I don't recognize what it means for something to be "just an informational bug report". You either have a bugtracker or you don't. It's supposed to contain a list of known defects or it isn't.
> After all it's more burdensome for them than it is for me.
This is nuts. This can only be true if there are much, much bigger problems afoot. Most of this was figured out years ago and opened up to the public under Netscape. Folks abandoning or ignoring those lessons is precisely why maintainers are burdened, burning out, and complaining about it—they've fostered a culture that encourages outsiders (and the developer's own process/practices) to "burden" them.
> If upstream says they can't help me or fix the bug without further input from me, it would silly for me to become infuriated because my effort seems wasted.
You're strawmanning. Your job here is not to postulate the most convenient[1] circumstances that could be true and which would make it easy for the fury to seem "silly". It's to deal with the concrete, non-hypothetical circumstances where people have responded in genuinely obnoxious ways to bug reports. Imagining counterfactuals is easy.
> If I'm infuriated that the maintainer responds as if I want something from them, and I didn't bother to clarify that I don't, then ironically that means I do want something from them
Sure, but the expectation that people not be presumptuous and/or rude where it's unprovoked is an expectation that runs through everything. It should be regarded as axiomatic.
> It's supposed to contain a list of known defects or it isn't.
If it were just a list of defects, this discussion wouldn't have started.
By "informational" I mean reporting that a bug exists. "When I do X, Y happens and Z should happen instead. You might like to know. Best wishes.".
By the other kind, I mean asking for a solution. "When I do X, Y happens, please make Z happen instead. Await your prompt reply, Kthx".
Often there's no way to tell which one is intended. A tick box to differentiate between "I'm just reporting this, I don't need the change" versus "I would find a solution useful" or even "can someone specifically help me find a solution" seems like it would be helpful.
These are different kinds of bug report, and they all land in a typical GitHub-style or Bugzilla-style public issue tracker.
The second kind are not defect reports, and we haven't even mentioned feature requests, which aren't defects at all. They land in the issue tracker as well.
> You're strawmanning
Hmm, maybe I should rephrase to clarify where the emphasis was intended: "If I submit a bug report and the maintainer replies thinking I wanted something from them, it would be silly for me to become infuriated because my effort seems wasted". That addresses the scenario in the comment I replied to, so not a straw man.
> where people have responded in genuinely obnoxious
Obnoxious is not in the comment I replied to. You've projected that. The maintainer in that scenario may have replied politely. The only issue under discussion was the submitter's reaction to a maintainer thinking the submitter wanted something.
Are you sure you're not strawmanning and counterfactualising?
> This is nuts. This can only be true if there are much, much bigger problems afoot.
Well, it's true. Yes there are problems. That's why this discussion is taking place. Do you have solutions?
> Most of this was figured out years ago and opened up to the public under Netscape. Folks abandoning or ignoring those lessons [...]
And these lessons are? If you think it's nuts, it would be nice if you were to offer useful solutions.
I was around when Netscape opened up. No solutions leap out to me arising from that, then or now. Netscape's own lessons appear to be about corporate management and control of projects.
The vast majority of open source projects, especially those where people report feeling burdened, are run by unpaid people in their spare time (or when they should be sleeping), as one-person projects. Netscape's corporate strategy doesn't seem relevant here. (And ESR's "Cathedral and the Bazaar", which was related to Netscape's changes, doesn't provide a solution either.)
> If it were just a list of defects, this discussion wouldn't have started.
This makes for the second time this week I've run into someone stating the obvious and thinking that it makes for a point in their favor and not one against their end of the argument.
> Obnoxious is not in the comment I replied to. You've projected that. The maintainer in that scenario may have been replied politely. The only issue under discussion was the submitter's reaction to a maintainer thinking the submitter wanted something. Are you sure you're not strawmanning and counterfactualising?
Yes, I'm sure, and I don't really have time or the wherewithal to explain in depth to someone who's dead set against not understanding. "The maintainer in that scenario may have been replied politely" is simply not a move that's available to you. There is no "may" when we're discussing _actual_, _concrete_ events and not hypotheticals. (Even in the case of hypotheticals, it's a problem—counterfactuals are not an argument unless the argument it opposes employs the universal quantifier; failure to understand this is a failure to understand the difference between what it means to say "∃x" and what it means to say "∀x".) There is only what did or did not occur (or what is or is not posed). To repeat: it is not your job to imagine the most convenient circumstances that would weaken the side that you're arguing against.
> And these lessons are? If you think it's nuts, it would be nice if you were to offer useful solutions.
