[LEDE-DEV] On the proposed Mantis and maximizing bug usefulness

[Daniel Dickinson]

On 16-05-08 09:24 PM, Ben Greear wrote:
> 
>> 1) I like the suggestion of one the of list members made of having
>> something on the device that you clicked on and it prefilled as much as
>> possible of the relevant information (like arch, model, etc) into the
>> bug report (for example a luci screen that hooked into Mantis API (I
>> assume they have one)) and required such fields are guaranteed to be
>> required, and before submitting to the bug tracker, force the user to at
>> least claim that the information genuinely met the guidelines.  I'd be
>> happy to whip up something like this, that fit what you wanted.
> 
> Don't make it required, it is possible a user cannot actually provide
> the information for whatever reason and otherwise has a perfectly fine
> bug report.

That's what the 'force the use the user to claim' bit is about -
basically the only things that should be in the required things that are
*guaranteed* to be available / applicable (like what device is this
occurring on), and everything should be optional but users should be
required to actually think about whether their bug report is actually
useful to volunteer developers, or is just going to waste time and
resources).

> Make it suggested, and make it easy to provide, and users will likely
> do the right thing most of the time.

I think if you ensure users actually read WHY they're being asked for
what they are, and are reminded of the fact that a useless bug report
hurts rather than helps, then I'd agree they will, but in my experience
without that kind of reminder, there is a significantly detrimental
tendency to be lazy and not do the right thing.

Regards,

Daniel