[Libreoffice-qa] Bug Triage best practice: Change or not change assignee?

[Rainer Bielefeld]

Hello Nino, bello Bjoern, hello all,

IMHO "not change"! I can't remember that we ever discussed to modify 
"Assigned to" related to "NEEDINFO", and it has never been used that 
way, not in the various other projects using Bugzilla I joined, and also 
not for LibO - except by Nino, who did not know how to use the Bugzilla 
fields.

To be honest, I missed the change in the Wiki by Bjoern  2011-12-23, 
23:59:40, I would have reverted it and asked for discussion because I 
strictly disagree.

I believe it is a very bad idea to use that field to show  who should 
contribute additional information to the bug report, the "Assigned To" 
field should remain reserved for the competent person person who will 
fix the bug (or at least will manage the fixing), please also see 
Bugzilla Help, and I never saw an other usage for that field (and I saw 
a lot, you know.)

Of course, everything can be put on the test stand, but if you want to 
modify something, you should have good reasons, but I can't see any.

a) If you believe it's an established standard to use "Assigned To" to 
show from whom info is required, so please contribute examples from time 
before before modification in the Wiki.
Currently I see 26 Bugs with NEEDINFO and assignee not 
libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org, most of assignees are 
developers, many of them the developer assignee seems to have forgotten 
to set Status to ASSIGNED, and most other ones nave got that assignation 
by Nino last days. [2] shows 3 bugs with NEEDINFO + not default 
assignee, all reporters.
So I can't see that the new Wiki text describes common sense or general 
use, but it defines a new standard.

b) If you believe a problem has to be solved, please tell the problem 
and explain how you want to solve it and what alternatives you excluded. 
Currently I can't see a problem:

b1) The NEEDINFO mostly is joined with a comment "@dearreporter, can you 
please add following information ...), what can be understood by the 
reporter and is much better than a use of the "Assigned to" field 
different to the Help explications he reaches clicking the link in 
Bugzilla.  I believe at least 99% of our Bugzilla users will expect that 
information is required from reporter if nothing else is written. And 
many ones.

b2) Additionally for me an assignee different from default is an 
indication that this but is out of QA "responsibility" and has found a 
developer (or someone else who will lead the problem to a solution) and 
no further "QA-action (currently) will be required; I believe most other 
Bugzilla users think the same way.

c) Generally please do not modify existing proceedings without 
discussion, people like me use information in Bugzilla for queries, and 
every change breaks those queries and causes additional work (like this 
discussion, too)

d) IMHO it has become a standard that people add themselves to "assigned 
to", this standard would be broken with the proceeding due to Wiki

e) I see one special case where a _self_assignition_ to "assigned to" of 
a non developer can be useful and should be done (and I do so): If a bug 
still needs longer, expensive research and someone decided to do that 
(without having skills for a bugfix) he should add himself to "Assigned 
to", what shows other users that currently here no other action is 
required (what helps to avoid double expensive work on the same thing).

BTW: I do not believe that we need documented soliloquies like in Bug 
Bug 47521, SCNR to leave a witty comment ;-)

So I suggest proceeding:
- only set Status NEEDINFO with text request in comment, but without
   assignation to reporter
- if info is required not from reporter ad "infoprovider" key word.
- amend Wiki

@Nino: Thank you for the hint concerning inconsistence in manuals and 
proceeding.



Best regards


Rainer


Hyperlinks:
[1] 
<https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=67517&emailtype1=notequals&emailassigned_to1=1&query_format=advanced&bug_status=NEEDINFO&email1=libreoffice-bugs%40lists.freedesktop.org&product=LibreOffice>

[2] 
<https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?chfieldto=2011-12-23&chfield=bug_status&emailassigned_to1=1&query_format=advanced&chfieldfrom=2010-01-01&list_id=67523&chfieldvalue=NEEDINFO&bug_status=NEEDINFO&email1=libreoffice-bugs%40lists.freedesktop.org&product=LibreOffice&emailtype1=notequals>