/tg/Station 13

This is a proposal to overhaul bug reports/issue handling on the tgstation project*.

Currently, if a player ahelps with a bug report, we ask that they click Report Issue and open a new issue against the project on github. With the current system, I feel that the pros outweigh the cons:

PROS:
- It's github, I guess?

CONS:
- Asking people to register just to report an issue is detrimental
- The issue format isn't necessarily coherent
- There is no filtering or checking for previously reported issues

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My solution* for this is several components working hand in hand:

1. A set of new in-game bug reporting procs that can automatically collect information like server revision, testmerged PRs, round IDs, individual logs etc
1.1 A new ahelp response link: (BUG) that marks the ahelp as a bug report and automatically sends the user into the "submit a report" flow
1.2 A whitelisted set of or specifically admin rank'd players get notified of this bug report
1.3 A management interface similar to the current ahelp ticket system (or integrated with it)
2. A database backend for new bug reports that we(meaning coders/maintainers) can monitor and moderate
2.1 Of course with a fancy/easy to use interface courtesy of yours truly
3. A tool to automatically submit selected bug reports as official issues on the tgstation repo

PROS:
- Players don't have to register elsewhere to report a bug, so we get more of them
- The issue list on the repo becomes more useful (removal of duplicate issues, known issues etc) thanks to in-game and web-based triage
- Immediate feedback for requests for more information, if any is needed

CONS:
- Additional work for coders/admins to moderate the bug queue
- Requires additional configuration between gameservers <-> github
- Screenshots aren't as easy to secure

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* This might be a solution looking for a problem

I 100% support this and will code it

people don't report bugs a lot of the time because they aren't aware of the button, and then if they are, it's a crapshoot if they bother to register for github

this is a much better idea

please dear sweet jesus yes

Thought this was going to be an idea for a PvE style game mode inspired by EDF. Kinda sad now

Wyzack wrote:Thought this was going to be an idea for a PvE style game mode inspired by EDF. Kinda sad now

i thought it was gonna be starship troopers: the gamemode

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation- ... ls/pull/39

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/28288

Cyberboss wrote:https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation- ... ls/pull/39

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/28288

my fucking nigga

My understanding is that /vg/station has a system somewhat like this and a very large percentage of the bugs they get from it are unactionable for various reasons.

MisterPerson wrote:My understanding is that /vg/station has a system somewhat like this and a very large percentage of the bugs they get from it are unactionable for various reasons.

"is this a bug?"

"I think this is broken"

"I can't use NTSL"

etc

or 50000 bug reports about the same thing in one day while a fix PR is already up

If it's moderated, it would work, but who the fuck gonna do that job? thankless task imo.

There's no way I can see it working

oranges wrote:If it's moderated, it would work, but who the fuck gonna do that job? thankless task imo.

There's no way I can see it working

Look at how well moderated the issue tracker is now.

I'm still of the opinion that the positives outweigh the negatives

the problem is people who think that since they don't know code they shouldn't bother with bug reports, which drives me insane because the only thing a bug report needs to do is alert people who CAN code that "this is doing X and it should probably do Y"

Basically take every ahelp you get about a stupid bug, or thing someone assumes is a bug when they're ust not using it right, then put it on a webpage somewhere someone has to take time out of their day to acknowledge it.

Multiply that by the number of people who ahelp about the same thing in between the thing getting reported the first time, and the thing getting fixed.

I think you're overestimating the amount of people who file bug reports in any program ever

most people are more likely to ahelp "is this a bug" than to do a bug report even with a new system like this

you could also have it be caught by admins online who can choose to pass it on to the issue tracker (probably? don't know how much extra work that would be) or address it in game

I agree with oranges about the moderation. The current system still has issues about report quality and duplicates, what do you think will happen if you improve ease of access and therefore quantity of reports? I think that report quality is more important than quantity and that registering to github is a good rudimentary filter.