So it seems that users have the wonderful* ability to post tickets to my add-ons via the Curse Client. 100% of these tickets have been horrible, lacking any useful information or even basic typing skills. I'm wondering if putting ticket functionality in the updater was such a great idea. It seems that submitting a ticket via the web interface sets the intelligence level bar sufficiently high (at least in the majority of cases).
Looking at the Client interface, I see that it doesn't ask for as much information as the web interface. This is probably one source of my frustration.
Is everybody else here happy with the quality of tickets submitted through the Client? Should we have a way to disable this functionality for our add-ons? Just thinking out loud.
Personally, I think 100% of the client-submitted tickets are, at best, invalid. However, Kaelten has shown me what he has been working on for the Mac version and it will hopefully not have the same issues. Perhaps the Windows version will take a page from that book.
I've complained about this before, and even posted a ticket... after getting zero response from anyone associated with Curse, I've just filed it away in the same section as the broken Curse.com search function. It may be fixed someday, but I'm not holding out any hope of it happening before we hit level 100.
In addition to the general uselessness of the tickets, another issue is that half of them aren't even reporting problems with my addon; they're reporting "problems" with the Curse Client itself, or occasionally problems with other addons. It's like people just right-click at random and hit "Report Bug" without having any idea that where they right-click is relevant. :|
when people post a ticket via the normal ticket system, they are generally interested enough to respond to questions i may have about who and when the problem occurred. with this effectively anonymous automated ticket system via the client, i don't think anybody bothers with following up on their tickets.
there should be some deeper integration with the client and the ticket system -- either simply sending the person an email when there's some activity to the ticket they reported, or even a full on ticket interface in the client itself (so they know not to report something that's already been reported). or maybe the ticket system just directs you to the proper curseforge/wowace system...
My original thought was that the Client's bug report function should:
1. ... respect the ticket template set up for my addon. The current "type at least 10 characters to describe the problem" is worthless unless the user is already an experienced bug reporter, as most users have no clue what kind of information I need to identify, let alone fix, a problem. The Client could either (a) auto-detect separate fields in the template and display them as such, or by (b) simply providing a large multi-line input box with the template in it, like the website does.
2. ... notify users when a ticket they submitted is closed, changed, or commented on. In most cases, the user hasn't provided enough information, and I respond asking for more. In other cases, the problem was simply user error, and I respond explaining what the user did wrong, and what they should do instead. However, currently users who post tickets through the Curse Client most likely don't know that their tickets are viewable anywhere, let alone that the addon's author might post a response for them.
However, simply redirecting the "Report Bug" function in the Client to the appropriate page in the user's web browser would be an even better solution, and a lot less work for the Client developers. Good idea, lilsparky.
I would definitely prefer a redirect to the web interface. No reason to duplicate efforts here, it doesn't solve anything and introduces many problems.
I second this. The client-reported tickets are useless most of the time.
The web interface still have some issues though, like the inability to have people automatically subscribed to the tickets they created (this could be an opt-out checkbox at ticket creation or even in preferences).
Looking at the Client interface, I see that it doesn't ask for as much information as the web interface. This is probably one source of my frustration.
Is everybody else here happy with the quality of tickets submitted through the Client? Should we have a way to disable this functionality for our add-ons? Just thinking out loud.
* Horrible
In addition to the general uselessness of the tickets, another issue is that half of them aren't even reporting problems with my addon; they're reporting "problems" with the Curse Client itself, or occasionally problems with other addons. It's like people just right-click at random and hit "Report Bug" without having any idea that where they right-click is relevant. :|
And that's all I have to say about it.
Makes me cry. So much energy lost in reassigning tickets.
But why duplicate and not invalid ?
there should be some deeper integration with the client and the ticket system -- either simply sending the person an email when there's some activity to the ticket they reported, or even a full on ticket interface in the client itself (so they know not to report something that's already been reported). or maybe the ticket system just directs you to the proper curseforge/wowace system...
1. ... respect the ticket template set up for my addon. The current "type at least 10 characters to describe the problem" is worthless unless the user is already an experienced bug reporter, as most users have no clue what kind of information I need to identify, let alone fix, a problem. The Client could either (a) auto-detect separate fields in the template and display them as such, or by (b) simply providing a large multi-line input box with the template in it, like the website does.
2. ... notify users when a ticket they submitted is closed, changed, or commented on. In most cases, the user hasn't provided enough information, and I respond asking for more. In other cases, the problem was simply user error, and I respond explaining what the user did wrong, and what they should do instead. However, currently users who post tickets through the Curse Client most likely don't know that their tickets are viewable anywhere, let alone that the addon's author might post a response for them.
However, simply redirecting the "Report Bug" function in the Client to the appropriate page in the user's web browser would be an even better solution, and a lot less work for the Client developers. Good idea, lilsparky.
The web interface still have some issues though, like the inability to have people automatically subscribed to the tickets they created (this could be an opt-out checkbox at ticket creation or even in preferences).