Looking at a bug report today, I saw some pretty poor “bugside manners” on the part of a few people (including the upstream developer). There’s tons of examples out there of good bug report interactions and poor ones. I’d like to urge everyone to take a minute and think before posting that next bug comment.
Good bugside:
- Ask for facts. Program output, versions, exact behaviors
- Provide info if asked for it by others
- Try and see the issue from the reporters view
- If you find yourself unable to say something nice or move the bug along, perhaps you should refrain from saying anything at all
Bad bugside:
- Don’t pile on unrelated bugs. Open a new bug for a new issue.
- Avoid talking about “big picture”/design/philosophy. Those should go to mailing lists or the like, bug trackers are to track and fix bugs
- If you don’t have things to add about the specific bug at hand, don’t post
I’m sure there’s other good/bad rules. Anyone run accross any other common good or bad bugside manners they want to share?
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