[kde-promo] Dot article for Beta Testing

Anne-Marie Mahfouf annemarie.mahfouf at free.fr
Wed May 30 13:33:55 UTC 2012


Hi,
On 05/30/2012 12:53 PM, Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 30, 2012 09:23:39 Myriam Schweingruber wrote:
>>> Is there some information source where potential Beta Testers can
>>> contact the Quality Team? If someone wants to do this, is there some
>>> formal way of getting involved?
>> Well, the article says where: #kde-quality. Just getting in touch with
>> us is enough to join  The topic of the channel tells all needed
>> information.
>>
>>> Where is the list of functional testing items?
>> http://community.kde.org/Getinvolved/Testing/Beta#Upcoming_tests
>>
>> But we really want people to get in touch with us first, so giving any
>> more information is not a good idea, they can get everything needed
>> from us
> Holding back information, or make it harder to find relevant information from
> my experience doesn't work.
The link we provide in the Etherpad article
http://community.kde.org/Getinvolved/Testing/Beta
is the base link for a Beta Tester. From there it's a click to find out 
about testing applets or apps with precise procedures for those tests.
There is no holding back. Testing software and reporting bugs is 
difficult and can only succeed if it's a team work.
The bug squad works exactly like that, everything is coordinated from 
IRC. We will add IRC information on the wiki pages like timezones and 
nicknames.
>
>>> Are there times for the IRC training? How will people know when to show
>>> up?
>> Still to be determined. Again, they need to get in touch with us first.
> Would be good if we could include those, the more concrete, the better.
We do not even know when we will have some packages out...
>
>>> http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Building_An_Existing_Applica
>>> tion is more than I would recommend for "anyone who wants to get
>>> involved". Ordinary users are not Git-ing.
>> Erm, we don't ask people to build from git, nor should they install
>> anything blindly, all necessary information on how to get a beta
>> version is here:
>>
>> http://community.kde.org/Getinvolved/Testing/Beta/InstallingBeta1
>>
>> And to stress this again: they should get in touch with us first. We
>> need to know who is testing so we can coordinate, giving away those
>> links beforehand is not a good idea IMHO.
> Many people will be interested in seeing the list of things to test. Also,
> having a concrete list of items to be tested is more engaging than a vague
> idea. People will think "yeah, I can do that", rather than "probably out of my
> league", so adding links to these testing pages is a good idea. We can always
> mention that for valuable testing, things need to be coordinated.
We exactly have this: 
http://community.kde.org/Getinvolved/Testing/Beta/Plasma for example.
This page lists applets to test and what to test. Same page for some 
applications.

But before doing this, testers need to install the beta (this is the 
major difficulty) and know how to report bugs.
The article is quite clear on this.

Personally I expect (and hope) to get new people doing beta tests and 
they will be a bit like GCI students which Myriam and I have now 
experience to work with. Without very precise personal guidance they 
won't succeed.
In the end it's not even "what would I like to test" but "what would I 
be able to test" (like building/installing the whole beta or building an 
app against current installation which is way easier)

Anne-Marie





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