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How to not be helpful

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How to not be helpful

[info]ze_dinosaur
2/1/06 01:44 am
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I've always seen the relationship between users and developers in the Free Software world as fluid and more of a partnership. That means trying your best to fix problems yourself, and if you can't, make it as easy as possible for other people to fix it. Here's an example of a bug that isn't helpful: 

The user tried to install
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/extensions/sage/sage-1.3.6-fx mz.xpi
He is told he needs to edit his preferences to permit this, and given a button.

It turns out instead he needs to edit about:config, and set
xpinstall.enabled = true.

And indeed when he finally does, installation fails as it is an
invalid file or something.

One would be much more confident if there were a debian sage package.

It is not at all clear what the submitter is complaining about. Do they object to the preference setting for software installation? Is there a bug installing extensions? Or do they want sage packaged in Debian? Bug reports should make it clear what the submitter thinks the single problem is. When asked if the were really wanted an RFP bug, the response was: 

Please reassign it that way if that is correct. All this is over my head.
Thanks.

If you've submitted over 1000 bugs maybe learning how the bug system works and is organized is a good idea? I'm not trying to attack Dan, but he is a good example of not being helpful.

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  • the user point of view

    (Anonymous)
    2/1/06 11:08 am (UTC)
    From the user point of view, isn't the bug pretty clear: they don't know how to install sage on debian. Why the user should know if it's technically feasible to make a debian package, fix the xpi or anything else?

    Considering being helpful, perhaps this kind of bug reports shouldn't be taken as requests but simply as anecdotes about user experiences with your software.

    • Re: the user point of view

      [info]ze_dinosaur
      2/1/06 11:25 pm (UTC)
      I don't think bug reports are a good place for anecdotal musings about user experience. That's what blogs are for :) Bug reports should be of the form: "X is broken. Here's why X is broken. Here's the steps to demonstrate X's brokenness", and perhaps how they think the problem should be resolved. And be specific! Saying "installation fails as it is an
      invalid file or something." isn't helpful. The actual error message would be.

  • Side note: does Sage really need to be packaged?

    (Anonymous)
    2/1/06 11:53 am (UTC)
    Well, do extensions for Firefox, which can be installed on a per user basis and do not require the sysadmin to install it, need to be packaged separately?

    If that is not clear, I'd say it is not necessary; we could do with a few tens of KBs extra in every user's account rather than keep updating extension Debian packages, right?

    • Re: Side note: does Sage really need to be packaged?

      [info]ze_dinosaur
      2/1/06 11:15 pm (UTC)
      Well packaging them allows them to be installed system-wide more easily, and also is useful for stable releases to have extensions that are known to work with the version of firefox you're running.

  • Pretty clear to me

    [info]thumperward
    2/1/06 02:34 pm (UTC)
    The bug encountered (that a pref which was stupidly left exposed in the UI of Firefox 1.0 had its tickbox removed in 1.5, leaving people stranded on the wrong side of the boolean) is really a separate issue, and simply packaging Sage for Debain wouldn't "fix" the bug unless dpkg went and flipped the pref itself.

    - Chris

    • Re: Pretty clear to me

      [info]ze_dinosaur
      2/1/06 11:20 pm (UTC)
      Ah yes, I see what you mean. People aren't stranded really, it's just not obvious how to reenable that option. But the user did disable it at some point, so should probably have some idea of what's going on.

  • WAR - US vs Iran from Iraq

    (Anonymous)
    3/31/07 07:40 am (UTC)
    What about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq, letting Iran invade and lose resources fighting their own kind,
    and then come in and mop up the dregs?
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