Bugzilla as a discussion forum

[Christian Robottom Reis]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 09:36:43PM +0000, Gervase Markham wrote:
> Christian Robottom Reis wrote:
> >I don't see a good argument for this. If you're willing to pester people
> >on a bug, shouldn't you be willing to be pestered back?
> 
> Here are a few examples from my life:
> 
> - I come across a Bugzilla bug while doing triage. I have a useful 
> technical point to contribute, or two cents to throw in, but I don't 
> want to be bothered with how it finally plays out.

I don't think you *need* to comment if you're unwilling to be bothered
"how it plays out". One-off comments (the developer *needs* to hear this
one!) are supposed to be exceptions.

> - Someone emails me with a bug number to ask a licensing question. I add 
> a comment answering that question.

This is a reasonable issue. Asking the person to CC: himself before
commenting might be a lot, but it would ensure that replies go to the
person (how many times have we replied to comments and then remembered
-- duh, you're not CC:ed on this bug. We then go and add the person to
the CC: list, regardless of whether they wanted to be added or not).

> >There could be special-cases, such as QA and triage people, but that's
> >not the general rule.
> 
> The problem is that there's no easy way of codifying these exceptions 
> without yet more permissions and admin. Administering the current 
> two-level permissions system is enough effort. And the more levels you 
> have, the more you get "this person doesn't deserve permission X" mails 
> which take effort to sort out.

I think you're being too bmo-centric here. I find no problem in
allocating responsibility within a team and having Bugzilla permissions
that go hand-in-hand with that responsibility. Handling complaints is a
part of any bug-tracker-manager's life; it only hurts bmo so much
because it's done as a side-job there (and the number of users is 
overwhelming, which can't help).

I don't think the burden of granting editbugs and commentallbugs privs
is blocker for this [sort of] approach. Having said that, I don't think
having to add yourself to the CC: list is a significant deterrent in
posting irrelevant comments -- I think other mechanisms (some of which I
raised earlier) are more appropriate.

Take care,
--
Christian Robottom Reis | http://async.com.br/~kiko/ | [+55 16] 261 2331