Duplicate Issues, Are They Really A Problem?
We often see people getting berrated for posting dupes, sometimes deservedly. Let me say from the get go that I do not, in any way, support the needless creation of noise in issue queues by people who are so lazy as to have made *NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER* to find a solution. These people are a problem, and they waste everyone's time. But shouting at them does nothing. They won't change. Blanking them is the best approach. Close the issue with a link to Google or something.
But I'd like to challenge the concept that *all* duplicate issues are a problem. And I'd also like to point out that just because someone posted a duplicate does *not* mean automatically they didn't search.
Last night I was searching on issues surrounding the possibility of the Drupal.org packager presenting zip files as well as the usual tar.gz (not very digestable for the Windows guys). If it's a contrib module, then I search the issue queue for that module, no problem - but this isn't. So which queue to look in? There's a dizzying myriad of queues available, all beginning with Drupal. Is it infrastructure? Is it the website? Could be CVS? Hmmm...
I'll search with Google instead:
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=drupal+zip+packager
Well, that first result (at time of writing) is the post I ultimatedly created. As you can see, there's sod all else there about the issue I'm hunting on. Even the comments on Dries' post don't help much. Now, at this point we try searching within Drupal.org too:
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Adrupal.org+download+zip...
Again, nada of any use or interest. Now, I admit at this point that a sensible next step would be to use the *general* search on Drupal.org itself, but as most people reading this know, until pretty recently the Drupal.org search was utterly useless, so old habits die hard. Indeed, site searches in general are nowhere near as useful (normally) as a Google search of that same site, so it's hardly surprising people often ignore them.
At this point I've already spent five minutes or so looking for an existing post, there have been no obvious leads. Which tells me even if there is a relavent issue it's probably about as alive as the Dodo population, so I figure I'll create one anyway. And so I did. I marked it as a "support request", because I suspected it might have been discussed before and didn't want to throw in an unecessary "feature request".
And sure enough, about ten minutes later this post was marked duplicate and I was pointed to the correct issue by someone who already knew where it was. Great. I spent five minutes trying to avoid posting a dupe, I failed, but I tried. Someone else spent thirty seconds marking the dupe and telling me where to go. That's community at work.
*Together* we spent five minutes and thirty seconds getting where we needed to go (and I do say *we* because I was searching on an issue of no commercial interest to me where I was merely trying to contribute to the community). Contrast that with me alone spending fifteen or twenty minutes of painstaking searching to find the correct issue (or perhaps not - I don't even know it exists yet) the five minutes and thirty seconds is a collective win!
So is that a "bad" duplicate issue? I would say no, obviously. ;-)
And how do you tell the difference? Well, if you suspect you have a timewaster and you care enough to attempt to correct them (I don't - I normally ignore them) you can do a quick search for posts by them on Drupal.org. A person's posting history will quickly tell you if they are a true waste of space or just a temporarily lost soul looking for the right place to post.
In summation, the duplicate issue is not always a waste of time. Sometimes it is quite the opposite.
Interesting.
I'm just going to say that - I am *relieved* to hear this is a challenge for the Drupal project, as well. This could have easily been a conversation for Joomla!, too. (There's also the "bumping the post" theme that gets folks who have waited long periods of time completely bamboozled as to how they can advance what seems to be a fair question after having demonstrated the patience of Job waiting an extraordinarily long period of time without any response.)
I think we will continue to have frustrations with our caveman communication tools, especially combined with an natural resentments inherent in years of volunteerism where only a small percentage of those reaping benefit participate - and why is it the others complain the most? Toss in a solid mix of ISTJ's and male testosterone and a bad day in the office - and things can be fun.
There is absolutely no good answer to these questions. So, people should know, walking in, that they are going to feel offended. That includes anyone minding the issue queues as well as anyone reporting an issue.
I'm very interested in Boris's comment, too, about how there is "no core team." What is it about us, as people, that our mind's eye can't help but build those distinctions that then become a we versus them response to stuff? And yet, the truth is - there really *is* a core team - they just don't have no stinkin' badges. Royalty exists, none the less. Just the way it works when you are working with people.
Communities are amazing and frustrating things. Outside looking in - Drupal's got an amazing community - you guys are ones who I learn a great deal from, and have for years.
Great post
Bumping, ahhh... yes, I've been soundly told off for that too. Who'd have thought the word "bump" can be so offensive? I didn't. I do now. In fact, I'll make sure I get mortally offended next time someone writes "bump" in one of my issue queues, now I know I should be... ;-)
Joking aside, communities are frustrating places like you say. Nothing's perfect, but the Drupal gang are pretty cool.
I kinda figured this post would attract some debate, but I'm glad and I think it's healthy to get folk talking and reviewing the way we interact. Nothing wrong with a good old baring of the soul every now and again. "Hey, this pisses me off, can we talk about this?" Much better than storming off in a sulk, and lets everyone say their piece.
And I would like to REPEAT, I was *not* personally offended by Greg's reply (since it's now become a specific point in the comments). He was merely the latest person to leave a comment in an issue that made me think "hmmm, is that really constructive?" And to be fair to Greg, his intention is clearly 100% constructive and he's a very busy guy, just like me. As he points out, just as I don't have time to spend half an hour searching to see if I'm posting a dupe, he doesn't have time to tailor responses to all the dupes he deals with!
Fair enough. =)
Un-dup, explain
While I often get upset at people arguing with me in the issue queue, a well-considered explanation can allow you to un-duplicate the issue. In fact, well-thought explanations can allow you to do a lot in the queues because most of the frustrations are by people who aren't getting it. In the worst case, someone has to explain the proper procedures to you. But you're not a newb here, and I know you've got a good feel for what's proper and what's not in the queues.
