I'd like to see the following functionality added to Bugzilla: o The ability to distribute fairly short URLs that, when clicked, would cause the following things to happen: 1. A check is made to see if a "specially-marked" bug already exists. If it does, that bug is displayed, and the user can enter a comment. 2. If a "specially-marked" bug does not yet exist, open a new bug with some of the fields already filled in (similar to the "bookmarkable template" functionality, but pointed to with a shorter URL). This bug would then be "specially marked" so that the next time someone clicks the URL, they'll be directed to this bug instead of creating a new bug. To give you some context, here's what I want to be able to do: For each entry in the release notes, I create a bugzilla template that includes content for, say, the summary field ("hardware requirement entry for x86"). I note that this template is something I'm going to publicize, so I get a user-friendly URL ("http://bugzilla.redhat.com/hardware-x86-relnotes", for example). I place this URL in the release notes file. Somebody reads the release notes, looks at the hardware reuquirements and wants to give me feedback, so they click on the URL. Because nobody else has clicked on this URL yet, they are dropped into the regular bug entry page (with the summary filled out with "hardware requirement entry for x86"). They fill in their comments and commit. Anybody that clicks on the link in the release notes after this will be directed to the already-existing bug entry, and can add their own comments to it. I read the comments, make some changes to the entry in the release notes, and then change the URL to point at the now-existing bug (or leave it as-is, depending on whatever is in bugzilla's best interests). The updated release notes are distributed, and the process either continues (if I want to keep all the feedback in the same bug), or repeats (if I make up a new template and replace the URL in the release notes).
Red Hat's current Bugzilla version is 2.18. I am moving all older open bugs to this version. Any bugs against the older versions will need to be verified that they are still bugs. This will help me also to sort them better.
Sounds like bug cloning which is possible in recent versions of Bugzilla.