Firefox Input currently offers a set of feedback options that have a very low-bar to submission, anonymity and constraints that help frame feedback into actionable items. One of the drawbacks of such an approach is the loss of detailed information (ala a bug report) and a point of contact to further investigate the issue. Well, we’ve seen this in the wild: we have seen our Nightly and Aurora users, who comprise of early adopters, submit bug reports disguised as feedback submission even though they should be filing a bug.
To fix this issue, the Input team is building a method to supplement the sad feedback form with an option for Firefox Nightly and Aurora users to submit a bug report into Mozilla’s bug tracking system. We believe the lasting benefits of such a tool will garner greater contributor participation in the project and Bugzilla as well as improve efforts to find Firefox bugs before they get into the Beta and Release channels.
How will it Work?
Firefox users on Nightly and Aurora builds who go to submit a piece of sad feedback on input.mozilla.com will be able to click a button on the form that will direct them to a simplified bug reporting form. On completion of that form, the service will file a bug onto bugzilla.mozilla.org after a simple e-mail validation step.
How will this change things in Bugzilla?
- Bugzilla user accounts will be created, if not found in Bugzilla, after their e-mail address is verified.
- Bugs filed into a new Product called “Un-Triaged Bugs” with Component, “Firefox”.
Some of you may have seen Mozilla QA contributor Tyler Downer’s blog post on the current state of the triage system and we’ve been chatting to see how efforts could be better. We hope this will lead to a cleaner triage system in Bugzilla and will closely view the component when this app does release to ensure that happens.
How can you Help?
We’ll need eyes on these bugs in order to triage into their proper products and components. If you’d like to learn more on how you can help, please visit #qa or #input on irc.mozilla.org and chat with the folks there in regards to bug triage (#qa) or delivering this app (#input).
When can you expect it out?
We are looking to release this by the end of the 2011 calendar year. If you feel you can help with this effort in terms of code contribution to help release this earlier, feel free to head over to #input on irc.mozilla.org and mention so!
What do you mean by “their e-mail address is verified”? Verified as being a valid email address of the form spam@sex.com, or verified as in “we sent a confirmation email to this address to make sure that the user really exists”? In the first case, it would open the door to spammers.
Good question: It’s the latter, LpSolit. The app will send a confirmation e-mail to verify the e-mail address is real.
Will this result in tons of dupes or will the form have some “this is already reported” de-dup effort built in?
Interested in helping bug triage and with building the app.
// Paul Booker
Good luck. My predictions
Nightly users will be able to file bugs unassisted.
Aurora users will probably also have few problems, and so you may not see a great take up of the scheme.
Once it gets into beta it will be useful, but may get noisy,
maybe you will then need to add initial automated triaging that lowers priority of reports that include inappropriate language ;-)
Hey Robert,
This will include a de-dupe piece to the app that reduces the amount of bug filed. Also, this is only intended for nightly and aurora builds, so we’re hoping the number of dupes is naturally low due to the increase in technical aptitude of those users.
Great…
this input.mozilla.com is valuable. Many prefer to use Mozilla since of its really rock..