Re: Re: Bogusing bot (Was: [PHP-DEV] Reference handlingchange and PHP 4.4.0)

If you don't know why it's wrong to tell them they are stupid, and can't be bother spending an extra 10 seconds formulating a respectable response instead, then you are the wrong person for the job. Jani Taskinen wrote:

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Leigh Makewell wrote:

Well then I suggest you get out there and find out what you are doing wrong because there is an increasing number of people out there who are not happy with how their bugs are being treated. This is a good place to start. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297291

    You really think I have _time_ to spend reading some rants?
    That'll all be out of handling the bogus reports. :)

Ask them what their issues have been, what can be done to improve the process. Most of all don't *ever* just dismiss a bug report the way you do. Comments like the one here http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34196 are not acceptable.

    Why not? a) the guy uses configure options he doesn't know what they
    really do b) I couldn't reproduce it with proper configure line.
    Hence he's doing something stupid.

    You don't obviously understand how much time it takes to go
    through the reports. Try simulating it by taking the 10 first
    open reports and try reproduce all of them with the given
    information in the initial comment..

This comment of yours amazes me! "2) I'm not bogusing automatically anything (except for few exceptions [1])" You just admited that you do automatically bogus bugs if you don't like the

    Yes, should I have lied I don't do that?

person. You should never EVER be doing that under any circumstances. Tell them it's a duplicate and link them to the relevant open bug, and then close it.

    That's what the s.c. quickfixs are for. Our "how-to-report" etc. pages
    specifically ASK people to FIRST check if the bug has already been
    reported. If they ignore our instructions how to reports, we don't have
    the right to ignore their (duplicate) report? Especially in cases where
    there is an OPEN one. And even more in case there is already 10 bogused
    ones where the reason for bogusing has been explained by 2-3 different
    PHP developers?!

The people who submit bugs are helping you make the product better. You should

    Most of the reports are user errors and plain lazyness in reading the
    friendly manual. Not about making the "product" better. (since when is
    an opensource project a product? :)

never insult a person for trying to help you. Tell them you are unable to reproduce the error and then point them to the relevant documentation on how to give you better information. In other words, help them help you!

    I guess this is coming back to the fact that nobody notices the positive
    things, only the negative. And think that "bogus" as status always
    means negative thing. Instead of 2nd hand rants, try read the bug
    mailing list for a week. That should give you better insigh what goes
    on on daily basis rather than these separate and very few cases where
    even more arrogant people than me think their civil rights have been
    violated and that they actually have the right to decide what is a bug
    and what's not..

If you are getting that much hate mail then you are doing it wrong.

    I take it more as fan mail. I have a special folder for it too. (/dev/null :)

    --Jani