Gathering more data in answers

[Alan Pope]

Hi,

I have noticed that one of the first questions asked on the support ticket 
system by people diagnosing problems is "what version of ubuntu you 
running?". This of course can be divided into which flavour K/U/Xubuntu and 
what version (by number or codename).

Would it therefore not be a prudent thing to gather this information from 
the user up front, to save the time wasted turning around a ticket, and to 
help supporters to tailor responses.

After a brief discussion in #launchpad it was suggested that the user agent 
string from the browser could be gathered and added to the ticket if the 
user allows/requests this.

[x] I'm using the system I'm asking about.  Put my browser version details 
into the question.

I am not sure that's the best way to go. Many people dual boot or have 
multiple computers, so they may be visiting launchpad from a machine other 
than the one with the issue. 

So maybe a drop down for Kubuntu/Ubuntu/Xubuntu/other and one for 5.04 
(Warty), 5.10 (Breezy) etc. We could also popup a warning if they choose an 
unsupported release to let them know the status of that version. As far as 
I am concerned on the answers system we don't refuse to help people running 
older versions but if appropriate we do encourage upgrades - especially if 
we know problems are fixed in a newer release.

Maybe we could also provide a link to a wiki page which details how you find 
out what version you are running. "lsb_release -a" seems to be the most 
consistent way, is there a better way?

As with any helpdesk system, gathering information from the user using 
pre-formatted and pre-populated fields benefits everyone as they user with 
the problem often gets a quicker response, and its easier for the helper to 
ascertain where the problem is.

I'm not sure we should be adding lots more extra fields, but some of these 
basic bits of information could certainly help.

Does this make sense, and sound reasonable?

Cheers,
Al.