A "Bugs" tag in forum

csf

I realize you have the Issues tracker, but not everyone has a GitHub account (gasp, the nerve of those infidels), and there should really be another way to notate an actual "bug" somewhere besides trying to fit a problem into one of the other community tags here, which not only makes it harder to find reported code problems, but its promotes topic dispersion and muddies the organization overall.

For example, I discovered with my newly installed local forum that when changing an avatar, the resulting image doesn't show up, rather you just get a "?" in a blue box. That's obviously a bug. But when I do a community search for "avatar", I see a whole bunch of threads that seem to talk about avatars but all tagged differently (UX, feature, etc etc). If there was just a "Bug" tag, it would be easier to keep code problems separate from "human" problems. ? A community "bugs" tag would also then help guide the kind of issues that get written in the repo, making them more focused.

Just a suggestion.

luceos

We're actually in the middle of processing a new tag structure (forgot to mention that in the community update). In this new structure we'll be introducing some helper secondary tags which will be useful for the staff to tag specific topics. One of these tags is "reported" to indicate an issue has been reported on Github. You might use that in relation to the gambit to do a better search in the future.

csf I've never heard of "gambits" before

This is actually something we need to work on in general. You might want to specify this specific comment as a feature request ? in another thread.

antonjw was asked to raise it on Github

No one is forced to report. I can imagine the person to ask you to do so was probably just taking into consideration the fact of being credited for reporting. None of the staff is lazy, so we would have gladly reported it for you.

csf If there was just a "Bug" tag, it would be easier to keep code problems separate from "human" problems.

Now to the main fact there is no tag called "bug":

This forum has a wide diversity of users, from end users - who prefer a click and install - to those that are able to set up a load balanced Flarum install while the first line of PHP wasn't even written (kidding, but you get the point). What would classify to any of those as a bug might not be in fact a bug of Flarum. These forums, especially the tag Support, are the voice of the community to report their issues. It's then up to the staff team to filter out the actual Flarum issues from all other problems involved.

HavocK

Search does support something called gambits and this seems to work :

tag:sandbox avatar

antonjw

Yeah, I started a bug thread last week and was asked (nicely and perfectly reasonably) to raise it on Github. But, as the OP says, I don't spend time on Github, personally. I have an account somewhere but it hasn't been used.

I do want to be helpful to the project, and I know it's lazy of me to not have gotten around to it... however, it is at the same time also a consequence of first having discussed it here, and then needing to log it somewhere else.

csf

I've never heard of "gambits" before, which I'm happy to learn about, but by the looks of it, it assumes a person knows what tag to look in first, which of course you wouldn't based on the subjective use of tags for code problems, as designed.

It seems to me that a clearly marked "Bugs" tag would be an easy first filter for, you know, actual bugs. Then use gambit searching in the bugs tag, because everyone would then know to look in the bugs tag to see if there are any similar reported problems. For example:

tag:bugs avatar

csf

So it's clear, I signed up in here yesterday, so still getting my bearings. Don't mean to overstep any lines of operation.

luceos One of these tags is "reported" to indicate an issue has been reported on Github.

That will be helpful.

luceos What would classify to any of those as a bug might not be in fact a bug of Flarum.

I understand. Some people don't know a bug from a hole in the ground.

For what it's worth, I'm no dev. But I have participated in many open source forums before. It's an easy matter to have an advanced area away from the not so advanced. And it's an easy matter to change the tag on a thread if it's in the wrong place (or in other systems, move the thread to a different topic). Plus the not-so-advanced people might learn from the advanced people by seeing the kinds of things reported as actual bugs. Everyone still wins.

luceos It's then up to the staff team to filter out the actual Flarum issues from all other problems involved.

Admirable, but an extra load to burden, I would think. In your efforts to appeal to the "wide diversity of users" you might be making it harder for some of the subsets of users who could probably help you better without having to jump into another platform.

Btw, I was looking at some of the issues in GitHub, and it seems you have the same dispersion problem there as here. In other words, not everything there is an actual bug. I see a lot of feature requests and things marked as "needs discussion", and whatnot. That stuff should be here, not there. If only bug issues were in GitHub (because staff found them here and wrote them there), then this whole discussion would be moot because anyone would know exactly where to look for bugs without having to wade through feature requests and other false issues.

But, all good. I'll adapt. Carry on. ?

luceos

I also think we need to make searching for duplicates easier and more accessable. I'll put it on our todo.

Berlyn

I think Support is a good option as because it'll help clarify if it's something the user can fix themselves due to a faulty installation or option change, as opposed to it being an actual software bug that needs to be logged to go through the process of fixing it. There is nothing worse than closing a lot of duplicate issues in Github when it could have been clarified prior.

jordanjay29

csf Admirable, but an extra load to burden, I would think. In your efforts to appeal to the "wide diversity of users" you might be making it harder for some of the subsets of users who could probably help you better without having to jump into another platform.

Please feel free to use the Flag feature to bring any topics to our attention. You can use the Other option and type in a message to us about what you think the post/discussion is.

luceos

csf Don't mean to overstep any lines of operation.

I'm very happy with any community member voicing his or her opinions. There's something to learn in all feedback.

csf Admirable, but an extra load to burden, I would think.

These forums should be as accessable as possible. That's one of the reasons staff ensures all questions are answered, even if it means replying with "hey you posted a duplicate". In fact I can ensure that both @jordanjay29 and I have no unread discussions (except for some muted threads like the word association one). It's not that much of a burden, especially if you love the project and the community.

Related to the split responsibilities between Github and the forums. I do see your point in this and I'm sure somewhere in the future the issue processes will be streamlined. We even had a discussion already about an extension that would allow us to easily refer to Github issues.

csf

jordanjay29

Okay.