we're getting quite a few abrt filed bugs which add comments like.. Comment ----- I'm really not sure what happened. Which isn't helpful at all, and just adds to the bugmail. Maybe the comment box should be 'unlocked' by an "I have additional information" tickbox ? Or some similar UI, so that users don't feel compelled that they have to fill in everything, even with useless information.
Sometimes I submit a bug with no comment, because I intend to login to BZ to add additional info. Cross-reference: Bug 702262 - Abrt allows submitting crash reports without comments
(In reply to comment #0) > we're getting quite a few abrt filed bugs which add comments like.. > > Comment > ----- > I'm really not sure what happened. > > > Which isn't helpful at all, and just adds to the bugmail. I even got these before ABRT started to make comments mandatory. So does this change make thing worse? No. Does it make things easier for the maintainer in most cases? Yes. IMHO a clear win. I would rather like to see an explicit opt-in checkbox similar to drkonqui: "I am aware that the developers are likely to contact me and I willing to provide more feedback if necessary."
(In reply to comment #0) > we're getting quite a few abrt filed bugs which add comments like.. > > Comment > ----- > I'm really not sure what happened. > > Which isn't helpful at all, and just adds to the bugmail. > Maybe the comment box should be 'unlocked' by an "I have additional > information" tickbox ? Or some similar UI, so that users don't feel compelled > that they have to fill in everything, even with useless information. Does this happen when users report dups? That is: * program crashes * user reports the crash to bugzilla * ABRT detects that this crash is a dup * since comment is not empty, ABRT adds this comment to the bug (example: bug 705005) * this generates emails and if the comment would be empty, the emails won't be generated? Looking at bug 705005 as an example, I am not convinced the comments are useless. Consider that if we would allow empty comments, a lot of users _will_ submit bugs with no comment whatsoever. I am leaning towards NAKing this bug.
the comments in 705005 might indeed by useful. But people adding comments that just say "don't know" or similar is utterly useless. If they are dupes, add them to the cc: and move on. There's no need to make bug reports even more unreadable than they already are, especially in situations where a bug is 'popular'.
We discussed it on abrt team mtg and decided to add a checkbox "[x] I really don't have any useful comment"
IHMO it shouldn't be an opt-out "I really don't have..." but an obligatory opt-in "I am aware of the fact that the developers might need additional info to debug the problem and I am willing to provide more feedback to the best of my knowledge." drkonqi has something similar.
The GUI could provide a few standard comments, together with a text box for any info the reporter feels would be useful. [o] I don't know what caused this. [o] I have more info and will provide it later. [o] Here is more info: [text box] ([o] is a radio button.) Another idea would be to adapt the BZ template to ABRT. A problem is that ABRT does not help the reporter structure the bug report, but simply provides an empty text box in which to answer questions listed above the text box. Description of problem: Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info:
(In reply to comment #7) > The GUI could provide a few standard comments, together with a text box for any > info the reporter feels would be useful. > > [o] I don't know what caused this. > [o] I have more info and will provide it later. > [o] Here is more info: > [text box] > > ([o] is a radio button.) ...and 80% of users will happily tick "I don't know what caused this". -> Bad idea. > Another idea would be to adapt the BZ template to ABRT. A problem is that ABRT > does not help the reporter structure the bug report, but simply provides an > empty text box in which to answer questions listed above the text box. > > Description of problem: > Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): > How reproducible: > Steps to Reproduce: > 1. > 2. > 3. > Actual results: > Expected results: > Additional info: ...and 80% of users will just press [next], submitting only this template text as "problem description" which does not in fact describe anything. -> Bad idea. Steve. Our goal is to make it _harder_, less obvious for users to just "click through" the GUI and be done with it. We try to force them to recall what they did at the time of the crash and write at least something. We do not need to collect every crash anyone ever has on Fedora. Rather, we want to reduce the number of useless and incomplete bug reports. If it means that some more lazy users got frustrated and pressed [cancel] and we lost that bug report, it's _not a bad thing_.
(In reply to comment #8) ... > ... We try to force them ... My friend, we cannot "force" anyone in the world of free open source software ...
Fixed in git: commit 13544fd192a77e8bb79ff301f7dc519bd51526ab Author: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk> Date: Tue Oct 25 23:13:43 2011 +0200 wizard: add "I don't know what caused this problem" checkbox
abrt-2.0.6-1.fc16 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 16. https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/abrt-2.0.6-1.fc16
Package abrt-2.0.6-1.fc16: * should fix your issue, * was pushed to the Fedora 16 testing repository, * should be available at your local mirror within two days. Update it with: # su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing abrt-2.0.6-1.fc16' as soon as you are able to. Please go to the following url: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2011-15513 then log in and leave karma (feedback).
abrt-2.0.6-1.fc16 has been pushed to the Fedora 16 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.