

Don’t just hate, write bug reports - bitboxer
http://bitboxer.de/2010/06/12/dont-just-hate-write-bug-reports/

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PieSquared
My problem: submitting bug reports is sometimes _hard_.

Every so often, I come across a bug with one of the apps I use on my Ubuntu
machine - be it Chrome, Firefox, Amarok, or something else. I go through the
process of figuring out _exactly_ what triggers the bug, and sometimes even
try out gdb on the app to see what's going on... then I go to the bug
reporting page, realize I need to make some Launchpad account or some hassle
like that, and decide that I'm too lazy to report it. (And every piece of
software uses a separate bug tracker, so you need a separate account for each
bug that you want to report!)

Not very accessible to the casual user...

(At least, this has been my experience.)

~~~
somebear
I have also experienced several times that developers have been quite hostile
towards bug reports. Even bug reports that I, as a developer, would be quite
happy to receive myself. That kind of attitude means you are less inclined to
try and help out again, and will most likely dump the product first chance you
get.

~~~
philh
Three of the last four bug reports that I've written have been totally
ignored. Two were on a google group, so it's possible (but unlikely) that they
just drifted off the front page before anyone qualified saw them. The other is
just sitting in the issue tracker getting no attention.

I spent a good chunk of time in each case trying to figure out what was
causing the problem, and I'm definitely less inclined to go back to those
projects now.

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JoeAltmaier
Twitter is not exactly a forum for well-considered insightful comments. A
"fail" twitter is not that significant - more on the order of a wtf
exclamation, which I emit many times when trying any new program.

That said, as a guy that likes to get bug reports (better than NOT getting
them and really failing), it helps to have ANY details, not "it doesn't work"
but "on the Score page, hitting Profile does nothing" kind of thing.

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jrockway
This is why I only write open-source apps -- then I can reply "but it didn't
annoy you enough to send me a patch? #fail".

~~~
bitboxer
Sorry, but this is not a good attitude. Be friendly to the people who use your
software. Not all of them are able to write a patch for a bug.

Boths sides should be respectful and nice to each other.

Saying: write a patch would translate to "go fuck yourselfs" for most of the
users.

~~~
jrockway
_Not all of them are able to write a patch for a bug._

Then what use are they to me? "Hi, I took your stuff for free, but I hate it,
and I have no ability to improve it." OK, you mean nothing to me.

~~~
bitboxer
If you don't want to have users, why open source it in the first place? Just
keep it on your hard disk and stop disappointing guys who think you give a
fuck about people that want to use your stuff.

~~~
jrockway
No.

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j_baker
I certainly hope this wasn't the author's software that was being tweeted
about. Because if so, this is about the worst possible way to handle it. In
fact, this is a really good opportunity to make things _better_.

If I ever make an angry tweet about something, mediocre companies ignore me or
never find it. _Good_ companies will say "We're sorry you're having problems.
What can we do to help?" I'm probably happier with those companies than if I
hadn't tweeted about them angrily. What does it look like when a customer (who
may genuinely have a valid complaint that won't fit in 140 characters) is
obviously angry and the person who publishes the software's only response is
an angry blog post? And no, issues involving Michael Arrington don't count.
That's a special case. :-)

~~~
bitboxer
Whenever someone tweets about my apps, I reply them on twitter. Boths sides
need to respect each other and listen to each other. Even the "XXX is fuck"
will be answered by me. But why don't post something more constructive?
Something that explains what went wrong. That's my main issue here.

~~~
j_baker
Because they're frustrated and venting. Just like you were doing when you
wrote this post. Don't take it personally. That only makes the situation
worse. :-)

~~~
raffi
How do you avoid taking it personally? I have a really hard time with it.

------
democracy
It's just not going to work in competitive environments with no immidiate
benifit for the user.

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arnorhs
Great point. I think I, myself am guilty of mentioning some #fail in my
twitter feed which was probably better served as a bug report.

But when you write something in your twitter feed then it's usually not
something you want to follow through on and if you actually _do_ want a
solution, I think most people would actually go the extra mile and ask at a
forum or file a bug report.

