NEEDINFO about NEEDINFO

[Chris Shoemaker]

Developers,

        I'd like to suggest that we agree upon a common use of the
NEEDINFO flag in bugzilla.  ISTM (correct me if I'm wrong, please)
that Christian's (not to single out Christian, but he's the main
bug-processor) current common practice is to respond to new bug
reports with requests for more information, and also to usually
relabel the bug as NEEDINFO at that time.  So, practically, the
NEEDINFO flag means "the reporter was asked a question, but (maybe)
hasn't responded yet".

        I think we should absolutely continue Christian's practice of
asking probing questions immediately, while the report is fresh, but
I've come to the opinion that they should only be labeled NEEDINFO if
they meet certain criteria.

        One problem I have with the current use is that it doesn't
seem to work well with bugzilla's default reports.  Bugzilla treats
NEEDINFO as "on ice", effectively resolved, so the bug won't likely
get any attention from anyone not already on the cc list for the bug.
The intention is that, if the needed information isn't supplied yet,
the bug may as well be INCOMPLETE or INVALID.

        Let me summarize the problems I see:

1) Already useful bug reports marked NEEDINFO are harder to notice.

2) Useful bug reports marked NEEDINFO for a long time are being
closed, evidentally not because they're invalid bug reports but
because no more info was supplied.

3) Useless bugs are marked NEEDINFO, but then more info is supplied
and they become useful, but nobody notices, so they aren't relabeled.
(Sometimes users don't know to relabel themselves.)

        As a solution, I propose the following meaning and practice
for NEEDINFO:

1) Labeling a bug NEEDINFO should mean "this bug is INVALID or
INCOMPLETE without more info." IOW, if you knew immediately that you
wouldn't get any more info from the reporter, yet you wouldn't be
willing to close the bug as INCOMPLETE or INVALID then don't label it
NEEDINFO.

This implies that NEEDINFO means "we really NEED more info in order
for this bug report to be any use at all", not simply "we WANT more
info because it sure would help."

  1a) Stack traces with debugging symbols are always useful, even if
the reporter doesn't know what they were doing when it occurred.
These shouldn't be marked NEEDINFO.

  1b) Bugs with reproduction instructions are useful unless you know
that the instructions don't work.  These shouldn't be marked NEEDINFO.

2) Whoever labels a bug NEEDINFO is agreeing to notice when the
requested info has been provided and to ensure the bug is relabeled
appropriately.  Practically, that means joining the cc list.

3) We should go through the current NEEDINFO bugs and if they're
really useless as-is, we can either leave them as NEEDINFO or close
them.  If they're not useless, we can relabel them as UNCONFIRMED or
NEW or something else.

  3a) The implication is that bugs currently marked NEEDINFO need to
be re-evaluated for usefulness and that the bar for closing them is
not necessarily any lower than for UNCONFIRMED bugs.  But, in the
future, NEEDINFO would mean that the bug has already been deemed
useless without more info.


What do you all think?

-chris