I've offered them. Go back and read my comments in this thread and you'll see them. Read your own comments—it'll suffice to read just what you've written in this one—and the solution follows naturally from the problem you describe. If it's so hard to discriminate between "informational bug reports" and support requests, then stop mixing them. If you're going to run a bugtracker, then run a bugtracker[1].
You're right. So I don't know why you focused on it at length, as if you can talk your way into it being the thing that I was referring to. Once again, a move that's not available to you.
> There is no "may" when we're discussing _actual_, _concrete_ events and not hypotheticals
We're not.
I replied to the comment I replied to, nothing else, and it describes a hypothetical, so the reply does too.
> counterfactuals are not an argument unless the argument it opposes employs the universal quantifier; failure to understand this is a failure to understand the difference between what it means to say "∃x" and what it means to say "∀x".
:eye-roll: My job is with theorem-proving software. You can show off knowledge of quantifiers but it's unlikely to impress.
The specific comment I replied to (not the main discussion topic as you assumed) has the informal discourse equivalent of an implicit universal quantifier.
> Netscape's corporate stratgy [...] I don't know why you focused on it [...] as if you can talk your way into it being the thing that I was referring to.
You hand-waved vaguely about "Netscape" and "lessons", giving no direction as to what you meant while insinuating we should all know them. The lack of clue sounded like a communication choice, thus intentional shorthand for "you know what I mean".
That leads a good-faith correspondent naturally to a speculative reply, to which you could politely respond with "no that's not what I meant, sorry for the ambiguity". I think it's unlikely you'll see that as rational, but it's how informal language works, otherwise it's questions all the way down.
You each lob a bunch of antagonistic comments in my direction and somehow expect that you shouldn't have to deal with someone who's bothered in turn and who opts to drag you through your own tedium. You might find that surprising, but you shouldn't.
> unlikely to impress
It was a straightforward rundown of why it was unsound to push the argument you were pushing and your failure to acknowledge that, even after having already pointed it out once before. I truly do not give a goddamn about impressing you. (Although it'd be nice if you reflected on how annoying it has been to carry out this conversation in this way.) This will be my last reply.
> The specific comment I replied to (not the main discussion topic as you assumed)
As _I_ assumed? Who's setting the stage for discourse? It's not you.
> you could politely respond with
Oh, gee. My apologies for inconveniencing you while you're barraging me with a thousand hypothetical tangents that could be true instead of demonstrating the "common sense and ordinary charity"[1] of a "good faith correspondent".
> it's how informal language works
And during the barrage, where your justification for it focuses on the particular way that I worded a restatement of the premise n comments deep, but where I failed to sufficiently qualify it by exhaustively restating all the constraints to affirm that they are, in fact, relevant and in play, you think you're in a position to hand out lessons about "how informal language works". Great.
> You hand-waved vaguely about "Netscape" and "lessons"
Nope. That comes from the comment where I referenced Netscape's triage process for the very first time. It's called an allusion at that point—I didn't make a claim about it, get pushback on it from you, and then handwave it away. And if at that point you want more detail about the thing alluded to, then, yeah, you can ask for it, but if you go on to be as discourteous as to derail with another annoying strawman—after having already been called on it once—then you shouldn't expect me to respond as if I'm dealing with anything other than a bad faith correspondent wasting my energy with the level of tedium you're dragging me into. So, given that, and given how excruciating this has been, I'm not going to deliver those details, nor wrap it in a bow.
Here's some stuff that you can Google if you actually do give a shit about any of this and weren't just looking for some avenue to throw away time as part of a vaguely social activity:
"Life Cycle of a Bug", UNCONFIRMED, INVALID, INCOMPLETE
> After all it's more burdensome for them than it is for me.
This is nuts. This can only be true if there are much, much bigger problems afoot. Most of this was figured out years ago and opened up to the public under Netscape. Folks abandoning or ignoring those lessons is precisely why maintainers are burdened, burning out, and complaining about it—they've fostered a culture that encourages outsiders (and the developer's own process/practices) to "burden" them.
> If upstream says they can't help me or fix the bug without further input from me, it would silly for me to become infuriated because my effort seems wasted.
You're strawmanning. Your job here is not to postulate the most convenient[1] circumstances that could be true and which would make it easy for the fury to seem "silly". It's to deal with the concrete, non-hypothetical circumstances where people have responded in genuinely obnoxious ways to bug reports. Imagining counterfactuals is easy.
> If I'm infuriated that the maintainer responds as if I want something from them, and I didn't bother to clarify that I don't, then ironically that means I do want something from them
Sure, but the expectation that people not be presumptuous and/or rude where it's unprovoked is an expectation that runs through everything. It should be regarded as axiomatic.
1. https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Least_convenient_possible_wo...