[Geany] Ideas for reducing duplicate bug reports

[Matthew Brush]

On 02/02/2012 11:48 PM, Frank Lanitz wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:20:59 -0800
> Matthew Brush<mbrush at codebrainz.ca>  wrote:
>
>> For the registration thing, I personally don't see it as a problem,
>> since if someone didn't want to register with Github, they could
>> simply report the bug on the mailing list and someone from the
>> community could open an ticket for them.
>
> Here I disagree: Its the main point I'm sad on most bugzilla, trac etc.
> installation: you cannot submit a bug as unregistered user.
> Shall we really bother people to register and confirmation mail and and
> and just to tell use an issue? I don't think so. Its hard enough to get
> good bug reports at all. Most people just ignore bugs and move on
> without reporting....
>

I feel split on the issue TBH. At least with something like Github, it 
might not be "yet another thing to sign up for" like all the separate 
Bugzilla/Trac installations. There's some chance that the user will have 
a Github account, though it's probably not *that* likely, it's still 
useful for other things (same as SF.net account).

I can understand wanting to make it easy to report bugs, but at the same 
time I can understand the argument that requiring registration will 
likely lead to better bug reports, ex. from people who are helping with 
testing. Many of the current "Nobody"/Anonymous bug reports are quite 
vague, quickly written, and even sometimes having a strange "attitude" 
in them. What's more since it's so easy, the reporters are probably more 
likely to quickly fill in the form and submit it before even bothering 
to search for duplicates or to know the bug reporting procedure outlined 
on the website (at least that's my theory).

My personal opinion is that it's better to get less really good reports 
from testers in the community than to get many vague/duplicate bug 
reports from random anonymous people who are just pissed off because a 
bug is annoying them.

But anyway, I don't feel to strongly either way, mostly this thread was 
meant for ideas on how to better manage bugs, especially duplicates, not 
necessarily to discuss changing bug trackers, though that could possibly 
help.

Cheers,
Matthew Brush