Stop using Google to search drupal.org
I think the main problem is search has gotten way better from within Drupal.org with Solr but everyone is so used to searching with google.com.
So let's take a look at doing the search from withing Drupal.org:
http://drupal.org/search/apachesolr_search/download%20zip - #2 result (#1 if filtered by 'Issue' type)
http://drupal.org/search/issues?text=download+zip&projects=&status[]=Open
#1 result
Greg's message about it being a duplicate was a much better effort than most people make. I usually just say "Duplicate of [issue link]." and call it done.
Yup
I totally agree. I need to re-train myself to use Drupal search - I did notice as I researched this that had it occurred to me to use the main Drupal search I almost certainly would've found it.
Interestingly though, in my opinion "Duplicate of [issue link]" is infinitely preferably. It does what it needs to and doesn't have the undertone of condecension. And I do understand that was not Greg's intention at all, but still - there you have it.
"Duplicate of [issue]"
"Duplicate of [issue]" doesn't let someone know what else they can do afterward. The template I use has ideas on followup steps to take like re-opening the issue if it's not a dupe.
Perhaps you prefer "duplicate of..." because you know the followup actions but you are not the typical person who submits a duplicate issue. The typical person who submits a duplicate is someone who has no idea what the issue queue protocol is and they need advice on next steps.
D.o has to cater to a lot of different people at different learning levels, but we should cater primarily to the most likely audience for a particular message. Your idea to improve my message actually wouldn't improve the tone of the message to remove the "condescension" that you inferred from it (I say inferred specifically because none was implied). Please, help improve it.
I have
Updated http://drupal.org/node/467548
Please review. Main change is to make it clear these are *templates* and people can respond to the nature of them by commenting on the page where they are kept. Also re-worded the dupes one a little.
Good point
That's a very good point Greg. I'll probably start using your template from here one out.
Duplicates
I agree, I spend a lot more time searching to see if the issue has already been reported an issue than actually writing the issue. On the other side of the coin...there are times when I've submitted an issue that I think is unique from an already known issue and someone throws a label of duplicate without offering any discussion.
In a few instances, someone came back to me a month or two later requesting more details on my "duplicate" issue because the other issue has been solved yet others are still seeing problems related to what I reported. That's alright though because as you mentioned this is how community works and you have to allow for some give and take to make it happen.
By the way, I came to this post because I thought it was discussion on a MySQL "Duplicate entry" issue that pops up now and that which can cause content from not being posted properly. I personally haven't seen this issue as often in Drupal 6 as previous builds. Since I came here on that assumption, I'll assume others will too. If that's the case I wrote a post giving suggestion to site administrators how they might resolve this issue at:
http://cmsreport.com/content/2007/11/solving-duplicate-entry-problem-dru...
dupes don't mean someone wasn't paying attention
Hi Greg,
I've run into the sorts of response you had a few times - and as a result I don't contribute much to drupal - I just find the process too annoying and time-consuming (I think I have one patch in D7).
I think the response you got was a canned one - that assumes the user just didn't try and is probably a newbie without a clue.
It's the assumption that grates.
Especially when you've tried hard to make an altruistic contribution.
It's kinda similar when bug reports are re-labelled support requests (even when you make it clear you've worked around it for yourself and are posting for others).
And the core Drupal team wonder why they don't get more help from all the Drupal contractors out there.
All respect to you for plugging away at it :-)
Core team is a myth
There is no core team. That's the myth. There are people who do more work, and there are version maintainers ... but other than that, it's whoever pitches in.
So, try not to think about "them" or "the core team" -- because it's simply a group of people that have decided to put more time in. The exact people grow and shrink depending on time and interest level, and usually per core version.
Quite
Thanks Sean. In fairness, the response I got was perfectly civil ... just a bit annoying. I've seen far worse. ;-)
Improve my canned message
It was a "canned" message because I've participated in hundreds of duplicate issues. You can see the template (and improve it, if you feel it's "annoying") - http://drupal.org/node/467548
I used to just change the status to duplicate and link to the proper issue but changed to this template because I felt the template was more friendly. If that's not the case...I've really screwed up so please help me (and others) respond in more friendly ways. You can see from this report that I've participated in hundreds of duplicate issues so I do try to be as friendly and encouraging as possible in those issues. My company is also working on a tool that will help stop duplicates before they're even submitted - hopefully that will be released as a module in the next month and then on drupal.org sometime shortly after that.
One thing to consider is that issues in the webmasters and infrastructure queue are sent out via mail and rss to hundreds or thousands of people. So, for better and worse, posting an issue there will get the attention of many many people. If it takes 10 seconds of their attention and there are 500 of them that's over an hour of time spent on the issue.
I'm not trying to say you were lazy by not searching completely nor that you shouldn't have posted at all, just give some more insight into why I posted what I did and why searching before posting (or asking in irc to see if someone knows it already) is an important thing.
Thanks for the comment
Hi Greg,
Appreciate your position, and I did *not* intend this to become a discussion about a specific response (yours or anybody elses), but more about the general attitude to dupes as generally evil things. (I did make a point of stressing your response was polite, if a little annoying to the experienced user - for the record, it would actually be better if it said "This is a canned response, as I have way to many issues to deal with to tailor a response to each one" or something... but anyway.)
Your point about emails and RSS is fair, but creating a dupe of an issue that has not been posted in for 6 months and was initially created *years* ago probably sends out a well-timed reminder via email and RSS. So again, I don't see it as a problem. As I say, IMHO sometimes dupes are *good*.
I truly appreciate you taking the time to comment in here, please don't think you personally offended me or anything like that, because you didn't - I swear. I know you're a good guy. =)
Post new comment