Bug Reporting For Ubuntu Forums

[XDevHald]

This may be the dumbest thing to do, but if a user who is new or even been using linux for sometime knows nothing or little about the issue they're dealing with and knows it's an error with the application then they can post a report to a forum in which then we will have a group who can do the bug reporting for this community.

Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea and will be extremely helpful and the users would love it a lot and know that things are getting done much faster.

Please don't bash this post as it's just a suggestion, and could lead to better or worst things if delt with correctly.

[Mez]

It could be done, but, then those users would have to report between here and the bugtracker... wouldn't it just be better to educate users on how to use bugzilla/malone

[XDevHald]

It could be done, but, then those users would have to report between here and the bugtracker... wouldn't it just be better to educate users on how to use bugzilla/malone
That as well can to be done. The forum would be for those who don't have time to report or don't know how and probably don't want to report a bug. Some people find it easier to let others do it for them.

Let's see what others have to say about this, and thank you for your input it does give a a few pointers :D

[Mez]

That as well can to be done. The forum would be for those who don't have time to report or don't know how and probably don't want to report a bug. Some people find it easier to let others do it for them.

Let's see what others have to say about this, and thank you for your input it does give a a few pointers :D
If they see a bug as insignificant enought o not report it, then why would they report it here? ... plus, if it's so insignficant, it's probably going to have been picked up before... or, not be fixed due to new development work (so it'd say, stay in hoary, but have already been fixed in breezy) or something similar

[XDevHald]

If they see a bug as insignificant enought o not report it, then why would they report it here? ... plus, if it's so insignficant, it's probably going to have been picked up before... or, not be fixed due to new development work (so it'd say, stay in hoary, but have already been fixed in breezy) or something similar
Again, we will see what other members have to say with their input, we can not leave it with one members input on this topic.

Thank You.

[manicka]

Again, we will see what other members have to say with their input, we can not leave it with one members input on this topic.

Thank You.
I think it's a good idea. I don't think it matters how the devs get their bugs reported, just as long as it happens. If people feel more comfortable using our community for such a service then it can only be a good thing in the long run.

I'd be happy to be involved or help in any way.

Grant

[XDevHald]

I think it's a good idea. I don't think it matters how the devs get their bugs reported, just as long as it happens. If people feel more comfortable using our community for such a service then it can only be a good thing in the long run.

I'd be happy to be involved or help in any way.

Grant
Thank you manicka for your support and thoughts on this :) Hopefully this will be in affect on the forums by tomorrow.

[manicka]

Thank you manicka for your support and thoughts on this :) Hopefully this will be in affect on the forums by tomorrow.
Sounds great :D
Again, let me know if I can help in any way.

[XDevHald]

I was given permission by poofyhairguy to send an e-mail to the Ubuntu staff & Ubuntu Forums and gave them a great detailed message of exactly what we're looking to do (This is as a community not for myself) and will be waiting for their e-mail with the Highest Priority for the e-mail.

The e-mail has been sent to ubuntu-geek for his words and thoughts on this.

I'll keep everyone updated and hopefull we'll see more good reviews from the members on this :D

Thank you again manicka!

[AgenT]

One suggestion: maybe it would be a good idea to allow guest postings in such a forum. The reason for this is because someone posting a bug may not care to use this forum or sign up for it and just wants the bug posted. Although then you have the whole spam issue.

Also, one could maybe add another bug reporting tool link like "Simple Bug Report Tool" in the gnome menu going straight to this forum! Heck, you could easily do this for Breezy because it's just a menu entry.

[TravisNewman]

just so you know, nearly nothing will "be in effect by tomorrow"

As we're all volunteers, things have to be organized around our work, family, and life in general, and a project like this would take time.

I do like the idea though. As long as the bugs get reported, who cares who they come from? We SHOULD educate members on how to post bugs, but if its too overwhelming, they can use the service you're suggesting.,

[XDevHald]

Thanks panicked! much appreciated as well :D

The guests can but I don't like the idea of spam getting attached to the forum, and yes they as well need to do bug reporting for issues they're dealing with. Educating members/guests is and can be overwhelming especially when a lot of people do not have time to report a bug, or take the time to get the information pulled together for it to be reported correctly.

EDITED:
A team of 5-10 people will be assigned to assist with the project. When i get notification of an approval I will ask for the go ahead to make a group on Malone (Launchpad) to make a group name.

Reason for a minimum number of people is because I don't find having everybody doing this when could end up with 7-10 people reporting the same bug and malone getting flooded with the same reports, deffinently not going to happen. The assigned members are going to need a full understanding of bug reporting and much more (this has been explained in the e-mail).

The members who join will be asked questions on there experience, and will be approved by the administrators of this group if they find these members to of helpful benefit to the community.

Panickthumb, you're correct on the "be in affect by tomorrow" people have things to do and yeah I work almost everyday of my life, but tend to grab a few hours if not more to pull things together ( but can be tought at times ;) and yes, things with a lot of work to it do take much more time and I don't really expect it to be done anytime this week as I am still waiting for u-g's and the ubuntulinux.org staffing thoughts as well on this.

I'm really happy to see people supporting this as I know it will do a huge benefit for the forums and the community and will serve a huge purpose here.

Also, AgenT, I like that idea, we'll see what happens within the next few days as this topic grows with bigger ideas and more plans to get this working :)

Thanks to everyone for the support and I can't wait until this hits the forums :D

[mark]

I think it's a great idea. Yesterday, I created a bug entry http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=15148 for a problem with the nVidia driver (I think) with Breezy (5.10) Preview. I've done alpha/beta/you-name-it testing for a while and the bugzilla routine was somewhat of an ordeal, even for me.

I firmly believe that the easier you make it to report problems, the better your product will be. Yes, you will get "false positives" ("I didn't know I had to run sudo nvidia-glx-config enable!") but you'll also get more feedback from the casual user that would shy clear of a bugzilla site.

Just my 2 cent's worth...

Mark

[AgenT]

You will no doubt get dubious bugs as the poster above mentions. But instead of just deleting them, you could shove them to a "non-bug bug" subforum.

And this should be important: Make sure you make it *very* clear that this is for bug reporting only, not support. That is, support should be forbidden (except maybe linking to a post explaining a fix to a dubious bug report). Otherwise you will have everyone post into your bug forum asking for help.

[XDevHald]

Support is out of the question, and will not be tolerated at all, that is what the other forums are for. The link directing is a plus to have, thank you for that idea!

We will be making a forum in which will have bugs that have been reported and delt with, this will keep the flooding a minimum. I work in the mornings so I will be keeping an eye on this to keep the forum clean.

I am sure you're asking "who will moderate these forums" well, as of right now we're going to take this one step at a time and make sure it's done very carefully and thought out thoroughly before putting it on the forum.

AgenT, nice ideas, thank you for supporting this project, it's really much appreciated to see the community backing this up to give it more of a backbone to see it goes forth on it's work :D

[az]

I firmly believe that the easier you make it to report problems, the better your product will be. Yes, you will get "false positives" ("I didn't know I had to run sudo nvidia-glx-config enable!") but you'll also get more feedback from the casual user that would shy clear of a bugzilla site.

Just my 2 cent's worth...

Mark
Applications - System tools, Report a bug. Ubuntu will soon switch main to malone, so bug reporting will not use bugzilla anymore. It should be a lot nicer and straightforward.