not enough people use the bug tracker

[Caarrie]

People are always complaining that things are not getting done yet they dont use the bug tracker to give info to help get things done. What can anyone in the testing or dev teams do [or gm team] to help get more players to report issues and bugs to the tracker? Without anyone reporting issues it takes longer to get them found and hence longer to get them fixed. Right now we have a lot of coding prospects so keep the bugs coming to keep them busy and you will get them fixed. We are here to help you enjoy the game better, in order to do this we need you guys to report your bugs to the tracker. Just using the tracker to report issues related to settings, does not help the engine team make the game better. Remember there are many teams that make up PS and you have to offer help to all of them, So that means it is your job as a player of this game to report any issues you find to the tracker. Stop reporting all issues to the forum and put them on the tracker. Dont be suprised if you are asked to use the forum in some cases, sometimes we can help you better here then on the tracker.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

My hope is that people will view ps not as a PRODUCT to be consumed, but as a project everyone participating in must contribute to make possible.

Complaints and wishes are a shallow echo of the efficacy of a bug report.

[ThomPhoenix]

In the past various bugs have been discovered due to casual conversation on the forum or IRC. The persons involved simply assumed that the bug was known, while it was not. If you discover an issue in-game, this should be your train of logic:

- Has his version of PlaneShift just been released? If so, is my issue part of the "known issues" in the changelog?
- Is my bug known? You can check the first page of the bugtracker which contains the most important bugs, and you can use the handy search option. Be sure to check for "all reports" and not just "open reports" as the issue you're looking for might have already been fixed and thus the report closed!
- If the issue is not mentioned in the changelog under known issues and not present on the bugtracker, report it.

What To Do If You Want To Help Out, But You're Lame?
It happens, you find an issue, but you're too lame to report it. Instead of not reporting it at all, you can make a blind bug report ("just report it") or make a petition about it. It'll mean more work for the GMs and the Testing Team in case of duplicates, but in all honesty, I'd rather have some duplicates than unknown bugs or exploits

What Is A Bugtracker?
It's a place where we track bugs, it's a vital tool for the development of this game. It can be found >> here <<. Enjoy!

[Prolix]

I think that some questionable issues are better discussed on the forum or on irq before posting to the bugtracker. As some of you know I am no stranger to the bugtracker, bilbous currently has 21 reports open, I had 20 on the old tracker. There are some things I do hesitate to post as they are not really bugs but rather are conceptual design issues. I point them out here because I hope that someone can give me an idea why they were chosen the way they were. If I get a reason I can accept I have no need to make a report. If the reason just seems to be because that is how we did it I can't accept that. I can accept because we could not do it any other way and still achieve the goal and I will offer a suggestion if I can. My suggestions may not be helpful of themselves, though that is the intention, but they might trigger a new way of looking at the problem by someone in a position to do something about it.

Is the bug-tracker really the place for conceptual discussions? Is the complaint department where my thread got moved to?

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

if there is clearly no reason for something to be as it is it is a bug.

[Sen]

People are always complaining that things are not getting done yet they dont use the bug tracker to give info to help get things done. What can anyone in the testing or dev teams do [or gm team] to help get more players to report issues and bugs to the tracker?

First of all; Im guilty and will try to have more often a look in bugtracker and maybe my experiences will then be different from what they are yet.

What can be done by the dev/testing teams is imho to be more responsive towards players. Each time I maybe only ask for any opinion of the 'team' or when I offer help the reaction is usually no reaction at all. (Latest example was my pretty strange technical problem in http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=32658.0 where Im not sure if ps-bugtracker is the right place for).

I think it would be better in a community project if all sides show interest of working together - this is from player/my side to focus more on the bugtracker and from 'official' side to be more responsive to player questions and informations.
Apart from the working together atmosphere that I regard important - and along with it - is might simply be necessary to point players more often to the bugtracker (e.g. answer to my linked post that I shoud put it there).

Hmm, my post took a different direction than I wanted to, but maybe some get the point 
Sen

#edit# Got replies to the linked posts minutes after posting this - thank you for the answers

[Caarrie]

What can be done by the dev/testing teams is imho to be more responsive towards players. Each time I maybe only ask for any opinion of the 'team' or when I offer help the reaction is usually no reaction at all. (Latest example was my pretty strange technical problem in http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=32658.0 where Im not sure if ps-bugtracker is the right place for).

if you do post on the tracker and it is best on the forum we will nicely close the bug report with a message to you to use the forum instead for such issues.

[Orgonwukh]

I can't find it anymore, and maybe it is not true, or already deleted. But I remember reading once somewhere on an official PS website that reporting bugs will be rewarded.
I don't think that it is a good idea to reward reporting bugs with IC rewards, but I just wanted to throw this in.

[neko kyouran]

I can't find it anymore, and maybe it is not true, or already deleted. But I remember reading once somewhere on an official PS website that reporting bugs will be rewarded.
I don't think that it is a good idea to reward reporting bugs with IC rewards, but I just wanted to throw this in.

there was a thread about it being proposed, but I don't believe it was ever instigated.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

There is no reward other than a better game.

We do not have the time to personally respond to every post here sen, the bug tracker is the favored tool for actually getting things fixed.

If players actually care about improving the game the bugtracker is one of the best ways to go about it.

[Mythryndel]

I have not read anything but the initial post, but one thing that would likely help is to not require so @$#@# many logins. I have a login for the game, another for the forums, and yet another for the bug tracker. This is going to keep many people from bothering with the bug tracker. I know this is a technical issue because you are using three different software packages and at least two different servers, but it is a serious turn-off to some and a significant hurdle to others.

I have also seen some negative experiences others have had with posting reports on the bug tracker. Not everyone that you want reporting bugs is going to be a experienced tester that can give the correct details needed to reproduce the problem. This tends to cause frustration because the bugs get closed as "not a bug" but the offending functionality remains. I don't know if a document exists, but having a page that lists an example of the ideal bug report might be helpful. Questions to include might be:

1. Have you seen this issue more than once?
1a. How long has this been happening?

2. How you think things should work?

3. How is it working now?

4. Steps to reproduce:

This will help a lot of non-coders/testers provide the appropriate details. Worst case, if you can include these as multiple required fields in the bug tracker. Right now there is only a single free-form text box for providing details.

Just my 2 trias since you asked...

[EDIT] What returns if I do a search for something that is "hidden"? Will it then allow me to see it? There are likely to be numerous bugs that are already logged and people get told "duplicate of X, closed" when there was no way for them to see the original report. Then likely, that one gets hidden too because it has details that shouldn't be disseminated. I personally have had a good response on the bug tracker, but i have read through many reports that had less than friendly responses. Please always be aware that while most people are not technical enough to provide good details, the fact that they reported anything shows that they are trying.

[Caarrie]

This will help a lot of non-coders/testers provide the appropriate details. Worst case, if you can include these as multiple required fields in the bug tracker. Right now there is only a single free-form text box for providing details.

Just my 2 trias since you asked...

the tracker does not support this function.

[Mythryndel]

Does that mean we need to file a Feature Request on the flyspray website?

[Caarrie]

Does that mean we need to file a Feature Request on the flyspray website?

That would be something internally the testing team would have to decide, i dont see how it would help much as not all bugs require that info.

[Mythryndel]

The way we handle that where I work is simply allow a N/A in fields that are not required in all circumstances. Is it possible to have a predefined text string in the comment box when the bug is created? Something like a template? Maybe have a link on the page that says "unsure what to do, click here" and take them to an example page that lists a crash, a feature request, and whatever else might be useful.