Re: Developer's handling of bug reports

[joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl (joost witteveen)]

> Developers, when you get a bug report, you should tread the submitter with
> respect.  A bug report is not an insult to you in any way, and there is no
> reason to insult the submittor.  For instance, here is what I got recently:
> 
>    On May 30, joost witteveen wrote:
> 
> > go wrong that never should go wrong. However, as the bug-reporter doesn't
> > want to give more information about that part (using term instead of
> > x11 menuentries), I suscpect that he's simply too shy to admit reporting
> > something that never happened. 
> 
> Now calling me a liar is not exactly respectful behavior! 

Please, come on!
If I remember correctly, I had asked you for additional information
rather quickly after you submitted your bugreport. You never gave that
additional information (yes, I explicitly asked you wheter install-menu
indeed used the term instead of x11 menuentries).
The other part of you bugreport did (if I remember correctly) notice
something wrong, but this part really sounded very strange to me. So,
I think it's reasonable for me to express that, even in the way I did.


> I had already
> provided an example of the problem...  (I believe it was with xemacs or
> emacs).

Well, if you did report extra information later then I'm sorry, I never got
that email. And, as I said before, I didn't think there was enough 
information in your initial bugreport. The latter isn't a serious
problem, it's just that I asked extra information.

> Accusing me of lying about it is not productive! 

"I suspect he's too shy" is rahter different from accusing somebody
of Lying!


> I figured that if
> all that is going to happen with that thread is that I will be insulted,
> there is no reason to continue it -- I have enough other things to occupy my
> time, Debian-related and otherwise, than to fool around with stuff like
> this.

Please, I only asked extra information! I wasn't accusing you of anything!
And yes, when that extra information didn't come, I got somewhat bored,
but  still, I never accused you of lying, nor insulting!

> I really don't understand what purpose insulting people that submit bug
> reports has anyway...

"He's too shy", is that really insulting?

> When we deal with bug reports, keep in mind that we are dealing with people
> that are not necessarily part of the Debian project

That's why I *politely* aked you for extra information. Only after
that extra information didn't come, I suggested that maybe you
were "too shy". I never insulted you, nor did I call you a lyar.


I would like to make up for this, though:

  - I joost witteveen, very much value your bug-report.
  - I seriously regret ever calling you "too shy", and now realise that
    you are by no means shy. I appreciate your opennes with wich you
    you make my flaws public.
  - I would very much like to get more information about that second
    part in your bug-report: the part about using term instead of
    x11 entries. When I asked you for that extra information, I didn't
    realise that I could have instulted you in any way (and in fact I didn't
    as the "you're shy" insult only came in a much later stage).
    I will ask you for more information in private.
  - I very much do appoligice for any spelling errors I made in this
    posting, and in any other posting of mine.

Again, thanks for the bug-report. Sorry for offending you, never intended
that to happen.

-- 
joost witteveen, joostje@debian.org
#!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
#what's this? see http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/


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