Comment 19 for bug 290101

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 2:32 AM, Graham Binns <email address hidden> wrote:
> On 19 November 2010 03:22, Robert Collins <email address hidden> wrote:
>> Or perhaps the status shouldn't change at all but we should have a set
>> of Questions which need answering for the bug - targeted to e.g. 'the
>> filer', 'the package maintainer', 'the driver' etc... and a bug with
>> outstanding questions to the reporter expires.
>>
>
> This is essentially the bug Q&A story that we've been talking about
> for a while, I think. I believe it's consistently one of the next
> items on the list of things to do when we've finished the subscription
> story.
>

I very much would like us to work on Bug Q&A and argue for it at every
chance. Whether or not jml and our stakeholders agree is another
matter. I don't think others are interested in new features at this
point, which I understand. So I don't expect to work on it anytime
soon. I will still argue for it as a game changing feature for the
bugs app, especially for projects with large numbers of bugs.

As for the questions here about status, I think it's useful to not
confuse "status" and "state," which is part of what Bug Q&A attempts
to do. Status is a work flow flag -- it says, where in the
development work flow is this bug? Bug state can be conveyed in any
number of ways in addition to the status field. I think we could do
with simpler, better understood statuses generally (as mpt outlines in
https://dev.launchpad.net/IssueTracker) and convey any additional
state questions like reporter requirements in other ways. If we did
these two things, I think the confusion over the naming of
"Incomplete" gets better and possibly goes away completely.

I'm also highly in favor of auto-toggling status from Incomplete based
on reporter comments. There's a bug somewhere about this already.

Cheers,
deryck