Bug list spreadsheet guidelines
As you probably already noticed, recently we've set a buglist spreadsheet up, open to anyone. We mostly used trac in the past, but since it was quite difficult to use for anyone, we decided to switch to a simple spreadsheet. Since these kind of documents may easily become a mess, I decided to write down a few guidelines to help beta testers (and developers). Please take some time and read it all, it's very, very useful. Even more than you think.
Columns & rows
Each row represents a bug.
The spreadsheet is divided in 4 columns; the first column, owner, is used by developers to assign bugs to someone. This means in this column you'll find who is currently dealing with the bug. Unless there's a valid reason to assign a bug to a developer, just leave this blank when filing a report. Developers themselves will take care of it.
In the second column, fixed, you'll find the state of the bug report. If a bug was fixed, you'll find 'Yes' there. If the reported bug was already fixed in the past, you'll find 'duplicate', while if the developer thinks the report may be invalid or couldn't reproduce the bug, you'll find either 'worksforme' or 'invalid'. Sometimes developers may use 'won't fix' and most likely explain reasons in comments (we'll get to that later).
The two other columns, description and comments, are self descriptive.
How to file a good bug report
First of all, remember this is a bug list, so there should not be feature proposals, complaints, ideas or opinions in it. There already are plenty of forum boards for those.
Make sure you report only one bug per row.
Before adding a new report, make sure you thoroughly test the issue, under all circumstances! The main cause of invalid reports is poor testing.
While filing a bug report, you have to clearly describe what's wrong. Be specific; if developers can quickly trace a bug down, they'll take less time to resolve the issue. Make sure the bug is reproducible, or else developers will ignore the report.
Search before you file a report! You'll save developers time, which they'll invest in fixing another bug instead of organizing duplicates.
And I guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading, and for helping developers with these darn bugs. If you have any question, just post here or drop me a PM on IRC.
