As the new Bug Hunter (finally), I would like to request some changes to happen to the Bug section to make it both organized and easier to manage.
1. Childboards
Instead of tagging everything with Confirmed, Unconfirmed and whatnot, I will have a "Confirmed Bugs" board and a "Not a Bug" board.
This way, when a bug is confirmed or debunked, I can simply move it and we'll have an semi-automatically updated bug list instead of what we currently have.
2. Merging
Since we only need a bug to be mentioned once, so that we won't swamp the board with the 50 pages it has now, I will merge together any topics that mention the same bug.
If the topic already exists for your bug, post there.
3. Tagging
When the changes take effect, there will be a simple tagging system so we can see what generally what kind of bug it is.
[PvP] A bug that only happens in PvP. These are generally desynchronizations, and a few other obscure things.
[AI] A bug that only happens with the AI. Some glitches only occur if the AI uses a card. Blatant problems with the AI use could also fall under this category.
[Gen] General Bugs in the game. These always take effect. Usually they involve specific cards or combos, or lagtime while running the game.
[UI] A glitch that occurs with either menus, spelling, or anything similar. Spelling mistakes will probably have to be compiled in one topic.
[Arena] Since the Arena is a fairly large section, it will have it's own tag. Arena specific bugs will be tagged with this.
This section has been a total mess for a long time now so it's nice to get a new system in place. As always, my general rule is to make the system
as simple as possible. This means a system that achieves it's goal with the least amount of effort (clicking and posting) from both the users and the Bug Hunter.
Answers to your ideas:
1. I'd like to limit the number of Child Boards and I don't see why we would need child boards for this when we can use simple
sticky topics that do the same thing, only better.
Better way would be imo to have two stickies, similar to what we have now (after I just cleaned up the section a bit), which list all the data users need with
links to topics. "Not a Bug" sticky topic is already there:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11523.0.html . We also have the "Confirmed Bugs" list:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,13728.0.html . Maybe you could restart these topics so that they have the same layout.
We also need a new "READ THIS BEFORE REPORTING A BUG!" that tells users to read those two stickies before they post.
2. Ok, but merging has the problem of removing the old topic so that user in question might not realized that his or her topic has been merged and therefore cannot find it. Sometimes it might be better to just lock the topic and include a link to the topic where this bug is discussed, or better yet, include a link to the solution. If a bug has already been been labeled as "bug" or "not a bug", further discussion is usually not even needed since all we do is identify the bugs, not fix them.
3. This seems to go hand in hand with the child board system. Problem is that tags or no tags, it's much more difficult to find what you are looking for in a bunch of topics than it is to find it in one sticky topic that has all these tags as categories.
Here's a summary:- 3 sticky topics: "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING A BUG!", "Confirmed Bugs", "Not a Bug".
- first one explains the tagging system and has links to the latter two
- "Confirmed Bugs" and "Not a Bug" have different categories (like the ones you posted as tags)
- sticky topics have links to discussion topics
- It might even be a good idea to have a 4th topic: "Fixed Bugs" where bugs from "Confirmed Bugs" get moved when they are fixed.
