Wikipedia talk:Bugzilla

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Please do not report bugs or request features here.

Unless you are having problems accessing SourceForge

--> Do you know how ridiculous this is? What do you mean "Please do not report bugs" as the first sentence of a page entitled "Bug reports"?

The purpose of this page is to direct users to Sourceforge, where you can report bugs. The first paragraph of Wikipedia:Bug reports contains a link to Sourceforge's bug reports page, where you can report a bug. Hence, the sentence is there because you report bugs at Sourceforge, not here. LuckyWizard

I am posting this here to express my annoyance. I have no idea what SourceForge is and so I don't want to access it. What is the purpose of this page? What is the "correct" procedure if you think something is not working properly? I posted a question about the incomplete "list of links" at the Village pump, and there someone said we might/should report this as a bug. Well, where, and how? 1960s links stop at the letter C. --KF 23:57, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sourceforge is a website where people can upload open-source software for download by others. The software that powers Wikipedia is open-source, and is on Sourceforge. For each open-source project on Sourceforge, Sourceforge provides an online message board for people to post bug reports, and Wikipedia's bug reports forum on Sourceforge is linked in the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Bug reports. Hope this helps. LuckyWizard 05:08, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)
All you need to do is follow this link and type the bug in the box there. You don't even have to log in or do anything else. Just type it and press save. Try it. It's not as scary as it sounds. :) Angela. 01:31, Jan 5, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks very much. I still don't understand why this can't be done here (and then transferred to wherever by a knowledgeable developer), but then it would probably be far too tiresome anyway for little old me to try and understand everything. Right now I'm trying to figure out why my biography of Otto Hermann Kahn has been put on VfD, but that's an entirely different story. --KF 02:47, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Actually, Angela, it's not quite that simple: their site certainly encourages creation of an account, for which the interface is lousy and which requires a confirmation process that they say can take up to 24 hours. That's a long time for someone to get an account that lets them report a bug. -- Jmabel 22:15, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)
But setting up a user account offers basically no additional features anyway (no, really, the interface to the tracker is that bad even after you log in) - so you can happily submit a bug as an anon. The only thing you don't get is automatic e-mails when someone comments on it - but you don't get that on a wiki-page either, and before someone mentions the watchlist, that would be useless unless there was a separate page for every single bug and feature request. I'm no great fan of sourceforge - in fact, the first feature request I filed with my account was against there own bug tracker! - but I can definitely see the need to deal with bugs in one place, and with appropriate "meta-information". So, if sourceforge is where it's at, sourcforge is where it'll be at! - IMSoP 19:09, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
SourceForge might like you to log in, but there is absolutely no requirement to do so. The most useful thing is to add your user name in the comment box so you can be contacted for further details by a developer if required. Not logging in does make it harder for you to know if there was any follow up to the report, but the aim is to get the bugs fixed, not to make it easy for non-developers to follow the progress of them. Angela. 17:55, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Watchlist

I think I've found a bug, or maybe it's intentional behaviour? The My Watchlist page seems to display only the most recent change on each page. In other words, if somebody (or even two different people) make two changes to a page, only the most recent shows up. This is slightly irritating, especially when the diff shows changes to text I didn't even know existed on that page...

Another thing I'd like to say is that the SourceForge pages are very Opera-6.05-unfriendly. I cannot stay logged in, and thus I cannot report this bug there. If you think this should be moved to over there, then please do so for me. Thank you. -- Timwi 14:20 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This is intentional behaviour - see Wikipedia:watchlist (I believe) Martin 12:48, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

While reading an article about the Yardbirds, there was link for the British group the Searchers. I clicked on the link but the only information was about the John Wayne film nothing about the group.

this page directs readers to "Bug Reports" (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192 ), but no such URL exists. Kingturtle 20:28, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

You added a surplus bracket to the URL, breaking it. I fixed it for you. Should now work. Martin
editorial comment moved to Talk:Mindanao

Trying to search (go) "Rhodope" logs me out. Andres 08:43, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm told the correct place to report this is at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192 . Martin 09:02, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia on CD would be a dream come true... and potentially a commercial success

Please forgive me for taking your valuable time on an issue you have no doubt debated at length, but would you pleeeeeease consider putting all the wikipedia content onto CD for offline viewing, perhaps even simulating a tomeraider interface?

