ARB team is never notified about app developer's comments on the 'Feedback' page

[Rafał Cieślak]

Since application is sent for review to the ARB team through MyApps portal, almost every action that is done in application's 'Feedback' tab is mailed to <email address hidden>. However, when a developer sends a comment, not a single mail goes to the ARB team.

This is a significant problem for apps that are in 'Needs Information' phase. An ARB member reverts the application to this phase, usually stating that it to be somehow differently packaged. Sometimes, the developers do not simply re-send a new package, but ask for help instead - by sending a comment in the Feedback page. The ARB team does not know about developer's question, and will not reply to it, and because 'Needs Information' apps are not displayed in the queue (https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/dev/arb/), they will end up forgetting about the app. On the other hand, the developer will endlessly wait for answer, and finally will get discouraged.

An example is this app https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/dev/apps/462/feedback/ . The comment was sent on 30 January.
On the list (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/app-review-board/2012-January/date.html) there is not a single post notifying that the developer needs help. (There are several other cases like this one, and I can provide a full list, if needed).

The ARB team should be notified about any action that is done on the 'Feedback' page, including developer comments, to avoid applications getting stuck in 'Needs Information' phase.

[Allison Randal (allison)]

Also, when ARB members make comments on the Feedback page, we're not sure if the developer gets a notification message, or is able to see the messages.

[Anthony Lenton (elachuni)]

Hi Rafal,

Thanks for submitting this bug.

MyApps is indeed currently only sending notifications for changes that involve a state change on the app, not when comments are posted on the app without changing the state.

As part of the work for bug #987996, all comments on the application will trigger a state change (effectively moving the app back into the "pending review" queue), so that this issue should go away immediately as part of that change.

I'm going to mark this bug as a duplicate for lack of a "should be fixed as a side-effect of" button, feel free to reraise if there is still an issue once #987996 has been released.