
Ask HN: What's a simple online bug tracker for customers without sign in? - egraether
We are creating a new developer tool and are currently in a private beta. So far we managed all bug reports and feature requests via e-mail. But our users are asking for a bug tracker. They want to be able to open new bugs and see which issues have already been reported, ideally without having to sign in.<p>We are looking for an online solution, that we don&#x27;t need to host ourselves.<p>We spent a couple hours researching, but it seems we can&#x27;t find something fitting our usecase. So far Github looks like the best solution (needs sign in though). Do you have any ideas?
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brudgers
Without sign on, how will your company validate that bug reports are generated
by people who actually use the software? How will your company reliably
attribute multiple bug reports to the same customer/site/version?

While I think outsourcing the bug reporting infrastructure is a good long term
strategy, at the early stage of a company, talking directly to the customers
on the phone may be more valuable, while outsourcing and/or "anonymizing" the
identities of bug reporters increases the odds that a _customer 's_ bug report
slips through the cracks.

There's a sense in which the value of bugs is high. They allow the business to
connect with customers who care enough to report a bug rather than switching
tools.

Good luck.

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egraether
Thank you for your remarks!

Have you experienced people reporting bugs that don't actually use the
software? I think validating if a user is in fact a customer is not worth the
effort.

In order to get a proper bug report with version number, we will just provide
a simple template to fill in.

I understand that customers that care enough to report a bug are more likely
to keep using the product. Wouldn't that be an argument for letting them post
anonymous, because it makes it easier for them?

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brudgers
My gut tells me that the value in bug reports is as customer feedback and goes
beyond the mere technical issue. For example, a dialog can unearth how the
customer is using the tool, what other tools they are using, why they are
using those tools, their level of experience, etc.

If nothing else, googling the domain of their email address may provide useful
insights. Anonymous bug reports waste the user's intent to engage with the
company. That's not to say there's not an argument for anonymous posting...on
the internet there's an argument for everything. But anonymous bug reports
push the needle toward less customer engagement...and maybe that's the
underlying motivation because customer engagement is often harder than writing
code and clearing bug reports.

My experience is that any box that anonymous users can type text into gets
filled by bots. Authorization is a pretty much a solved problem in so far as
it can be easily outsourced.

YMMV.

