Request for a dedicated bug reporting & tracking channel, or better yet: use GitHub issues

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Please could we have a dedicated channel for logging and tracking the progress of bugs?

The current practice of logging them in the help forum & hoping they will be picked up isn’t really helping anyone:

  • the devs must rely on clear signposting in topics in order to identify bug reports in a sea of other support posts. Asking them to go hunting for bug reports reduces the likelihood of those reports being picked up, plus they may not wish to spend their volunteered time on such sifting activities.

  • those who report bugs have no way of knowing if their reports get to the devs, or if they’ll get lost beneath a pile of support requests. This is a demotivating factor when reporting bugs. I know this is an open source project run by volunteers, but common practice (e.g. dedicated bug reporting & tracking channel) is common because it works, both for the devs and the consumers of their work.

A dedicated bug reporting & tracking forum, or better yet the use of GitHub issues for that purpose (as many other projects do) would:

  • improve visibility of bug reports for devs, allowing them to fix issues quicker & maintain or improve the quality of the product.

  • improve the experience for those who take the time to report bugs (proper channel, greater visibility, feedback on when issues are picked up, fixed & referenced in release docs). This will encourage users to report bugs.

Change logs with summary issue & fix references for the daily releases would also be handy, or signposting to them if they already exist.

None of the above should be onerous, in fact it may reduce work by adding structure and focus / better targetting.

[Posted here because this isn’t a product feature request, nor is it a help request or any other type of request consistent with any of the other current forum channels]

Regards,
M

2

GitHub issues is kind of a pain because it puts more burden on team members (who already donate more of their time than the average community member).

I would be fine with a bug section on the community site if the moderators don’t mind. There is no correct solution here, just trade offs.

Also, keep in mind there are no devs for LibreNMS. Just community members talking to each other.

1 Like
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Could you elaborate on why gh issues are more of a pain than the forum?

My points are independent of the status of the ppl working on the project (devs, or ppl undertaking any dev work) , as they relate to easier identification, prioritisation, visibility, organisation of resource, etc.

Lots of community projects follow the same practices as jobbing devs, because they work. Some of them came from open source projects.

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I didn’t say they were more of a pain. I just said they tend to concentrate the work to a few people. Which burns out those people, which causes the project to lose people willing to help with managing bugs/support requests.

Based on historical information more people have helped answer and respond to help requests after we moved them to the community site than before.

Anyway, you seem to be bike-shedding on this topic… not that useful for me to keep responding.