As a reference source, it far outclasses encarta/britannica/etc... and I would very much like to use it on the road on my laptop.

I would not hesitate to pay a solid $50+ for wikipedia on CD, and say goodbye to my encarta

Regards and keep up the good work

You can always download Wikipedia in TomeRaider format, and burn it to CD. (No images/sounds though.)
See Wikipedia:TomeRaider_database. --Tristanb

From village pump 7 Sept 2003

[edit] Communication with developers

move to wikipedia talk:bug reports? wikipedia talk:developers?

Hi, from the moved list above:

As everbody knows, wikipedia bug reports is a reference to the SourceForge, in other words: "if you don't get a SourceForge account and put your feature requests there, nobody will see them". It's not the first time. I really have a problem with that attitude -- Wikipedia is a community, and I really would like to see a place inside Wikipedia where the community and the developers can communicate. I'd like to know if I'm the only one who is frustrated by this attitude, or if there are others ... -- till we *) 23:33, Aug 25, 2003 (UTC)

...I think, this serves as some kind of "filter". If someone has a really burning issue, he will poste it to SourceForge, otherwise it is not important enough. So the developer get only the "real important" issues. I also would like a more Wikipedia-centric approach (same for MAilinglists), but it is the current way it works. Don't get frustrated by this. If you have a really good Idea how to improve this situation, please start with it. But filters are not always just bad ;-) Fantasy 14:04, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
PS:I also have a big list of improvements for Wikipedia listed on my page, and for months already I think "one day I will post them on SourceForge"... one day or another... ;-)
I think we should submit bug reports and feature requests in the manner that the developers wish us to submit them, out of sheer gratitude for all the hard work they put in, developing Wikipedia. Currently that's SourceForge, and not the village pump. Martin 11:57, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
FWIW, you don't need to create a SourceForge account, you can submit bug reports without logging in. You're less likely to receive feedback that way, though; you'll automatically get e-mail on updates if you submit the report logged in.
The reason we use the bug tracker there at all is from experience; it's very very hard to keep track of bugs on a wiki page. Old reports get completely lost, forgotten, shoved away, or deleted on an ever-growing wiki bug page, while in the bug tracker they stay there, pointing blaming fingers at us developers forever until someone finally fixes them. --Brion 18:30, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Maybe this page could be modified to reflect that somehow? As a non-developer, I'm loathe to put words into your collective mouths... Martin 18:37, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)


[edit] Bug reporting

Would it be possible to request a page somewhere in the Wikipedia: namespace where bugs can be reported? The instructions at the top of this page lead to one page, which leads to another, which leads to another, and the instructions for reporting are about as clear as mud. Would it be too much to ask for either a page here where suspected bugs can be reported, or clearer instructions on how to do it? I don't have access to IRC by the way so that's not an option either. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:50, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The problem with this is that problem reports really belong in the Meta, not in the English Wikipedia. Few if any of the problems are specific to English Wikipedia. Having said that, it's a reasonable request, because many Wikipedians don't have Meta signons.
MediaWiki software problems belong on Sourceforge. There are two reasons that this isn't an adequate problem management strategy in the long term. Firstly, many genuine problems aren't with the MediaWiki software at all, but with things like skins, database corruption, SQUID configuration or the like. Secondly, Sourceforge is a bit daunting for first time users.
But anywhere on the Wikipedia site, be it in the Meta or the English Wikipedia, is a poor solution for two reasons. Firstly, the very time it's most important to have the problem management site available is the time that the WIkipedia site is having troubles and may not be usable. Secondly, even if the site is usable, the added stress of logging the problems is exactly what we don't want when the site is under stress already.
As an interim solution, I'd strongly support an English Wikipedia project namespace page. We would need to have a team dedicated to doing first level problem determination of problems raised on this page, and raising the problems on the Meta or on Sourceforge as appropriate, for it to work. To do this we'd also need to design the system so that a minimum of cleaning up and reporting back was necessary. It will only be possible to attract these people if the system is good enough that it saves them more time than it takes, a reasonable ask surely. For reporting back, normally only a link would be required. People without Meta signons and without Sourceforge experience can easily read pages there if they are provided with proper hyperlinks.
Long term, we need to think of something a bit more strategic. Andrewa 00:42, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The only place that developers are guaranteed to find bug reports is at sourceforge. The bug tracker has a box where you can type in the problem. Add your username or email in the box as well so they can contact you for further details if necessary. You don't need to get an account or log in to do this. Just type in the box! That's all. A lot of people are scared of it, but it really is that easy. If you absolutely don't want to use Sourceforge, there is a page of bugs at m:bugs (the full page title is m:MediaWiki feature request and bug report discussion). There is a separate page for bugs that you think might be related specifically to the new release of the software at m:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports. However, these two Meta pages total 345 MB, so the pages are very difficult to edit, and quite unlikely to be read. Bugs reported only on the village pump are increasingly likely to be ignored as the page is archived every few days and such reports are just removed. Bugs reported in the Wikipedia namespace will lead to pages that are too large for many users to edit, as shown by pages such as m:bugs. If you think it is possible to use a wiki page for this, try looking at those pages on meta - it clearly isn't working. I can't see why it would work any better on this site than it does on meta. Angela. 00:47, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for the sourceforge link for reporting bugs; is this link actually listed anywhere in the 'pedia? I think it needs to be made more obviously available. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:02, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it's at Wikipedia:Bug reports, which used to be linked from the sidebar. Maybe it should be put back again? Angela. 01:11, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Please do not report bugs or request features here.

