Re: Exception

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

Stefan --- could you make the error below clarify in bold red capital
letters the part that says "with as much information as possible about
what you were trying to do"?

There's no reason our users@ volunteers should be answering five times
a month "Read the error message" to random people who insist on
copy-pasting the error message and sending it to us with zero context.

---

One concrete variant of doing so:

- remove the list address
- remove the s.a.o link
- instead link to a http://tsvn.net landing page
- make the landing use big red text on yellow background:  http://subversion.tigris.org/issue-tracker.html

> ---------------------------
> Subversion Exception!
> ---------------------------
> Subversion encountered a serious problem.
> Please take the time to report this on the Subversion mailing list
> (users@subversion.apache.org)
> with as much information as possible about what
> you were trying to do.
> But please first search the mailing list archives for the error message
> to avoid reporting the same problem repeatedly.
> You can find the mailing list archives at
> http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html
> 
> Subversion reported the following
> (you can copy the content of this dialog
> to the clipboard using Ctrl-C):
> 
> In file
> 'D:\Development\SVN\Releases\TortoiseSVN-1.7.0\ext\subversion\subversion\libsvn_wc\wc_db.c'
> line 9465: assertion failed (work_presence == svn_wc__db_status_normal ||
> work_presence == svn_wc__db_status_not_present || work_presence ==
> svn_wc__db_status_base_deleted)
> ---------------------------
> OK
> ---------------------------

Re: Exception

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

Stefan Sperling wrote on Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:17:04 +0200:
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:05:20PM +0200, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> > Stefan --- could you make the error below clarify in bold red capital
> > letters the part that says "with as much information as possible about
> > what you were trying to do"?
> > 
> > There's no reason our users@ volunteers should be answering five times
> > a month "Read the error message" to random people who insist on
> > copy-pasting the error message and sending it to us with zero context.
> > 
> 
> I think the text is clear enough as it is.
> We can only do so much to guide users in reporting errors.
> 
> Keep in mind that, first of all, the user has a problem, not us.
> We can help with fixing the problem, but not without information
> the user must provide. Hence, I have no problem simply ignoring
> posts like this to users@. We receive a lot of good quality reports,
> so it's not like we had nothing else to focus on.

Agreed, assuming the reported assertion is one we already know about and
know how to reproduce.  If they happen to have run into a new assertion
or a reproduction for a known one, we do want to preserve them.

+1(concept) to the rest of your email.

Re: Exception

[Hyrum K Wright <hy...@wandisco.com>]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 5:17 AM, Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:05:20PM +0200, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
>> Stefan --- could you make the error below clarify in bold red capital
>> letters the part that says "with as much information as possible about
>> what you were trying to do"?
>>
>> There's no reason our users@ volunteers should be answering five times
>> a month "Read the error message" to random people who insist on
>> copy-pasting the error message and sending it to us with zero context.
>>
>
> I think the text is clear enough as it is.
> We can only do so much to guide users in reporting errors.
>
> Keep in mind that, first of all, the user has a problem, not us.
> We can help with fixing the problem, but not without information
> the user must provide. Hence, I have no problem simply ignoring
> posts like this to users@. We receive a lot of good quality reports,
> so it's not like we had nothing else to focus on.
>
> However, removing the email address from the error message might indeed
> be a good idea. This will filter out those who don't even bother reading
> the list guidelines at http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html.
> I think people who don't take time to read the guidelines also won't
> take the time to put together a proper report. So this might help
> with reducing the amount of useless noise reports we get.

There's a balance we need to strike between 1) getting the bug report
with as much information; and 2) not wasting people's time.  I don't
know where the balance is, but even information like "it's broken,
here's the error message" is quasi-valuable, and we shouldn't be going
out of our way to quash it.  If a failure mode is common enough *even
without a reproduction script* it's a signal that we need to look into
it.

I don't have any specific action for this instance, just a warning
that if we're going to introduce barriers to bug reporting, let's not
let the pendulum swing too far.

-Hyrum

> So I would suggest changing the text to this:
>
> Subversion encountered a serious problem.
> Please take the time to report this on the Subversion users mailing list
> with as much information as possible about what you were trying to do.
> But please first search the mailing list archives for the error message
> to avoid reporting the same problem repeatedly.
> You can find the users mailing list address and archives at
> http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html
>



-- 

uberSVN: Apache Subversion Made Easy
http://www.uberSVN.com/

Re: Exception

[Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:05:20PM +0200, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> Stefan --- could you make the error below clarify in bold red capital
> letters the part that says "with as much information as possible about
> what you were trying to do"?
> 
> There's no reason our users@ volunteers should be answering five times
> a month "Read the error message" to random people who insist on
> copy-pasting the error message and sending it to us with zero context.
> 

I think the text is clear enough as it is.
We can only do so much to guide users in reporting errors.

Keep in mind that, first of all, the user has a problem, not us.
We can help with fixing the problem, but not without information
the user must provide. Hence, I have no problem simply ignoring
posts like this to users@. We receive a lot of good quality reports,
so it's not like we had nothing else to focus on.

However, removing the email address from the error message might indeed
be a good idea. This will filter out those who don't even bother reading
the list guidelines at http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html.
I think people who don't take time to read the guidelines also won't
take the time to put together a proper report. So this might help
with reducing the amount of useless noise reports we get.

So I would suggest changing the text to this:

Subversion encountered a serious problem.
Please take the time to report this on the Subversion users mailing list
with as much information as possible about what you were trying to do.
But please first search the mailing list archives for the error message
to avoid reporting the same problem repeatedly.
You can find the users mailing list address and archives at
http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html