182939 - Remove the word 'Additional' from 'Additional Comments'

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Bugzilla :: Creating/Changing Bugs, defect)

Description

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Simply put, it is obvious that if you have several comments, each successive one
is additional to its predecessors.  It is quite redundant to constantly state
that a comment is additional, especially since many comments do not actually add
anything to the bug report ('I still see this; is it fixed yet?'  'No').

Note this is not the same as bug 105597 which asks for different _types_ of
comments.

Comment 1

[Jacob Steenhagen]

It looks like this was touched on very briefly in bug 182939, comment 29 and 31.
 In my quick scan of what follows, I can't see where it was discussed any
further than where Gerv said he didn't want it.

Gerv, still opposed?

Comment 2

[Jacob Steenhagen]

Doh, I really meant to say "bug 71840, comment 29".

This bug doesn't have a comment 29 (yet :).

Comment 3

[Nick Bebout]

IMHO, the additional is kind of redundant, but it doesnt really matter to me if 
it is there or not.

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

As I've said before, I'd rather it stayed.
- Removing it doesn't save any space
- It doesn't make things _more_ clear
- If we make UI changes to show_bug, we should do so as part of a redesign of the 
  entire screen. If our UI designer for that decides to change it, I won't
  object. But we shouldn't fiddle for the sake of it.

Gerv

Comment 5

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

>- Removing it doesn't save any space.

I never claimed it did.  But what do you mean by space?  Vertical screen space?
 This is true.  It only saves 11 horizontal characters per comment (10 in the
word itself, and one for the space following it which could be removed as well).
  But now that this has been brought up, we can look at it another way: 11 less
bytes per comment for servers to dynamically generate, and 11 less bytes per
comment for servers to pump out in bandwidth.  Not that any production Bugzilla
server ever gets enough traffic to need all the performance help it can get, be
it ever so small.

>- It doesn't make things _more_ clear

Again, I never argued it did.  It is not clarity I seek, but removal of items
which are dispensible.  When pondering removal of something, one does not ask
what is gained by the removal, but rather, what purpose does the thing serve? 
I've already noted that it is redundant.  Nothing is gained from it; it does not
itself make things any more clearer than without it; it is utterly useless.

>- If we make UI changes to show_bug, we should do so as part of a redesign of
the entire screen. If our UI designer for that decides to change it, I won't
object. But we shouldn't fiddle for the sake of it.

You know as well as I do that we don't have a UI designer.  And anyway there is
nothing about this bug that requires a redesign.  We have a CVS repository for
the very purpose of allowing people to fiddle.  And more to the point, it is not
just for the sake of it.  I've already given clear reasons to do so.

Rather than argue what is gained from a removal (oxymoronish, no?) why not argue
what is gained by its presence?  I have yet to hear anything positive about it,
and the negatives I raised about it were not refuted.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

> >- Removing it doesn't save any space.
> 
> I never claimed it did. 

I know you didn't. My point was that if it did, that would be a positive reason
for removing it.

> When pondering removal of something, one does not ask
> what is gained by the removal, but rather, what purpose does the thing serve? 

No, you ask what is gained by the removal; for if nothing is gained, then the
status quo is better than change, because (as I commented in the bug), people
have mental stability invested in what they are currently using. There is a
threshold below which small UI improvements are actually bad, because they
change what people expect.

> You know as well as I do that we don't have a UI designer.

So, who redesigned the query page? It's perfectly possible that he will also do
the bug page, given that it was next on his list. Even if he doesn't, I might.
Or someone else. My point is that the issue should be approached as a whole entity.

> We have a CVS repository for the very purpose of allowing people to fiddle. 

That's certainly not my understanding of the reason we have a CVS repository. If
this were true, it would give license to any developer who wished to to just
change things in CVS to "see what happened". justdave has recently been
exercising _more_ control over what goes into CVS, not less, and is making
judgements based on his vision of where Bugzilla is going. No "fiddling" involved.

Gerv

Comment 7

[Christian Reis]

AFAICS "Additional" is indeed unnecessary, and I'd be happy to r+ a patch that
removed it -- it's a customization I do in every site that's looking to reduce
horizontal scrolling in show_bug.cgi. It does save quite a lot of horizontal
real estate (perhaps 10%) in 640px-wide screens.

Comment 8

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

uireview+ for this fix.  I want iterative, not wholesale, redesign of this page,
and this is a good change.  Note that this text needs to be fixed in
globals.pl:GetLongDescriptionAsText() as well.

Comment 9

[Shane H. W. Travis]

Note to self, on fixing this: keep in mind Myk's comment on 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236533#c11

====================================
>+            $result .= "\n\n------- Additional comment #$count from 
$who".Param('emailsuffix')."  ".

This text is a header, not a sentence, so "comment" should be capitalized,
although "from" is correctly lowercase.  But this can be taken care of with the
fix for bug 182939.
====================================

Comment 10

[Shane H. W. Travis]

Attachment: Code patch for tip

- Removed 'Additional' from GetLongDescriptionAsText (used only by BugMail.pm)
    and fixes up the comments in that subroutine
- Removed 'Additional' from comments.html.tmpl, which will prevent it from
    showing up on show_bug.cgi pages.
- Fixed up some text on midair.html.tmpl (not *directly* related to this, but
    discovered when grepping for 'additional comment'
- Did *not* remove 'Additional' from request/email.html.tmpl, as in that case
    the comments really are additional to the attachment

Comment 11

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Comment on attachment 175344 [details] [diff] [review]
Code patch for tip

>- Did *not* remove 'Additional' from request/email.html.tmpl, as in that case
>    the comments really are additional to the attachment

I'm not sure the additional accuracy here is worth the inconsistency with the
non-use of "additional" elsewhere, and argument the comment isn't any more
additional than others, but it's ok to leave this out if you think that makes
sense.

Looks good. r=myk

Comment 12

[Shane H. W. Travis]

Checking in globals.pl;
/cvsroot/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/globals.pl,v  <--  globals.pl
new revision: 1.308; previous revision: 1.307
done
Checking in template/en/default/bug/comments.html.tmpl;
/cvsroot/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/template/en/default/bug/comments.html.tmpl,v 
 <--  comments.html.tmpl
new revision: 1.16; previous revision: 1.15
done
Checking in template/en/default/bug/process/midair.html.tmpl;
/cvsroot/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/template/en/default/bug/process/midair.html.t
mpl,v  <--  midair.html.tmpl
new revision: 1.12; previous revision: 1.11
done