The Cardinal Sins of SU Bug Reporting

gistfile1.md

7 Mortal Sins

1. Multiple issues in the same ticket
2. Insufficient vetting of ticket

• Is duplicable is not a yes/no but a prerequisite(?)
• What exactly do you have to do to reproduce the issue?

3. Incorrect/non-descriptive names

• "no creation date"
• "Shopping cart (transaction.php) is not charging the correct amount in FF 5.0 and IE 8.0+"
  • No need to mention the browsers unless it is a unique issue with a particular browser, which you should check
• "AR RSS"
• "Fatal error | misda.net" – Should be like "Fatal error on upload in file management"

4. Resubmitting the same issue to increase visibility

• A comment is good
• Do search for previous reports of the issue

5. Reopening a ticket for a different issue
6. Superfluous and annoying verbiage

• "Here's the issue"
• "HELP!!!" – Double sin: ALL CAPS AND MULTIPLE PUNCTUATION!!!
• "Thanks!"
• Quoting a customer's email – We just want the gist

7. Invoking emotions

• "I feel terrible"
• "HELP!!!"
• We are programmers not therapists, and programmers are known for the cold, uncaring attitudes. :P

7 Virtues

1. Quote errors and code with backticks:

   ```
   Really, really long error messages...
   ```

2. List affected site(s) in the ticket description

Points of Understanding

• All issues are important
• Not all issues are urgent