CommonTasks

Revision 12 as of 2005-11-03 16:58:21

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Overview

TableOfContents

Forwarding bugs upstream

You can forward bugs to the authors of the software (upstream), if

  • you made sure, that the bug doesn't occur because of Ubuntu related changes
  • the change too hard to fix for yourself and anyone else in the team

If you do this, be sure to

  • include all the necessary information, like
    • how to reproduce
    • which version is used (which version of dependend libraries, if the bug indicates problems there)
    • who reported it
    • where the whole conversation is to be found
  • create a bug watch in Malone for this

How to Deal with Feature Requests

If you feel that the bug reported is a feature request disguised as a bug report, please introduce the reporter gently to the Specification Process we have. Be sure to mention ["SpecTemplate"] and http://launchpad.net/specs

How to deal with Support Requests

If you feel that the bug reported is a support request disguised as a bug report, please introduce the reporter gently to the Support Tracker we have. Be sure to mention http://launchpad.net/support

How to deal with suggestions for changing defaults

If you feel that the bug reported is a suggestions for changing defaults disguised as a bug report, please kindly reroute the discussion to a mailing list or a discussion forum. If this has been already discussed and rejected, tell the reasons to the user and point to the corresponding discussion for further suggestions/comments.

Finding Duplicates

Finding Duplicates of bugs is a very valuable contribution in the Bug community. Users sometimes don't know, how to check if the same bug was already filed, and sometimes don't care. To weed out simple ME TOO messages and aggregate information in one place is crucial in the process of fixing a bug.

There are quite some measures you can take to help out with this specifically.

Look up bugs for the same component. Try to rephrase your search concentrate on actions an words that describe the items involved to reproduce this crash.

Examples:

If you can't find it in the list of open bugs, you could try to find it in the list of closed ones. Don't feel discouraged, if you don't find duplicates fast in the beginning, after some time you will know the usual suspects.

Reminding of the Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct applies to conversations in bug reports too. So if you observer people not being respectful, please point them to http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/conduct/document_view