Re: Is a new bug reporting system needed?

> I agree with Jason. The main problem is the lack of people going through > the bugs database. > Not that I am against using a different system if it is better but I don't > see that as the main issue or problem we are having currently. The main > issue is lack of man power. More (qualified) man power is hard to come by: It would do you no good at all to have me running loose in there :-) Perhaps we can focus the man power there is better, though... Perhaps an interface that puts known bugs in front of people who are submitting will reduce bogus bugs: Force them to search first, not just an option. Or, better yet, let them fill out their form, present bugs that match, force them to say, "No, it's not any of those.", or realize that their bug is already solved, if they'd just upgrade from 3.0.5 to something a little more current. The current interface may be relying just a little too much on people to do their homework. (Or maybe not: Do you find a lot of bogus reports, or very few?) Then, perhaps the interface that gets bugs in front of those who can fix it could be more aggressive: Nag email to specific people for a given category of bug for long-ignored bugs? Monthly stats about bugs emailed to all bug-fixers, with the longest-unsolved list? (Sort of a "Most Wanted" poster.) Showing more of the bugs to people who fix them when they visit? I'm badly stating this: When one edits a bug report or closes it or whatever, are potentially related (same OS/modules) bugs displayed in a side frame? Should they be? Could they be without it getting ridiculous? What features could be considered similar for a bug to be displayed to somebody closing another bug report? How much AI is in the system? Does it try to coalesce bugs with similar features in some way? Does it rate a bug based on the reliability of the submitter? Surely you have some goofs who keeps submitting bogus bugs or bugs that are already known. Why waste time with their bugs first -- Focus on the guys who submit intelligent bug reports. The popup menu allowing one to select a category is all well and good, but being able to checkbox off the components I'm using would not hurt in tracking cross-references of bugs. I'm just tossing out ideas here that I would be thinking about if I were trying to design a bug-tracker... I'm sure there's a lot of others...