By the way, if you really
> want to help this situation, I don't recommend the sarcasm.
> 
>>  And you folks wonder why we don't have a healthy user community. Sometimes I
>>  feel like talking to a brick wall.
>>
> 
> http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11639#c16
> http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11639#c18
> 
> Those are links to my comments for the bug report in question.  The
> user was told to file a new bug report.  Once the user kept commenting
> in the closed bug report (and not filing a new bug report), I told him
> to stop posting in a closed bug.  Since when is this not standard?
> 

I think bugzilla operators are a bit too trigger happy lately, in particular 
with abandoning bugs. For example: http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12437

"The tests aren't time consuming, but if you choose to not do the tests, we'll
have to close this bug as abandoned."

And there's a link mentioned in comments to downloadable trial that can 
(reportedly) be used to reproduce. Sure, the user should've filled the URL 
field. But, it's pointless to expect users to 1) do everything right 2) follow 
their bugs indefinitely (sometimes for years). 3) always be willing to do time 
consuming and otherwise demanding operations like regression test.

If a user submitted enough info to make it possible for developer to reproduce 
or otherwise make sense of a bug, he has already done a commendable job. IMHO 
care should be taken not to "abandon" bugs without good reason, such as bug 
description that makes no sense, absence of any useful logs and obscure app for 
which no download can be googled and user not responding for a long period of time.