Request for discussion: lowering the backlog of old Trac tickets.

[Rainer Müller]

On 2018-04-30 18:16, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> But, more generally: because if you make your tracking system into a
> graveyard of dead requests that will never be acted on, you end up
> with it being very difficult for someone to look through it and find
> things that actively need fixing.
> 
> The function of a ticket system is to allow people to keep track of
> open issues and to direct their work so that those issues get
> resolved. This requires that most tickets contain actionable
> information, so that someone looking through the tickets can easily
> find tasks that they can quickly perform.

I highly doubt anyone is going to look through open tickets unless they
are looking for tickets filed against a specific port...

A ticket documenting a bug can still be valid after years, even if
nobody commented on the ticket anymore. Unless the bug was either fixed
with a patch or with an update by upstream, the ticket should stay open
to document the bug. Why would you want to remove the documentation that
the bug exists?

Other users with the same problem can find the ticket and see that this
is a known problem. The ticket may include suggestion on how to solve
the problem and work on it. Often, the comments also document
workarounds around the issue, which are helpful for those encountering
the same problem. I do not see how closing a bug report without
resolving the issue helps users.

If you closed such a bug report just because it was old, users
encountering the problem would search for a solution and find nothing,
or they could find a ticket that was closed. I would consider this case
would be even more frustrating. An open ticket is at least the
acknowledgement that the bug actually exists.

> If a ticket system gets overly clogged up with things that cannot be
> acted on and likely never will be acted on, the things that do need
> attention get lost in the fog. You end up with people waiting years
> on things that could be acted on because no one can see that they're
> in need of attention. Then people get depressed that the problem
> keeping them from getting their work done has been ignored, and
> wander off, never to return.

> New people looking at the tickets system also get immensely depressed
> when they see that it is not uncommon for people to report an issue
> and have it sit for many years without action. It is, of course,
> vastly easier to clear out actionable requests when you can find
> them. (And thus, again, it is best not to have a lot of things in the
> system that cannot be acted on, because otherwise you need a lot of
> effort to find the actionable items amidst the unactionable ones,
> with most effort going not to fixing problems but to finding the
> problems that can be fixed.)

The solution to fewer open bug reports is to either show that the bug no
longer exists and close the ticket as "worksforme", or fix the bug and
close the ticket as "resolved".

Note: these comments only apply to bug reports. I fully support closing
open port submissions that have not been worked on for years.

Rainer