22196 - Bug triage queue should _not_ be assigned to [e-mail]

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Bugzilla-General, defect, P3)

Description

[Eli Goldberg]

My understanding was that we were going to be assigning & qa assigning the pile
of incoming bug reports currently going to leger over to a new address that
external testers wishing to get involved in bug triaging could easily query for
an accurate list of unscreened bugs.

[e-mail] is already being used for hundreds of bugs that are definitely
not "bugs to be triaged", and is thus not an appropriate e-mail address to be
assigning these bugs to.

I believe the alias under discussion was "[e-mail]".

This should be corrected as soon as possible, as nobody in QA queries for bugs
going to [e-mail], and the end result is that all of these bugs are
falling into a black hole, rather than into a neat cubby-hole that was the point
of doing this into the first place. ;)

Comment 1

[Dawn Endico]

The answer to your problem is easy. Instead of just searching for "nobody" in
"assigned to" add clauses to your query to search for browser general and every
severity but enhancement. This won't be any more work for testers because
they'll be clicking the link you make for them anyway.

Littering bugzilla with a bunch of aliases that mean "nobody" is a bad idea.

Comment 2

[Eli Goldberg]

I agree that littering bugzilla with a lot of aliases that mean the same thing is
a bad idea.

Fortunately, that's not anyone is suggesting --- the idea was to create an alias
that specifically means that "bugs assigned here need to be pre-screened", with
an alias name which makes the alias's purpose immediately obvious.

Here are reasons why I do not believe the current solution is sufficient:

#1: It assumes that bugs which require pre-screening will always be submitted to
components different from ones in which other [e-mail] bugs are
submitted. Perhaps this is the case now, but when we hit beta, do we know this
will be the fact?

e.g. I could easily see "User Interface" becoming a triaged component in a few
months, for example. How would you suggest making this happen if/when the time
comes, without creating the needless complexity of requiring that bugs only be
assigned to [e-mail] in certain components which aren't pre-screened?

#2: The Browser-General bugs are currently going to [e-mail], rather
than [e-mail], creating a confusing environment in which two aliases
already exist --- and with no clear reason why there's a difference between the
two from their names.

#3: External bugs requiring triage are frequently enhancement requests.

Overall, I believe we're better off making the right decision up front, rather
than making a short-term decision now and regretting it later.

---

I'm re-opening this on the basis that you probably do want to fix #2.

Comment 3

[leger]

#2 is fixed.  We will go with [e-mail] for now.

Comment 4

[Eli Goldberg]

#2 is fixed...meaning what?

e.g. have all of the [e-mail] bugs have now been reassigned to
[e-mail] where someone may eventually look at them...?

Comment 5

[Eli Goldberg]

...re-opening so that the @netscape.com bugs can be properly re-assigned.

Comment 6

[Eli Goldberg]

...all of the bugs assigned to [e-mail] are now assigned to
[e-mail]. (endico took care of the qa assigning.)

----

I'm noting for the recording that I don't concur with the resolution of this bug,
but as long as Dawn (and Jan) are volunteering to personally clean up the likely
mess that will result in a few months, I'm rubber-stamping it as WONTFIX.

Comment 7

[Eli Goldberg]

Rubber-stamping as verified.

Comment 8

[Dawn Endico]

The problem here is that bugs are meant to be owned by people.
Bugs are supposed to be assigned to people who then either fix
the bug or funnel them towards the correct person. Assigning
them to pseudo users is the real problem, not the fact that I
wont make a new pseudo user.

Since none of the usual suspects wants to own browser-general bugs,
I'd like to look for volunteers from the net to be default owner
and QA contact (possibly in rotation). It will then be their
responsibility to make sure B-G bugs get assigned to someone else.
They won't  have to do all the work because we can still have people
help with triage, but it will be their jobs to make all B-G bugs
get taken care of.

Comment 9

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

moving all closed Bugzilla bugs to the new Bugzilla product.
This batch is DUPLICATE/INVALID/WORKSFORME/WONTFIX
reassigning to default owner and QA in case of the bug being reopened.
Clearing milestones, since we really shouldn't have them on these types of
resolutions.  Sorry for the spam everyone...

Comment 10

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

damn, bit by bug 30731. sorry for the respam...  one more coming to complete the
status fix

Comment 11

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

completing status fix...