376135 - (cooloff) add a cooloff group to bugzilla

Status: NEW

(Bugzilla :: Administration, task, P3)

Description

[timeless]

i want a cooloff feature.

a user tagged with cooloff (presumably it's a group) is given a limit on the number of:
* comments per user per time period - possibly per bug.
* the number of bug filings per time period. e.g. you may file up to 1 bug per time period.

For comparison:
* slashdot and google groups both force everyone to wait a longer period if they post too often [yes, i know both of these from personal experience]

Steps to reproduce:
1. read bugmail for a large bugzilla (bmo works).
2. wait for someone to file say 15 bad bugs in their first day of holding an account.
3. read the bugmail watching them interact w/ established QA who try to help (I suggest gmail as it condenses probably 150 messages into only 25).
4. watch as people suggest a ban.

Problem with a ban:
* there's no way to see if someone has improved
* someone has to either manually or automatically remove it (people who suggest a ban feature usually eventually realize this problem)

Alternative to a ban:
* a throttle

Advantages of throttle:
* you can see if people improve
* no need to ask people to remove bans
* should be very little need to readd a ban, since while throttled a person can still function

Expected results (Implementation details):
* every time a user tries to file a bug, and every time a user loads a bug and selects a comment form, we show a message (configured as a param?) it should have %vars for (new_bug_quota_used, change_bug_quota_used, new_bug_quota_avail, change_bug_quota_avail, new_bug_quota_limit, change_bug_quota_limit, quota_time_slice) so that you can write something like:

<p>Please think carefully about your new %terms.bug. Are you sure you have everything just the way you want?</p>
<p>Your account is currently being moderated to not more than %new_bug_quota_limit per %quota_time_slice.</p> <p>Please visit <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/">the Bugzilla home page</a> and click the link titled "Bugzilla Etiquette".</p>

or
<p>You have already made %change_bug_quota_used during %quota_time_slice. Your account is currently being moderated to not more than %change_bug_quota_limit per %quota_time_slice. If you are being asked for more than one thing, or if you can imagine a follow-up question, please try to answer them. Please use a spell checker and try to avoid needing to make corrections (corrections aren't possible and a future comment would be counted against your limits).</p> <p>Please visit <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/">the Bugzilla home page</a> and click the link titled "Bugzilla Etiquette".</p>

Comment 1

[Frédéric Buclin]

I don't like this feature; it's counter-productive and may prevent new contributors from reporting real bugs. I think the noise per user is pretty low and doesn't worth the feature. I suggest WONTFIX. What should rather be done is the ability to powerusers to disable accounts for users generating too much noise (i.e. a larger group of users than those having editusers privs only).

Comment 2

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I think the noise per user is pretty low and doesn't worth the feature.

You obviously haven't watched the new bugs coming in in the browser-related products.  The problem is quite real.

Personally, I'd be quite satisfied with the ability to temporarily ban someone (have the ban automatically removed after some time period).  I think being able to manually throttle someone (rather than having all new users throttled by default) would be useful, too.