Re: [gentoo-dev] Bug voting

[Dylan Carlson <absinthe@gentoo.org>]

On Tuesday 27 July 2004 5:39 pm, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> I'd hardly call 30,000 emails and however many forums posts there are
> "nothing".

Wasn't it you who called them the "vocal minority"?   

In any event, they are our users... and ultimately the more, simple tools 
we can give users to let us know what they think is important, the better 
we are able to prioritize what gets worked on -- particularly enhancements 
to our tools.

> No, subtle as in "this bug will cause people various really strange
> problems, but they won't realise what's causing it". Don't forget, the
> package maintainers quite often know a lot more about the package and
> the way it interacts with the system than the bug submitters and voters.

Right, a completely isolated case.   As a package maintainer should know 
more than most users.  But ultimately, most bugs (that haven't been closed 
out as INVALID/etc) are either problems with the way something works now, 
or an enhancement request.   You think that votes get cast for stupid 
things?  Do you really think our users are stupid? 

Go on, look at KDE's bug system w/votes, or Mozilla's for that matter.

I'll save you the trouble:

KDE defects with votes: http://tinyurl.com/c5ja
KDE enhancements with votes: http://tinyurl.com/c5j3
Mozilla bugs with votes:  http://tinyurl.com/59dxl

Do those bugs that have votes look like a waste of time to you?  The users 
for KDE, Mozilla, etc use the voting system responsibly and I believe ours 
will too.

> Well, either the voting affects developers, in which case it's a serious
> problem because it'll detract from the bugs which are *actually*
> important, or it won't affect developers, in which case your claims
> above are effectively meaningless.

It won't influence any developers (like you) who choose to ignore the 
votes.  For others, it will be a tool like any other (severity, priority, 
etc) to help determine what needs attention.  It's not a mandate.

For developers such as yourself, what are you worried about?  Ignore the 
votes and keep working on your buglist like you normally would.  I fail to 
see the problem here.

Cheers,
Dylan Carlson [absinthe@gentoo.org]
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x708E165F

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