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Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

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Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#221

Post by al_borland »

D13Fd wrote: post #59

The problem with bug reporting is that they rarely seem to get fixed. I used to do a lot more bug reports. But you often hear back nothing, and then the bug is never fixed, even if it would be an easy fix. These days, I don't often report bugs.

I ran into a bug at work where an app would crash and I’d get prompted to submit a report. It would happen several times per day. I often question how many bug reports I should submit for the same issue, and how detailed I need to be with each one, if the information has already been sent. I probably sent at least 40, hoping they’d fix it just so they wouldn’t have to hear from me anymore. Some were professional and helpful, others were mostly empty other than the log they generated, and others were a bit unhinged where I simply vented my frustration over all the crashes. I don’t think it was ever fixed, I just eventually didn’t need that software anymore.

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#222

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

vonunov wrote: post #193
Vilian wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/2501 It's weird seeing people without computer familiarity using one, it feels like they are blind, they click in a button with a label and a icon, and when you ask todo it again they can't find it(even when you literally tell them the button name), it feels like their vision FOV is limited to a few centimeters, like those horror games flashlight lol, it's my own experience, but yeah, t…

[On a thread about how people don't read] Yes, and some of the details really need to be emphasized, because I'm sure that a good chunk of people assume this means "people don't read more than they need to / people have a lack of inquisitiveness and general competence matching their lack of interest in reading for personal fulfillment" or whatever. No, no, this is literal and (almost) not exaggerated. They _don't rea…

Whenever I saw statistics about literacy rates in the USA being startlingly low, I never believed it.

But then I remember many interactions I've had with people while working with the public, and...yeah I believe it.

You're right. People simply don't read. They don't even notice there are words somewhere in their vision. I used to work at a water ride at a theme park, and people would ask if they'll get wet on it, and there would literally be a sign right next to me that said "You will get wet on this ride, you may get soaked".

And then, occasionally, I'd have someone read it out loud, slowly, "you...will...get...wet..." and then be like "I don't understand, will I get wet on this ride?" and they're not even joking. They can turn the letters into sounds and words, but can't comprehend the result, yet if I just repeated exactly what the sign says, they understand it fine.

Now I wonder how many people that struggled with "word problems" in math simply weren't literate to begin with.

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#223

Post by [deleted] »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #183
pasc1878 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is a valid request. If a user wants to use a piece of software to do A and several different pieces of code do that - why should they choose yours. What is your selling point. Especially if they have been using the other product why should they switch to yours?

If I'm writing FOSS and someone asked me that, I'd just reply with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not making money from it, so trying to convince some random individual to use it is a waste of my time. Sure, I'll describe the features in the README and possibly include comparisons to other software, but I won't go out of my way to convince a specific rando just because they asked.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#224

Post by [deleted] »

pasc1878 wrote: post #177
0points wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most recently, a github user opened a issue on one of my projects and asked "Why should I use this instead of Y". As a developer sharing my code online, I don't even know where to begin answering that. This is typical non-tech spam.

No this is a valid request. If a user wants to use a piece of software to do A and several different pieces of code do that - why should they choose yours. What is your selling point. Especially if they have been using the other product why should they switch to yours?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#225

Post by lukaslalinsky »

halpow wrote: post #100
PaulHoule wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some teams have a frickin' bad attitude and couldn't care less. Try submitting a bug about how menus are displayed 5px from where they are supposed to be in a GTK app rendered on a X11-server that runs on the Windows desktop and see if the GTK developers care. Or try telling the react-testing-framework folks that they're asking me to put handrails in my bathroom when my house is burning down. Have experiences like th…

Don't forget all major OSS repositories using a stale bot to close any issue regardless of how many people reported it or how serious it is. Close and lock at times. Yikes.

Yep, stale bot got me to stop reporting bugs to Kubernetes, I spend time to gather details for an useful and it just gets closed without any human interaction. That's super disrespectful.

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#226

Post by freeone3000 »

account42 wrote: post #207
calcifer wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GTK is developed entirely by volunteers. None of the "rules" of bug reporting in this thread apply. If it's a business selling something to you? Sure, don't bother if they don't seem to care. But with volunteer-driven FOSS projects, what you want as an end user is much, much lower on the list of priorities compared to a business product. Even if you have implemented the "fix" [1] yourself, they might still not accept…

This doesn't change the original point that such behavior makes it less likely for users to bother with detailed bug reports. Bug reporting in OSS isn't just the developers doing free work for the users to fix their issues, it is also the users doing free work for the developer QA-testing their software.

For GTK, it’s all free work. You didn’t pay for it. You got the source for free. So yes, you are doing free work for the GTK team, just like anyone contributing to GTK is doing free work to fix it for you. This is fair.
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