Comment 21 for bug 1774404

> For resetting the prefs before making the bug report.
> This is actually the first time I've heard that.

Well, it's a common step to rule out that the issue is simply caused by some setting that might have been accidentally changed (happens quite often actually) or caused by some illegal entries in the preferences.xml.

It's not useful in all cases (and specifying *when* it is would be too complicated I think), but it's a fairly quick check and can save a lot of time in determining the cause of an issue.

> That is mentioned in an faq item already

We recommend it at some point in A Windows-specific FAQ I think but "resetting preferences" seems like a very common troubleshooting step and seeing as we do not offer it via the UI I think a separate FAQ entry is justified either way

> it seems you managed a double-space between the bullets

I probably just "hacked" the source (as I can not bear the rich-text editor). Maybe try "Shift + Return" (I think this also allows for double spaces but I might be wrong)

> Regarding replacing the green comment with what you said you "pirated"
> from that article. Did you pirate it such that it needs to be quoted,
> credited, and linked? Or is it more like paraphrased?

I liked the message of the original article and worked from there, i.e. it's not a verbatim copy. (I actually put a link to the article but even if we were to remove it we'd be safe).

> I'm not sure about the part about developers being "dull".

Yeah, I searched for a "nice" phrasing here that was not too strong but also captures the feeling that sometimes develops on the reporter's side when the developers seems to be too "stupid" to understand the problem (or seem not to care or appear to be of different opinion, etc.). Often this leads to people starting arguing about it which does not help either party and therefore should be avoided. "Distracted" doesn't really capture it, in German I'd have used "begriffsstutzig" [1] but I'm not sure the translation into English works well ("dim" might capture it best but I'm not sure if that's readily understood by non-native speakers...)

[1] https://www.dict.cc/?s=begriffsstutzig

> Also, should we really say "years". That could really be discouraging!

I think yes! It certainly *is* discouraging but it's the truth. If we say weeks (or even months) and after a year there is still no notable activity I think that's even worse, as being realistic from the start (maybe we can point out that "help is always welcome as we aim to reduce response times" or something...). From a reporter's point of view I think the time it needs to answer a bug is irrelevant: The ultimate goal for a reporter is to get their problem fixed, so that's the timeframe that matters, even if the bug would be properly triaged after an hour. The phrase "get to your report" means just that for me, but if you think it's unclear feel free to rephrase (although tbh I've also seen bugs unanswered after years, so either interpretation is actually correct)