Launchpad bug stats disconnected from reality (errors.ubuntu.com)

[Daniel van Vugt]

I suspect Launchpad is dangerously disconnected from reality when it comes to number of people affected by a bug.

Examples:

Bug 956515:
Launchpad says: Affects 1 person, 0 duplicates.
errors.ubuntu.com says: It was reported 358 times in the past month.

Bug 901211 (duplicate of bug 833729):
Launchpad says: Affects 37 people, but the fix is released and no duplicates since February.
errors.ubuntu.com says: It was reported 2025 times in the past month (June).

This is very worrying. Developers won't have a clue as to what is actually the hottest bug if it's not showing up in Launchpad.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

Launchpad only knows what it's told. If errors.ubuntu.com is collecting the data and not telling Launchpad, that's not really a Launchpad problem.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I logged the bug against launchpad because it probably needs enhancement. Something like supporting anonymous votes for a bug from apport. Or showing "number of occurrences in the past 30 days".

If we ignore the numbers from people who either don't have launchpad accounts, or can't be bothered reporting bugs, then I think we're ignoring the vast majority of users.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

There is not much we can do about it as long as we have two places to report bugs. And for development releases we really do want Launchpad bugs, as they are so much more actionable than errors.u.c.

The LP numbers are actually correct, but only in the context of "in Launchpad" of course. No error tracker in the world can know how many people are really affected by a bug. So if nothing else, there should be some wording adjustment in LP.