Keeping Bugs Concise

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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On Jul 8, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Chris Wagner wrote:
> ...
> Well, this kind of stinks; now I can't even access the spec's wiki 
> page ( https://launchpad.canonical.com/KeepingBugsConcise ):
> "The Launchpad development wiki is not available to the public."

Yes, sorry about that. The copy at 
<https://wiki.launchpad.canonical.com/KeepingBugsConcise> is still up 
to date (but won't be updated further).

> ...
> How do you intend to encourage users to update the "bug description",
> rather than post comments?

By making the "Edit Description" link more obvious and inviting.

> I think there is a good idea here, though, I'm not sure if "bug 
> description" implies that you want as much solid information in there 
> as possible...
>
> The way I see it, you want to have a main bug description/status that
> tells the bug viewer as much solid information as is known about the
> bug.  Then, comments are more for talking about the bug; once a
> conversation (through the course of several comments) concludes
> something, it should be placed in the "bug description".

Yes, that's the idea. It's not the goal for every comment to end up 
collapsed; but any time someone updates the description of a bug such 
that one or more comments becomes collapsed, and such that 
understanding the bug from reading description + all comments takes 
less time now than it did before, that's a win.

> Bugs need to be more like wiki pages.  The model used for 
> specifications seems to work very well: you've got an organized pile 
> of information that evolves; things are added, removed, and improved 
> to make the overall vision clearer.  You often have comments at the 
> bottom, but once they have served their purpose, they can be swept 
> away.

Exactly right. :-)

> ...
> I do have one solid suggestion, however.  I'm not sure if it's 
> actually a good one, but it's worth considering: If 
> multiple-comments-in-a-row are "folded", you could further fold those 
> comments into a single "box"; example:
> ---------------------------------------------------
> | 3 comments made from 2006-06-23 to 2006-07-07... |
> ---------------------------------------------------
> ...

Yes, that idea occurred to me too over the past couple of months of 
being subscribed to bug #1.

Thanks for your comments.

- --
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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