Comment 14 for bug 290101

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 08:47:46PM -0000, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> I spent a few minutes yesterday imagining: Would Bugs work well without
> "Incomplete"?

I like (and agree with) your analysis.

> After some period without response, triagers would mark these reports as
> Invalid.

'Expired' is a clearer end-state in this case. Although, you can only
set it to that state via the API currently (probably for good reason).

> Finally, sometimes reporters would provide the missing information for a
> report that had only recently been marked Invalid, but would not
> remember (or know how) to reopen it, and their response would be
> forgotten. So that's the third function of "Incomplete": to automate
> reopening when missing information is provided.

I definitely agree auto-reopening of Expired bugs when the original
reporter comments is a good idea. I'm uncertain if the same should be
done for Invalid. I don't think this auto-reopening should occur on
comments from random strangers that hadn't ever commented on the bug
before. But this is straying from the topic at hand.

> There are other problems that fall under the general heading of
> "Incomplete" being difficult to understand, mainly people abusing it for
> "this needs design work" or "I know it's a bug but I'm expecting the
> reporter to tell me how to fix it". But I don't think that's what this
> bug is about, so it can wait for another day.

I think the question raised was about your analysis on the terminology
"Needs Info" vs. "Incomplete". Would some of the confusion leading to
the issues in your above paragraph be avoided more easily if the former
term was in use? Would it cause other confusion or issues?