Some points on the Wiki for Bug(squad|control)

[C de-Avillez]

Hello folks

TL;DR -- do not assign bugs to other people.

I noticed, a few days ago, some edits on the Bugs/* namespace. In
general, good work, and a good consolidation on the multiple (and
almost, but not completely identical) pages.

There was, though, a edit that I do not agree with. So, to start, let's
posit two principles (and I am talking about triaging here):

* 1. The documentation about how to deal with bugs in Ubuntu is
  contained (or pointed to from) in the Wiki, under the Bugs namespace;
* 2. NOWHERE else is a good place.

Simple principles. The whole idea, after all, is to allow anyone,
either starting to help or trying to remember things, a *single* place
to go to find information.

So, back to the issue at hand. This edit dealt with Bug
status and, on reading it, I noticed that a restriction we had in
place for quite a long time was not there anymore. 

This restriction goes as follows: "in general, NEVER assign a bug to
somebody else."

So I edited the page, and added it back [1].

I was surprised to find, later, a re-edit of the page with this
restriction taken out again [2], with a a comment "As seen it
<tinyurl.com/pm76zuw>, this is not true in all cases." 

That is not the issue. The issue is one should NOT assign bugs to other
people. There are some reasons for this: 
 * I see no problem with assigning bugs to teams (or projects): teams
   (and projects) usually survive changes. People join, and leave,
   teams and projects -- their interests changes --, but the teams (and
   projects) tend to stay.
 * this has been heavily abused in the past; we were all tired of
   finding ourselves with a new bug assigned to us *even* when it was
   not our area/interest/responsibility.
 * in the same vein, I do not need other people to decide what I have
   to do *without* contacting me first to see if I agree. This is
   really, really, bad manners.

The restriction was there for a reason. It should be back there (but I
am not going to re-edit the page, and start a silly "you are wrong; no
YOU are wrong" wiki edit battle).

And on the comment ("As seen it <tinyurl.com/pm76zuw>, this is not true
in all cases."): It does not matter. We may see a series of rules on How
To Assign A Bug To Other People in thousands of pages in the web.
But, for triaging, the ONLY VALID PLACE is under the Bugs/* namespace,
at https://wiki.ubuntu.com.

This also show WHY having a single point for triaging (and, in general,
for documentation) is a better option. I , personally, cannot understand
why would anyone have thought to go to askubuntu.com to ask how to
triage a bug. And, worse, why would anyone answer there giving a
*different* process, and NOT update the wiki?

And this brings another point: these pages provide GENERAL guidance. I
certainly do not want to see them grow without limit so that evey
single minuscule aspect of triaging can be documented. But I can
accept redirection to more specific pages (as long as we do not grow
*these* pages without bounds).

This is it. It is partially a rant, partially a -- for me -- reasonable
request.

Cheers,

..C..


[1]
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-bugsquad/2014-January/004438.html
[2]
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-bugsquad/2014-January/004436.html

-- 
ab alio expectes alteri quod feceris
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