Bug watches not linked to a BugTask are hard to find on bug pages

[MarcRandolph]

A helpful person added a bug watch to Bug #371512, but if you pull up that bug, it isn't visible at the top of the screen.
I know it's there because:

1. I received an email update: ** Bug watch added: mythtv.org bug tracker #6624 http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/6624
2. There is an entry in the activity log: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mythtv/+bug/371512/+activity

I must say that the whole Launchpad UI surrounding this stuff is needless confusing. Terms and functions have nuanced meanings, and work flows are non-intuitive even for someone like myself that has used many different bug trackers over the past 15 years. I only bring this up because it is possible there isn't a bug here, but rather it is yet another esoteric thing related to launchpad that is not obvious.

[Graham Binns (gmb)]

If you look at the right hand side of the bug page, under the subscribers list and the list of attachments you'll see a list of remote bug watches. The watch you're looking for is there.

The watch isn't shown at the top of the page because it's not associated with one of the bug tasks (you can have multiple watches on numerous related bugs, so trying to fit them all at the top of the page is impractical at best). I agree that the presentation of these watches could use some work.

Part of the trouble, of course, is that in a system like Launchpad where you've got lots of information to present, much of which is going to be useful to the user at least 90% of the time, you need to spend a lot of time working out where the information needs to go on the page. This is one of those cases where we still need to do some work.

[MarcRandolph (mrand)]

Thanks for the pointer. I see it now, although I have to admit, it raises even more questions about the work-flows and UI: why are some bug watches are listed on the lower right while others are linked with the "Affects" region? The differentiation is not clear.

I hope my comments don't come across as too abrasive - I just am having a hard time understanding the benefits of the way that Launchpad does things when compared to other systems. I appreciate that it it handles multiple series of multiple distributions as well as individual projects, but in its attempt to do everything, it seems like it adds confusion to tasks that are normally very straight forward.

Since bug watches are definitely more important than the list of subscribers (which can be more than a screen long), hopefully you're considering moving them above the subscribers list. That would have probably prevented me opening this bug to begin with, although I wouldn't mind understanding the answer to the latest question at the top of this particular comment [while fully appreciating that this is not a discussion forum].

Since I'm now well into the area of bike shed colors, seems like the tiny search box in the lower right could be eliminated. I'll stop now :-)

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I think the clearest way of fixing this would be to abolish bug watches not associated with a bugtask. If a bug watch is related to the bug, it should be linked to a project or package. If it's not, there's no point in it being there at all.

[Graham Binns (gmb)]

2009/9/1 Matthew Paul Thomas <email address hidden>:
> I think the clearest way of fixing this would be to abolish bug watches
> not associated with a bugtask. If a bug watch is related to the bug, it
> should be linked to a project or package. If it's not, there's no point
> in it being there at all.

I'd actually like to go further than that and abolish the notion of
bug "watches" altogether. Bugs are all bugs; Launchpad's job is to
represent them all in the same way, whether their primary instance
resides in LP's DB or in someone's Bugzilla DB. Launchpad should
present bugs as either being "local" or "remote," but the
differentiation should be subtle so that users that don't have to care
don't, er, have to care.

[Reiner Herrmann (deki)]

I also think that having the bug watches below the very long list of subscribers makes it much harder to spot.
The bug watch actually provides useful/additional information about the bug, while I doubt that anyone is interested in the subscriber list.
So in my opinion the bug watch should be at least above the subscriber list to make it more visibile.