Do you use votes on Bugzilla tickets to help you make decisions?

[Martin Steigerwald]

Natalie Clarius - 05.08.23, 17:57:00 CEST:
> I find it a useful indication of how common an issue really is and
> hence how important it is to solve, and am surprised that some would
> not. How else are users supposed to express that a bug affects them,
> without creating duplicates and "me too" comments which I as a
> submitter would think of as spammy?

As (almost entirely) a user of KDE who did quite a bit of reporting of 
bugs himself I can relate to that.

A duplicate shows that a user probably did not search enough whether 
their bug is already reported. So I wonder how a duplicate would be a 
better indicator than a vote, cause how is a user who finds the original 
bug supposed to indicate they are affected as well? By a comment?

On the other side requiring a comment for a vote might be a good idea as 
a vote can basically mean anything of the following:

1. I am affected by this bug.
2. I am not affected but would be cool to have it fixed.
3. I am just voting anyway just out of fun or cause I can.
4. Maybe something else I did not think of.

Or maybe it would be a good idea to use votes only for the first reason 
to get a measure of how many users are affected. I think it could be 
interesting to learn whether a bug is a corner case or affects many users 
without having a ton of comments that basically all say the same.

That would require putting some explanation what votes are meant for at 
the place where the voting happens. Or rename "vote" to "I am affected as 
well" or something like that.

However if in practice voting numbers are found to by meaning less, then 
it would be good to do away with voting, unless a clarification what a 
vote is meant for helps. But I am not sure how accurate they are. Do 
votes actually give a good indication of how wide spread a bug is or are 
they more or less bogus? You, Natalie, find them a useful indication. How 
about others?

Are there ways to make votes more useful even?

Just as an invitation to think beyond a binary yes/no answer to the 
question in the subject: "Do you use votes on Bugzilla tickets to help 
you make decisions?"

Best,
-- 
Martin