Proposing to adapt bug watch policies

[Sense Hofstede]

Hello,

Forwarding upstream costs time and requires knowledge of the upstream
bug tracker. It would be much easier if triagers could just mark a bug
as needing forwarding upstream and don't have to interrupt their
work-flow. This can already be done; Launchpad has got useful flags[1]
you can use to find out what bugs have empty bug watches.

However, the documentation doesn't seem to talk about adding empty bug
watches at all. I do think that this possibility is something that be
very helpful to bug triagers and have therefore made it a part of the
AdoptionTeam's structure[2].

Wouldn't it be good to (also) make this a part of the default bug
triaging process? I'd suggest to modify the explanation for moving
bugs to 'Confirmed'[3] to include adding an empty bug watch when the
cause has been determined. This would allow people that know how to
forward upstream to search for empty bug watches and fill those, also
making the live of the forwarders in AdoptionTeams a lot easier.

Possible downside: this would increase clutter in the task lists and
the projects for the upstream bug trackers on Launchpad since that
would start gathering a lot more bug reports without an upstream link.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.status_upstream=pending_bugwatch&field.status_upstream-empty-marker=1
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/AdoptionTeam
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage#Confirming

Regards,
-- 
Sense Hofstede
[ˈsɛn.sə ˈɦɔf.steːdə]