[Geany] Ideas for reducing duplicate bug reports

[Matthew Brush]

On 02/03/2012 10:13 AM, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> * On 2012 03 Feb 11:45 -0600, Colomban Wendling wrote:
>> I agree with Frank and Lex: I do already have given up reporting a bug
>> just because the procedure to do it was "too complex".  What "too
>> complex" means probably depends a lot on the bug's annoyance, the
>> commitment to the project and the basic feeling about the software's
>> developers (e.g. what you think they'll do with the bug, or "do I want
>> to give them mail/pwd?"), but the fact is that there is something to do
>> beside reporting the bug.
>
> I've been on this side of the fence numerous times and am a bit
> sympathetic to this line of thought.
>
>>> And what are the chances that you're going to go
>>> back to the bug report, which doesn't know your email address to tell
>>> you of new comments, and follow up with additional testing, etc?
>>
>> Good point though.  Without contact info, follow up is nearly impossible
>> and the bug is likely to be useless unless it's particularly good
>> straight from the start.
>> That's a valid point towards required registration.
>
> And now being on the developer side of the fence, a hit and run bug
> report may deserve about as much attention.  I can see both sides of the
> argument.  Knowing what I now know from being on the dev side of things,
> I am much more willing to do whatever registration is required to submit
> a bug report and follow up with the maintainer/developer.  Admittedly,
> even doing so doesn't always resolve things on my schedule.  Still, the
> tools and responses out here in free software land far exceed any of my
> experiences with proprietary software years ago.
>
> If I were in a position to choose, I would choose user registration as I
> think the benefits for all concerned outweigh any inconvenience.  OTOH,
> "registration" can be as simple as the Debian BTS where all is required
> is a "from" email address to submit the report using reportbug.  I
> suppose a fake address has been used, but I suspect most reporters use a
> valid address to remain in the response loop.
>

You pretty much summed up my feelings. I've been through Bugzilla hell 
as a user and been on the developer side trying to understand random bug 
reports with little information and no contact information.

I also would choose registration over not requiring registration, but 
only by a small margin. I agree that just even name and/or email 
address, without "creating another account somewhere" would be the best 
option, like you said.

Cheers,
Matthew Brush