Survey posted 2005-11-15 16:18 by Jon.

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In case you're interested, this is a follow up to the last survey.

This would be TEH AWESOME. I would totally love this.

does anyone have a fake memory delete program fro a ti84 plus? if you do could you email it to me or tell me where to find it?
huntersmail@gmail.com

I really wanted to answer "Yes, but I think people might abuse it", but had to vote instead for "No, I think people might abuse it". err.....

The idea is good, but I think there would be SO much potential for abuse. It's better for individuals to report bugs to authors. That way, you'd be less likely to have people randomly pressing the "Send Bug Report" button every time a program didn't work, whether it was the author's fault or not. The volume of email that would be generated off this feature would be enormous!

Except for those of us who have zero users.... It would be a nice way to know how many people actually use the programs they download.

> The volume of email that would be generated off this feature would be enormous!

Spambots already troll this site and read the author profile pages, so I wouldn't be worried. I like getting mail from users. I don't get any.

I get the ocational email but I think that it would suck to get a bunch of emails that said "you suck I can't figure out how to use your program"
maybe their could be a way to turn bug reporting on or off.

Well, there could be different modes, like full mode, digest, weekly, etc.

If everyone who donloweded a program submited that the same bug then it would casue eneormas amount of e-mails that are unnesseray.

then do something like bugzilla, so you can see if the issue has already been submitted/fixed.

This should be nice, and for me you can build this feature as long as it is possible to enable/disable it, this will simplify bug reporting (as long as spam doesn't get in the way)...
but the fact is that if the user found a bug and want to report it, it can simply send a e-mail, if the author worries about his bugs, he'll be happy to receive the e-mail and answer...
i myself receive some e-mails, some related with bugs other with program instalation/usage...

I don't think, people would abuse it, or if they do, the author will be able to control it.

To report a bug, a ticalc account should be required. So if someone abuses the feature, the staff will still be able to identify the evildoers to caution/ban/kill/whatever them.
Of course, people can craete new accounts then, but I don't think anybody would do that just for flaming.

Authors should also be able to manage the bug reporting feature of their programs, e.g. with a blacklist for abusers or even the ability to turn it off completely.

Considering these aspects, we should be able to use the benefits of this feature without suffering too much from its possible disadvantages.

That's a good idea - if just anyone could submit a bug report, I agree that there would be a ton of n00b idiots submitting stuff like "your program doesn't work" or "how do i send this to my calc?", but if it's restricted to members, then it could be really useful (I know it's hard to motivate myself to send an e-mail to an author if I find a bug in their program, and it might be this way for other people too). The only problem is that the system could get really complex really quickly if there are "open" bugs/fixed bugs/etc. like bugzilla, but if the actual discussion of the bugs was handled by e-mail between the user/programmer then that would be fine.

Well anything that encourages people contacting the author is fine by me. I have only got email (or a response of any kind) from 1 person and it was really helpful, too. I am all for the idea, but the ability to turn it on or off is a necessity because of the potential to abuse it.

just a reminder: good ideas are only used if you email ticalc@whatever.com. i myself can never remember it.

Agreed. Sounds like a good idea. I would voted for it completely, only if they take proper methods of contacting authors with emails or etc...

I agree that probably only registered users should be able to send bug reports, just as only registered users can send reviews (if I remember correctly?). I think that the bug report form should be designed to help the user file a useful bug report, with spaces for things like "How many times have you been able to reproduce the bug?" and "Please enter the steps you took that led up to the bug occurring", similar to how you enter a bug in Buzilla. It wouldn't have to be an actual implementation of Bugzilla; the contents of the form could simply be emailed to the author.

Since some authors may not want this, the author should be able to turn on or off the bug report feature for each of their uploaded files. They could be asked when they upload their files if they want bug reports to be allowed, or it could default to no bug reports allowed, and the author could change it later if they want.

What would be cool would be a special page for the author to log in to that would list all the bug reports. It would allow the author to modfiy or delete invalid or duplicate reports (or even add their own, so it could function as a to-do list) and would be a simple way to keep track of them. That would proabably be quite a bit more work for the ticalc.org staff to implement, though. It would be optional anyway, since some organized people might have prefer their own ways of keeping track of bugs.

The thing is, if we had a feature like that, the author would still get the bug report, but it doesn't FIX the bug. The author may take a very long time fixing the bug, so it doesn't matter how fast the report gets to him.

This is true of any bug reporting tool, but my guess is that if a bug reporting feature were turned off by default, and the author had to turn it on manually to have bug reports, then if you want to submit a bug for a file and bug reports are enabled for that file, there's a good chance that the author would care about your contribution (since the author would have opted for receiving bug reports).

I think if this were implemented, it would have to be done on a per-file basis (which of the people listed as "authors" should actually receive bug reports?) -- which would also make it possible to turn off on a per-file basis if any particular file generated too much spam.

Obviously to use this feature you'd need to have a ticalc.org account, including a valid email address by which the author could contact you. If any particular user generates too much spam, it's easy enough to remove them... and if you're really trying to cause trouble, using a web form, even if you can get a robot to do it, is not a very efficient way to do so.

Making it easier to file bug reports certainly isn't a bad thing. The form could be useful, too, by providing hints on How to Write a Good Bug Report, a skill many users lack.

I agree completely with what you are saying, and I think that the author should have the ability to toggle on and off the ability to send bug reports. This would help in cases of discontinued or abandoned projects, and those that cause truck loads of bug reports on the same bug.