[Asterisk-Dev] Bug Tracker / Feature Requests (my take)

[Michael Giagnocavo]

>On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 19:26:00 -0600, Michael Giagnocavo
><mgg-digium at atrevido.net> wrote:
>> If many users vote for a feature that already exists, then that shows a
>> weakness in discoverability in the product. The 'solution' can be
>documented
>> there. How is that a bad thing?

>Leif Madsen wrote:
>That isn't a bad thing.  In fact, I'm encouraging it through people
>helping out with the Documentation Project (asteriskdocs.org).  There
>is also the Wiki (at voip-info.org) where people can go and search
>about all sorts of things.  The wiki is especially powerful as people
>can login and edit a page when new information is found.  A problem I
>find is that even when someone comes into IRC, has a fairly basic
>question answered, I rarely see those people go and edit the Wiki or
>submit something to the Documentation project.

I was referring to having a workaround posted (i.e., resolving a "bug" as
already resolved and pointing to a workaround), if indeed having users
repeatedly file the same bug over and over again is such a large problem.
>From what I gather from the comments so far, actual users are 'worthless'
(probably 'cause they're not being charged to use the software). I'm sure
that attitude would change when/if Digium does a commercial version.

>I'm not sure what the problem is to be quite honest.  It seems as if
>the community grows at an ever increasing rate, yet the amount of
>documentation and code contributions seems to be relatively stagnant.
>
>What the actual issue is, I'm uncertain.  But I do know that every
>effort is made to allow users to contribute back in *some* way.  I'm
>not a professional coder, but I did want to give back somehow, thus
>was born the Documentation project.  Basically all I'm saying is that
>there is always a way to help out.

"Giving back" doesn't mean people have to actually submit a bug report,
write code, etc. Getting feedback from users about features,
discoverability, usability, experience, is generally considered valuable.

I thought that making a bug tracker that is designed not just for the
developers, but also to correctly handle the users, would help out in yet
another place (as it did for Visual Studio). But I guess I underestimated
the intelligence/value/whatever of Asterisk users. Well, it was worth a shot
anyways. 

Another way would be to close the bug tracker to 'inside' people only and
have a 'suggest a wish' page that can go on inside. At least then there'd be
less junk in the database (if having decent filters and resolutions is
expensive).

-Michael