Make it easier for contributors to edit bugs

[Carlos Leonhard Woelz]

On Saturday 03 July 2004 17:28, Michael Jahn wrote:

> I think it is a good idea to not give them these rights immediately thereby
> turning away unserious contributors.

Some users would certainly raise the priority of the bugs that interest them, 
while the priority system is used by developers (and bug managers, 
theoretically) to sort the bug reports. So some triage for reporters must 
take place.

> However I also think that a lot of 
> users have a moral barrier to ask someone for more privileges, especially
> when a specific (email) address for this purpose is not stated. The
> interested user would have to research this address and write an email to a
> person they've probably never written to (I would feel almost like a
> spammer). And I would also find it awkward to go into an IRC channel and
> ask 'can I please have more rights'. So the simple solution would be to put
> up a form, an email address or just tell them specifically where to ask
> (maybe this mailing list?).

I agree. An explicit address is important, and may bring more contributors. 
And this mailing list is in fact perfect for that, as we are here to 
encourage and support new contibutors. I will add this to the guides.

However, it is important to note that to be an effective bug manager, you have 
to know well the involved application, and have a good relationship with the 
developers and maintainer of the application. After all, the bug management 
system is designed to give feedback to developers (by developers, I don't 
mean only programmers), so you should know a bit what are their expectations, 
and how they use the bugzilla system. The best way to know that is to start 
posting replies to bugzilla like "I cannot reproduce this anymore. Should we 
close it?", or "I still can reproduce this, bla bla bla".

> Michael Jahn
>
> [1]: http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtobugs.php
> [2]: http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Bug+Triage
This page has been replaced by the howtobugs.php above, or the 
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Quality+Team+HOWTO+Bugs
These pages are synced from time to time.

> PS: That is what I wanted to search in the archives. If this has been
> discussed before I am sorry.
No, It has never been discussed before, and you are welcome to ask.

BTW, welcome on board. The bug hunting season has already started.  Thanks for 
the feedback on the bug hunting guide. I am interested in any observations 
you may have.
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