Thank you for taking the time to put preXX doc this mail together. I find it personally inspiring and a reminder to watch how I/we handle bugs which is often easy to overlook.
On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 21:11 +0000, Daniel Drake wrote: > I wrote most of this a while ago but didn't get round to finishing it. > This seems appropriate at this time, so here it is :) > > Here are some small *suggestions* for how I think we can motivate users > on Bugzilla to contribute more, and to contribute more often. I'm not > suggesting this be enforced as policy, but it would be nice to see other > developers giving this some thought. I'm far from perfect here, but I am > working on sticking to my own suggestions more and more. > > Remember that Bugzilla is the only way we communicate with most of our > external contributors so it is important to make them feel appreciated > and give them a good impression of the Gentoo developer community. > > 1. Don't bitch at contributors > > Even if they did something totally wrong, violated all known policies, > and you are *sure* they just filed the bug to annoy you, don't write > aggressive sounding responses. > > Reasons being: > - You'll reduce the chances they'll think about contributing again in > the future > - They probably won't listen to a word you say, yet will feel the need > to respond > - Bugzilla is a public medium, and other potential contributors (who > maybe wouldn't have made such 'obvious' mistakes) will be put off when > reading the aggressive dialog. > (I'm not suggesting that you send abuse privately instead!) > - Like we aren't paid to fix bugs, the users aren't paid to file them: > at the end of the day, someone went out of his/her way to file the bug, > to try and help. > > 2. Be careful with INVALID resolutions > > The term invalid _is_ harsh in bugzilla context, so make sure you write > a quick thankful-sounding comment to go with it. > > Maybe we should consider alternatives. I quite like the NOTABUG > resolution they have on the GNOME bugzilla. > > Marking bugs as duplicates is also dodgy ground: Comments like "Please > search" can easily be taken the wrong way. I'm probably asking too much > for people to spend lots of time thinking up appreciative duplicate > messages, however... > > 3. Always record contributions by name > > If you commit something in response to a bug report that has been filed, > always thank the user by full name (and bug number) in the ChangeLog and > commit message. > > Do the above even if you already knew about the bug (i.e. you would have > committed the same fix even if the user hadn't alerted you). > > This also applies for ebuild requests, ebuild submissions, and version > bump requests/submissions. Might sound pointless for 'trivial' > reports/requests but it is important to credit the user if they have > gone to the trouble of filing a bug. > > This also applies to contributors who you know well, contributors who > you have named 9999 times before, and other Gentoo developers too. > > 4. Give the user a chance to make minor corrections > > If a user contributes a patch/ebuild which is slightly wrong, and the > issue is non-critical, don't immediately correct it on their behalf and > commit it to get the bug out of the way. > > Instead, provide an explanation of their mistake and give the user a day > or two to correct it and attach an updated version. This has the bonuses > that the user definately won't repeat that mistake in future > contributions, and they will have the nice feeling of full credit for > the contribution after you name them in the ChangeLog :) > > If they don't respond in that time, make the correction yourself and > commit it anyway. > > 5. Be thankful when marking FIXED > > When marking a bug as FIXED, I often forget that the user has tested 4 > kernel versions, moved their network card over to another computer, > filed an identical bug report upstream, tested the solution, and > reported back to me. > > I think a short note of thanks in the bugzilla comment can go a long way > (suggestion: thank them for something in particular so that it doesn't > sound so generic). > > 6. Don't forget about email > > As a Gentoo developer, you have been automatically granted the ability > to sound important and make others feel important too. > > When Seemant mailed me over 2 years ago, I was a relative idiot and was > a new Gentoo user at that time. It felt great to receive a complimentary > email from a well-known and respected Gentoo developer, and that email > eventually led to me becoming a developer myself (amongst other things!). > > I've had the same kind of effect on people since then, for example, I > sent a very quick "thanks" mail to the guy who authored the wordpress > theme I run on my weblog, and he was overjoyed that I was using it - he > happened to be a Gentoo user who already read my blog via the Planet site. > > There probably aren't many situations where you would email a user who > communicates with you on bugzilla. But don't forget about this nice > ability that we have :) > > > > That's all I can think of for now. I'd certainly be interested to hear > any comments on the above and similar suggestions that others may have. > > Daniel -- Ned Ludd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Gentoo Linux -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
