always show original description as comment #0

[Lesmana Zimmer]

when a bug description is changed then the original description should always be shown as comment #0

for example see bug #536625

during the lifetime of the bug the original bug description has been changed. a newcomer reading the bug now will read the current description followed by comment #1 ... and will be confused. comment #1 asks a question which only makes sense in the context of the original description, which is comment #0, but it is not directly visible.

always showing comment #0 under the changed description will prevent this confusion and enables newcomers to follow the train of thought in the comments (particularly comment #0 and comment #1).

[Lesmana Zimmer (lesmana)]

related bug #540683

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

I disagree that we should display the full comment 0. I think the better way is to get the activity log in the bug so that it displays the diff of the change to the description inline inthe comments.

Some will find this noisy, so we shouldn't do this until we have the ability for a user to toggle which activity notices are displayed.

[Lesmana Zimmer (lesmana)]

@Deryck Hodge
i respect your opinion that the full comment #0 should not be displayed. you changed the title of my bug report and then marked it as duplicate of a completely different bug report. i think that the new title does not reflect my request at all. i will change the title back and then unduplicate this bug report. if you still think that the full comment #0 should not be displayed then please mark this as WONTFIX.

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

Hi, Lesmana.

Sorry if it was frustrating that I converted the bug from a feature request. I was only trying to preserve a record of the actual bug underneath your request. I found the other bug after converting this one and then marked it as a duplicate.

We indeed do not want to display the original description as comment 0 inline with other comments.

Cheers,
deryck

[Lesmana Zimmer (lesmana)]

here is another example why the original bug report should always show unmodified as comment #0
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/346289

it begins at comment #71
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/346289/comments/71
(the full edit war already begun before comment #71)

i understand the idea of launchpad to have the description editable. i find that idea good. i see the advantages of that approach. but i think the editable description and comment #0 should be kept separate. the original description (or comment #0) should always show as comment #0. that way people can add and edit the description, but comment #0 is left intact.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

"always show original description as comment #0" is one possible solution to a bug. It is not a bug, nor necessarily the best solution to a bug.

"Show diff of description change in comments activity log" is one possible solution to a bug. It is not a bug, nor necessarily the best solution to a bug.

There seem to be two related but distinct bugs here.

A: N percent of people, looking at a Launchpad bug page, think that everything in the description was written -- or should be written -- by the original reporter, and N is too high.
- We don't know how high N is. Bug 346289 is evidence of someone being badly confused, but only one example.
- We don't have a standard for how low N should be.
- I think this probably got worse when the name of the reporter moved from the top right (where I had put it;-) to immediately above the description (where it is now).
- If Launchpad was the only bug tracker in the world, this would be less of a problem. Since it is not, the collaborative nature of our bug descriptions needs to be more obvious than might seem reasonable to a Launchpad developer.

B: When a bug description is updated to address comments, those comments start looking silly.
- We don't know how many bugs this affects. Bug 46591 and bug 536625 are examples. (It would be relatively easy to estimate this, by examining a random sample of bug reports where the description has been updated by someone other than the original reporter.)
- Bug 1734 is one solution I proposed for this problem (back when I hadn't myself realized how confusing solution-centric bug reports can be).

Showing the original description as comment #0 might help with A, or it might not. It would help with B. However, it would make bug reports a lot noisier.

Showing a diff of a description change interleaved with the comments wouldn't help with A at all. It would help with B. It would have little cost, if the diff was collapsed by default.

There might be other solutions to one or both of the problems. Since the solutions are moderately likely to overlap, I suggest that this bug report, bug 1734, and bug 351555 be merged into a single bug report that puts the problems first, possible solutions second.