I don't think we should aim to cater to non-developers at all. The changes that a non-developer finds a real bug are very very small (in my previous life as an academic I have done a lot of research on Bugzilla and developer productivity and it's based on that experience that I am making this statement). I think that if a newbie / non-developer finds bugzilla then he /she should be redirected to either IRC / Teahouse / Talk pages / FAQ or any other support channel that we have. They can always be send back to file a bug report.
If we are going to spend effort on improving bugzilla then it should be focused (IMHO) on matching a bug with the right developer (right meaning a person who can actually fix the problem). It is this area that Bugzilla (or any other bug tracker AFAIK) provides very limited support. -- Diederik On 2012-05-14, at 1:10 AM, Ryan Lane wrote: >> I don't think you'll ever find a finished bug-/issue-tracking solution that >> caters just as well for newbies and developers. The main reason is (of >> course?) that most issue tracking software is written for developers, by >> developers with little or no experience or thought as to what makes a good >> end-user experience. Also, most issue tracking tools are *made >> deliberately* to work best for developers - with human (end-user) >> interaction kept to a minimum. That's also why most issue tracking >> solutions end up looking like glorified (not the good kind) spreadsheets >> (Mantis, Flyspray, others?), something the IRS would want you to fill out >> (BZ, OTRS, RT, others?), or some kind of bastard child in-between (The Bug >> Genie, Redmine, Jira, Fogbugz, others?). >> > > I'd like to go one step further. There is not a single good bug/issue > tracking system in existence. Yes, I'm completely serious too. I've > come to believe that it's impossible to make one that anyone will be > happy with. That includes most developers of tracking systems too > (I've written one, and I hated it, though I liked it better than what > I was using before). > > We can complain about this till the end of time. This discussion is > even worse than bikeshedding discussions. At least with bikeshedding > discussions you end up with a color for the bikeshed. When discussing > bug/issue trackers you just end up with the same tracker, or another > crappy tracker. > > - Ryan > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
