Difficulty in filing bugs

[soph-sol]

Hi all,

I'm a big fan of the Freetube project! But I have run into a barrier with how bug-reporting is handled and wanted to bring it up as an issue.

Today I decided to file a bug I've been experiencing with Freetube, but when I went through the bug-reporting form here on github, I found the number and type of required questions to be a real barrier. I would consider myself someone who's an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to technical computer stuff; I know more than the average person but I'm by no means highly educated in the field. And some of the required questions that the form asks were challenging for me to be able to understand and to answer competently.

On the one hand, I understand why a foss project would have fairly rigorous required information in order to file a bug, because it's all important info to be able to take action on fixing it. But on the other hand, when some of the required info is stuff that is opaque to people who aren't already deep in the weeds, that discourages users from actually reporting when they have problems, because of the likelihood that they'll give up partway through the bug-reporting form - and maybe even just quietly stop using the project entirely without ever telling you, if the bug is serious enough. In fact, it turns out I have a friend who did exactly that: she tried to report a bug she was experiencing with Freetube, was unable to answer some of the technical questions, gave up on reporting the bug, and cannot use Freetube as a result of the effect of the bug.

The question both of us struggled with the most was the one about how we downloaded Freetube - the options provided in the drop-down list are completely opaque and mean nothing, and the form provided no guidance about how to answer the question. My answer is that I downloaded it in the way that the official freetube website tells you to, but I didn't know which option in the menu corresponds to that method!

I would like to suggest that the absolute requirement to answer some of these questions be relaxed, and for details be added to the form to indicate what each question means and provide guidance on how to answer it, to make it as easy as possible for non-technical users to provide bug reports. For example, the question about operating system provides information about how to find out what operating system version you are using, which is great for users who don't know where to get that info -- expanding that approach to the rest of the bug form would help a lot.

Thanks!

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

@soph-sol

The question both of us struggled with the most was the one about how we downloaded Freetube - the options provided in the drop-down list are completely opaque and mean nothing, and the form provided no guidance about how to answer the question. My answer is that I downloaded it in the way that the official freetube website tells you to, but I didn't know which option in the menu corresponds to that method!

Is this the only one you struggle with?

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

would like to suggest that the absolute requirement to answer some of these questions be relaxed

@soph-sol

Unless we see a good reason to do this, we wont. These questions are very standard in closed/open source projects. They help us to receive the information we need so we can solve it. Being relaxed means that we have to do a bunch of followups to receive the info we need, which in turn wastes valuable dev time.

Please keep in mind that FreeTube is a FLOSS project driven entirely by volunteers. All development work is done on a voluntary basis during contributors’ spare time.

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

and for details be added to the form to indicate what each question means and provide guidance on how to answer it, to make it as easy as possible for non-technical users to provide bug reports.

@soph-sol

I think adding details is a good idea. Please explain what questions you and your friend find difficult to answer

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

I have a friend who did exactly that: she tried to report a bug she was experiencing with Freetube, was unable to answer some of the technical questions, gave up on reporting the bug, and cannot use Freetube as a result of the effect of the bug.

@soph-sol

Im happy to reevaluate her issue if you can point me to it

[ArthurKun21]

just a suggestion

maybe on the about section there's a button to show a pop up or maybe in the menu item there's a about menu item and clicking it will show a popup

and in the popup shows the build system and details of the freetube build. And then there will be a copy button for easier copying of settings.

that way would make it much user friendly by making the technical details easier to share.

The idea was taken from vscode.

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

This issue has been automatically closed because there has been no response to our request for more information from the original author. With only the information that is currently in the issue, we don't have enough information to take action. Please reach out if you have or find the answers we need so that we can investigate further