Created attachment 165866 [details] Example Solution The current ambiguity in the definitions of severity levels in the bug reporting system is leading to inefficiencies in bug triage and prioritization: - Varying Interpretations: What is considered "grave" by one user may only be "normal" to another, leading to inconsistent bug severity assessments. - Impact on Developers: While developers might understand the intended severity levels, the lack of clarity for reporters essentially negates this understanding, complicating the triage process. - Default Severity Overuse: Reporters unsure about the correct severity often default to the system's preset option, barring explicit cases like crashes or wishlist items. This likely skews the distribution of reported bug severities and may hide urgent issues among less critical ones. To address this, I propose taking inspiration from the Debian bug reporting system, which offers clear, detailed definitions for each severity level. Specifically, I suggest: Adding Definitions Directly to the Reporting Form: Incorporate severity level definitions into the bug reporting interface to guide reporters in their selection. - Benefits: -- Reduces Ambiguity: Clear definitions help ensure that severity levels are understood and applied consistently by all users. -- Improves Triage Efficiency: Developers can more quickly and accurately prioritize bugs based on well-defined severity levels. -- Enhances System Effectiveness: A more accurate depiction of bug severities directly contributes to the overall effectiveness of the bug reporting and resolution process. I have chosen to categorize this issue as "Major" rather than a "Wishlist" item because the current lack of clarity compromises the functionality and efficiency of the bug reporting system. Enclosed are examples from Debian's approach that could serve as a model for our enhancement. Thanks for your consideration ☺️
See here for an explanation: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging#Set_the_Severity_field Is this good enough or do you wish a more detailed description?
(In reply to duha.bugs from comment #1) > See here for an explanation: > https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/ > Bug_triaging#Set_the_Severity_field > > Is this good enough or do you wish a more detailed description? I think that is great! For a new KDE user such as myself that would be very difficult to find (I stopped looking after I was unable to find it reading the documentation on this sites homepage). I would still suggest either adding a link next to the priority dropdown or within the dropdown text itself. Thanks!
Agree, confirming. Either make it more visible for regular users reporting bugs or let users only select: Normal Minor Wishlist Task (not sure if this is even used) and let the devs handle raising the Importance (severity).
I don't believe we have the ability to restrict people to only some severities unfortunately.
I like the idea of presenting the description of the severities, but I'm not sure we have the ability to do that here on Bugzilla unfortunately. I'm pretty sure it would require custom code which sysadmins have a policy against; that being said, the only option remaining would be changes upstream to bugzilla itself. I'm moving this to the "Code Customizations" component on the off-chance it would be considered.