[edit] Vote allocation

Where one bug is dependent on another, should I transfer my votes to the "next" bug up the line? Or are the dependencies taken into account by the coders when sorting out their priorities? (BTW, the bugs I'm talking about are 60 and 80) -- Chuq 02:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think they really take votes that seriously, so it's probably best not to worry about it to much. Voting for a bug is just an easy way to track the progress on it because you can then set it to send you update emails. Angela. 03:45, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A bug report. I know this is the wrong place.

Here's a nasty bug: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=special+quartic&fulltext=Search <-- look at the first search result match, it isn't a clickable link.

I'm reporting it here because I don't have a bug reporting account and don't want to create one just to report this one issue.

[edit] Another bug report

The following picture on commons

commons:Image:Olof Fåhræus (1796–1884, ur Svenska Familj-Journalen).png

can't be used, as seen:

Image:Olof Fåhræus (1796–1884, ur Svenska Familj-Journalen).png

Den fjättrade ankan 20:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Status

I got an error trying to access wikipedia today and followed a link from the error page to this page where it said "The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "Wikipedia Status". This is not a database error, but likely a bug in the software. Please report this to an administrator, making note of the URL." Memenen 15:58, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] windows.getSelection

I suggest that if nothing is filled out in the input area of search/go, a getSelection javascript call should be used. see http://www.quirksmode.org/js/selected.html#

[edit] Submit bugs without logging in?

Angela said about a year and a half ago that it was possible to submit bugs without logging in. Well, when I go there it points me to go to the new place to submit bugs. And when I go there, it tells me "I need a legitimate login and password to continue."

Anyway, it seems that right clicking to edit a section isn't working, at least not on firefox. If someone would be so kind as to submit this bug for me I'd appreciate it.

anthony 28 June 2005 22:06 (UTC)

[edit] Separate pages

I propose to create a Wikipedia:bug report page. It will be user-friendly, and I will keep it on my watchlist. I am a professional software developer, I have managed a help desk, and I currently do coordination and technical support for a living. I can make this work, both for the benefit of users (who desperately need help when the software messes them up) and for developers (who need detailed, properly formatted reports for clarity).

Most users cannot submit a bug report. That is never going to change. Someone has to do it for them. So let's help them. Uncle Ed 14:26, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not friendly

This page is definetly not average user-friendly. Somebody should explain step by step how to submit bugs, and especially how to make feature requests - after all it is counterintuitive to make feature requests at something called 'bugzilla'. I wanted to make a feature request, but honestly I am not sure were to do it (bugzilla? wikitech-I mailing list? somewhere else?).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:23, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Resolved (later)

What does Resolved (later) mean? If I do something in the past but also in the future. --Gbleem 00:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

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