Stop automatically closing bug reports

[KongKing123]

There is nothing more annoying than seeing this message on one of your bug reports, without any notification:

Your bug has probably been fixed already, or was linked to a temporary failure of BGA service.

Bug report notupdated message.PNG (26.87 KiB) Viewed 1148 times

There is approximately a 99% chance that no, the bug was not fixed, but rather ignored for an entire year. It's baffling that I have to bump my own reports to prevent this from happening (which is of course made very hard because the "reports you voted for" page doesn't work properly).

Please vote for this report I found: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=41632 (ironically, this report would have been closed automatically if I hadn't replied to it)

[cigma]

There is approximately a 99% chance that no, the bug was not fixed

How do you come to this conclusion? With thousands of people playing millions of games during one year without reporting that bug again, I think it is reasonable to assume that "Your bug has probably been fixed already, or was linked to a temporary failure of BGA service."

[N_Faker]

Most games don't have active developers anymore.

[cigma]

Again: If the bugs are not fixed (as you say), why are they no longer reported?

[aesche]

Because when ppl realise that nobody at BGA cares they give up and walk away.

[cigma]

"I don't report bugs, because they won't be fixed" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[aesche]

This thread is about bugs being reported and still not getting fixed, in case you forgot. Just look at all the general bga bugs and suggestions, with hundreds of votes, that remain untouched for years. Or premium games that had noone caring about 1 sec over years, just give the money and live with the troubles.

[cigma]

This thread is about bugs being reported and still not getting fixed, in case you forgot.

To be exactly, this thread is about bugs reported ONLY ONCE in a year and then being closed (which might include they have been fixed or not).

Just look at all the general bga bugs and suggestions, with hundreds of votes, that remain untouched for years. Or premium games that had noone caring about 1 sec over years, just give the money and live with the troubles.

I am totally with you on this point, which I said here https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =3&t=24555 too!

And this is also the point why I don't agree with KongKing123. We all know that there aren't enough developers to fix everything. So you need some kind of "tirage": taking care of the most important bugs (what unfortunately is not done in any case) and giving up the less important ones.

[KongKing123]

There is approximately a 99% chance that no, the bug was not fixed

How do you come to this conclusion? With thousands of people playing millions of games during one year without reporting that bug again, I think it is reasonable to assume that "Your bug has probably been fixed already, or was linked to a temporary failure of BGA service."

Software code doesn't tend to magically fix itself, and a developer is unlikely to just start randomly fixing things without looking at bug reports. So no, that is not a reasonable assumption at all.

The bugs get reported, sometimes upvoted (which doesn't reset the timer), ignored for a year and then automatically closed.

Again: If the bugs are not fixed (as you say), why are they no longer reported?

Because people don't bother, have given up (as aesche said) or don't even know how to do it. The bug reporting feature is hidden away and cumbersome.

To be exactly, this thread is about bugs reported ONLY ONCE in a year and then being closed (which might include they have been fixed or not).

It is not. It is about bugs that get automatically closed after no developer action whatsoever has been taken on them, even though they might have been upvoted and people spent time reporting them.

And this is also the point why I don't agree with KongKing123. We all know that there aren't enough developers to fix everything. So you need some kind of "tirage": taking care of the most important bugs (what unfortunately is not done in any case) and giving up the less important ones.

We do not need "triage" that involves sweeping bugs that have provably not been fixed under the rug, pissing the people that reported them off and further disincentivising them to report bugs.

If these bugs are less important, they will not be upvoted and drop to the bottom of the list. Please explain the added value in automatically closing these reports, other than masking developer inaction.

[cigma]

Please explain the added value in automatically closing these reports, other than masking developer inaction.

Thank you for your answer, KongKing123.

I can see, that you are really angry about this. I agree with you: It would be desirable if every bug was fixed!

But the resources are limited. And as it says on the page for reporting bugs: "note: reports with the most votes are investigated first". So as a developer, if you have only 10 hours to spend: Should you use them on a bug with 100 votes or a bug with 5 votes? That is all I wanted to point out.

Sadly, also some of the reports with the most votes seem not to make any progress...

Software code doesn't tend to magically fix itself, and a developer is unlikely to just start randomly fixing things without looking at bug reports.

True: Changing software code can result in unexpected side effects, which will in 99% of the cases be negative

But in some cases a bug CAN be fixed, even if no developer is working on it.
For example, there are a lot of duplicates in the bug database. It may happen, the developer was fixing bug #111, but your bug #222 about the same problem was not answered. (Handling duplicates is definitely a problem on BGA!)
It can be, the problem was caused on the side of the user (e. g. cache, cookies), so BGA couldn‘t help it anyway. And one day, the "bug" seems magically fixed.

That is why I plead for continous reporting bugs, if the bugs continue.

And if you do not agree with me, let's just agree to differ