[Qgis-psc] Changing our default response to requests/bugs?

[DelazJ]

Hi,

While I see the points Nyall is raising and understand the underlying
reasons, I think one important point to be solved - and Jef has pointed it
out earlier - is when and how will this message be brought to the user.

I'm not sure it's good to have it as automatic first answer for each
feature request (I exclude bug reports as many already asked). I've
personnally made many feature requests and I  would have found borying,
spamming... to receive an answer that repeats the same thing for each new
request I wrote. It may then be counter productive.
Feature requests, at least for me, are not always features I need but
features I think could improve the existing behavior. They sound like ideas
brought to developers or funders.

For me, this kind of message needs to be stated to the user once for all
(and not every time). If he is not sensitive to it the first time, not sure
he'll get it the tenth, when he no longer reads it.
The text needs to be available everytime (without being intrusive) so a
convenient place could be our website, near (or inside) the bug reporting
section. <http://qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/development/bugreporting.html>
I often send people who report issues in french forum to this page so that
they see/learn the process of bug reporting. Completing this page with how
requests could be quickly treated makes sense imho. There are many people
out there ignoring how things are done in an open source project.
If/When we move to github, then a link to this page can be inserted in the
issue report template (I don't know if it's possible with the current hub).
It won't be invasive.

Last but not the least, I recall a discussion (raised by Nyall?) about
writing something (in blog or website) about the different ways to fund a
feature or bug in QGIS. Haven't seen it yet. Maybe it's time to do it.

Regards,
Harrissou

2016-07-31 4:37 GMT+02:00 Mathieu Pellerin <nirvn.asia at gmail.com>:

> Nyall,
>
> I like the idea of coming up with an expanded response to reported issues
> and feature requests. That said, while I feel your response example is very
> fitting for feature requests, IMHO it is not proper for issues / bug raised
> by users.
>
> While I agree that a person requesting a yet-to-be feature should be
> invited to take on the responsibility of seeing it implemented, I don’t
> think this is right to deliver the same message to QGIS users and testers
> when it comes to issues they stumble upon and report. Doing so could risk
> leaving users with the impression that the QGIS community does not welcome
> issue reporting, which would be harmful to the project.
>
> For one, we actually incite issue reporting during the freeze period at
> the end of each development cycle to insure we ship a stable product. We’re
> requesting users to donate time and energy to test out the software and
> report bugs, that’s extremely important and should be encouraged, not
> dissuaded.
>
> This is especially true for new features introduced during a development
> cycle, whereas a paid / sponsored developer benefits from free user testing
> and reporting to insure that the feature he / she was financed to code is
> rock solid.
>
> Therefore, I think we should come up with two template responses: one for
> feature requests (I can’t think of ways to improve your text above), and
> one for issue reporting. When it comes to the latter, we should:
> - begin with thanking the user for taking time to report issues, and
> invite him / her to file an issue on the hub with as much details as
> possible, stressing need for steps to reproduce issue as a way to ease
> workload on developers
> - insure expectations from users reporting issues are managed so that he /
> she doesn’t expect an overnight response to avoid needlessly frustrating
> reporters, as well as developers :)
> - gently invite users to donate to the QGIS project by mentioning that
> part of the donations go to fixing reported issues in each development cycle
>
> Hope those thoughts help out.
>
> Math
>
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