The impending end of FC2 NEEDINFO bugs...

[Mike A. Harris]

Matthew Miller wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 04:30:31PM -1000, Warren Togami wrote:
> 
>>WONTFIX is more truthful then.  DEFERRED is a really bad and confusing 
>>state IMHO.  Could you post a draft of the accompanying closing message 
>>here before doing so?
> 
> 
> WONTFIX just sounded so harsh. BUt yeah, I'll definitely post a draft
> message, and as before I'll make sure I'm on the CC list of all of the bugs
> so I can deal with any resulting messes. Not that I anticipate any this time
> around -- the whole experiment has gone pretty well, as we're down to about
> 500 NEEDINFO bugs, from over 1000 open bugs before. (Unfortunately I didn't
> count how many were already in NEEDINFO state.)

I agree.  The negative bug resolution states, etc. are really just
that - negative/reactive rather than positive/proactive.

When someone doesn't respond, I have a preference for using,
CURRENTRELEASE, RAWHIDE, NEXTRELEASE, or ERRATA resolutions
using a comment of the nature:


"The information we've requested above is required in order
  to review this problem report further and diagnose/fix the
  issue if it is still present.  Since there haven't been any
  updates to the report in quite a long time now after we've
  requested additional information, we're assuming the problem
  is either no longer present in our current OS release, or
  that there is no longer any interest in tracking the problem.

  Setting status to "CURRENTRELEASE", however if you still
  experience this problem after updating to our latest Fedora
  Core release and are still interested in Red Hat tracking
  the issue, and assisting in troubleshooting the problem,
  please feel free to provide the information requested above,
  and reopen the report.

  Thanks in advance."


This sends people a much more friendly message than does
"WONTFIX" and it's ilk, but is essentially the same bottom
line really:  "If you don't respond to our requests for more
info, and we need more info, then we're not going to track
the problem indefinitely because there's nothing we can do
about it."  - only it takes all of those negative words out,
and instead of telling what we wont do and why not, it tells
what we WILL do, HOW, and under what CONDITIONS and
EXPECTATIONS.  It lets people know the bottom line in a
generally much friendlier way.

The results I have gotten by using proactive friendly messages
of this nature in the last year, have been very very good.

Generally the responses fit into the following categories:

1) Person finally provides the info and reopens the report,
    usually apologizing for being busy or something similar.

2) Person finally reports the issue to upstream as we've
    requested and provides the URL to us for tracking (assuming
    we've requested them to do this and are waiting for the
    URL).

3) Person indicates they no longer have the computer the
    problem occured on, or no longer have an interest in the
    bug for whatever particular reason.

4) Person indicates the problem no longer exists in a newer
    OS release and closes it, or tells us we can do so.

5) Person never responds back, indicating they're fine with
    this resolution, or perhaps their email address doesn't
    exist anymore or something.

6) Person complains.


In general, response #5 (no response) is by far the most
common.  #4 is next most common, followed by #1 and #2,
then #3.  The best part is that #6 almost *never* happens,
which is fantastic because:  1) Who actually likes to hear
people complain?   2) Who actually enjoys complaining or
feeling the need to do so?

In general, this approach has worked fantastic, and has
helped greatly to narrow the bug list down from 600 to
its current approximate total of 75 or so for X.

Thoughts/feedback about this approach appreciated.

Take care,
TTYL