Reporting bugs

[Albert Cahalan]

On 10/30/07, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
> There is a balance here: I may not be hitting it the balance right.
>
> Any report of bugs is goodness; but if trac's signal to noise ratio goes
> bad, we can't see the forest for the trees.
> .
> A reproducible bug is much more valuable to us than ones that are not; a
> bug against current bits are much more valuable than old ones, exactly
> because we have a better chance to go fix it. Having developers spend
> time wading through bugs that there is no way to reproduce, either
> because the recipe for doing so, or insufficient information on what
> versions were being used.
>
> So if a bug clearly needs more information to be able to be chased, it
> seemed reasonable to me to request information from the reporter, wait
> for a few days, and then close it if the reporter does not bother to
> even acknowledge the request for more information.

Maybe you need a new tag/goal/milestone/whatever for
marking bug reports that need to collect duplicates until
you can see a pattern. Wading through these bugs could
then be a weekly event rather than a daily event. (not to
be forgotten though; eventually you may see a pattern)

Dealing with rare/unpredictable things is never easy.