Launchpad bug report problems

[gsmanners]

Just curious. How exactly do you handle it when developers reject your bug reports for no particular reason, usually with some snide and/or rude remark that just proves that they cannot handle the responsibility?

[caryb]

This might be off beam & I'm not a DEV! But being a techie I get some strange comments in my job like the network is down because there 50M print job doesn't print 5 secs after they push print & they are on the other end of a 512K adsl link WAN! If they get the qty of "bogus" DFU messages I get you could not blame them for getting a little cynical. I guess thats no excuse for being rude but after a while the plastic smile wears a bit thin.



Cary

[castrojo]

It would help if you would link to the bug in question.

[gsmanners]

It would help if you would link to the bug in question.

I don't have any particular bug in mind just yet. I've been scanning through Launchpad a lot lately and have noticed some interesting patterns, but nothing I'm willing to call abuse.

It would be nice if there were a convenient way to report abuse if for no other reason than to crack down on the spam.

[nhandler]

Well, when a developer rejects a bug report, they usually post an explanation that states why it was rejected. If they don't, you can try reopening the bug. If the bug really deserves to be rejected, it will probably be rejected again (hopefully with an explanation). You can also either add a comment to the bug report or email the dev who rejected the bug, and request an explanation about why the bug was rejected. Most developers would be happy to comply.

In my experience, most developers behave in an appropriate fashion. I've rarely come across snide/rude comments. when I do stumble upon them, the person they are directed at usually deserves them.

I'm not 100% positive, but based on this excerpt from a page on ubuntu.com:

The Community Council is responsible for the following documents and processes:
...
Arbitration of a dispute under the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. This will happen if a member of the community has asked the Community Council to review the behaviour of another member in terms of the code of conduct. The Community Council can ask a maintainer or other member of the community to retract and apologise for the offending behaviour, and refrain from further inappropriate behaviour, or leave the community. No person will be asked to leave without a substantial review and opportunity to defend their behaviour, but the Community Council will not hesitate to do so if an individual refuses to follow the Code of Conduct.

I would believe that if you decide to "call abuse", you should ask the Ubuntu Community Council to review the developers actions. I would suggest only doing this as a last resort. Before going to the CC, attempt to contact the developer, and get a second (or third) opinion about the incident. If you are the only one who feels the comment was snide/rude, chances are that it was not intended to be.

[gsmanners]

This is a problem. I'm not going to report bugs if I have to deal with this sort of politics every time I encounter developer hubris (which I expect to be frequent if I do participate).

[spamzilla]

This is a problem. I'm not going to report bugs if I have to deal with this sort of politics every time I encounter developer hubris (which I expect to be frequent if I do participate).

You are claiming there is a problem, even though you say there isn't any "dev abuse" posts in launchpad that you have seen. :confused::confused::confused:

You don't have to report bugs, and there really is no need to get worked up over nothing.

[23meg]

The only behavior I've seen from developers and triagers in the Ubuntu bug tracker that I can understand people may find rude has been some rushed bug closure with insufficient or ambiguous information provided on why exactly the bug is being closed. I've also seen some bugs being closed with the explanation that they're duplicates, without them being marked as duplicates of a specific bug, but marked as "Invalid" with a short reply similar to "This is already known".

Both cases have been more frequent close to release time, and both have come from people who are responsible from handling the bug traffic of lots of packages, so I can understand their side of the problem as well: they've simply had too much on their hands to post detailed information. I'm confident that they're aware that this is a suboptimal situation.

As a triager who looks at lots of bug reports, I haven't observed any other problem of this sort that has become regular to any degree. And the solution to this one as I see it is the usual one: more triage workforce. Ways to start helping:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

This is a problem. I'm not going to report bugs if I have to deal with this sort of politics every time I encounter developer hubris (which I expect to be frequent if I do participate).

If you assert that it's frequent, provide some specifics, and let's hear your suggestions for improving the situation. Otherwise, well, just don't report bugs, but don't dissuade others from doing so with baseless remarks either.

[EDIT: Removed reply to misinterpreted statement; sorry.]