Holger Freyther wrote:
yeah, this is work in progress. Stuff like two bug trackers, controlling some
more fields.. and various other things float through my head and I have to
organize this first. Other entities fix that by shielding developers and
putting 1st line support there acting as a multiplexers... but I think
reaching developers directly can be valuable..
I second Norbert Hartl on this one.
"Having two different tools raises complexity and lowers collaborative
work. And what do you get from it?"
As a dev who works with bugzilla internally and with clients, any plans
to separate the devs from the users put a chill through me. I wouldn't
advise trying separate work in to two bug trackers as you lose the value
in the crossover, and a good bug tracker makes it easy to sift out the
important information. In my experience as a dev, any kind of first line
support ends up filtering out most of the useful information and can't
actually provide high quality answers to technical users. This results
in worse software for the user and ironically more support requests. For
everything except phone support, direct contact with the devs is far
superior.
An idea I came across recently that seems like a good idea is a hybrid
approach, where the devs passively observe /all/ traffic from users
(irc, mailing lists, support mailboxes, bug trackers etc), and can pick
out bits that are useful, and then there are additional people paid to
respond to all the rtfm type questions. That way you get the best of
both worlds. The techies don't have the most valuable information lost
in translation, and the more demanding users get the support they desire
without wasting valuable coding time.
Tim Abell
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