=head1 NAME
AdminFAQ - The Perl Bug Administrator FAQ
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Frequently Asked Questions related to Perl Bug Administration.
$Revision: 1.5 $
$Date: 2001/12/06 04:53:46 $
=head1 This FAQ
This FAQ is intended for use by the perlbug administrators. The
latest version can be found at
http://bugs.perl.org/admin/perlbug.cgi?req=adminfaq. If you have any
comments or patches to this document, please send them to the author
at the address below.
=head1 Who are the perl bugmongers?
The perl bugmongers are the Perl Bug Adminstrators. Some of these people are
active Perl Porters, others are just interested in learning or helping out.
=head1 What do the bugmongers do?
=over 2
=item *
Clean up old bugs
=item *
Organize/categorize and assign new bugs
=item *
Discuss better ways for dealing with perl bugs
=back
=head1 What is the lifecycle of a perl bug?
=over 2
=item 1
A bug report is submitted with the C<perlbug> program to one of the
following addresses:
perlbug@perl.org
perlbug@perl.com
macperlbug@perl.org
perl-win32-porters@perl.org
module-bug@perl.org
Mail to these addresses is forwarded to a program called C<perlbugtron>.
=item 2
A tracking number is automatically generated by C<perlbugtron>, and
the message is forwarded to perl5-porters@perl.org (or
macperl-porters@macperl.org for Mac bug reports, or
perl-win32-porters@activestate.com for Windows bug reports.)
=item 3
A discusion ensues on p5p regarding a solution for the bug. During
this time, a perlbug admin should categorize the bug, and possibly
assign it.
=item 4
One or more solutions are proposed, and one is approved by consensus
and/or the pumpking.
=item 5
A perlbug admin marks the bug as closed.
=back
=head1 How do I close a bug?
This process varies depending on the age of the bug. There are many
bugs in the bug database dating back several years. Many of these
bugs have already been solved in recent version of perl. These are
old bugs.
Everything else is a new bug.
(Another way to make this distinction is this: Anything that requires the
attention of p5p is a new bug.)
=head2 How does a non-administrator close a bug?
They can send an email to admins@bugs.perl.org with your suggestions,
or to C<< propose_close_<bugid>@bugs.perl.org >> where C<< <bugid> >>
is the the bug ID of the bug you want to close.
=head2 How do I close an I<old> bug?
=over 2
=item 1
Perform the necessary tests to prove it has been solved.
=item 2
Make an entry in the bug database noting the reason you are closing
it. This can be as simple as "fixed in perl 5.6.0 (tested on Jul 17
2000)".
The easiest way to make this entry is to send a message to
close_<bugid>@bugs.perl.org, where the content of the message is the
log entry.
=back
=head2 How do I close a I<new> bug?
If there has been a thread on p5p culminating in a patch (or some other
final looking statement), mark the bug as closed. You may wish to add
a comment along the lines of "resolved in <msgid>"
=head1 When do I delete a bug?
Bugs should rarely be deleted. There may be times when a bug should
not be in the database, for example, spam that may have gotten
through, or an exact duplicate of another bug report. (And in the
duplicate case, it's probably better to link the bug to the other
copy, to make sure the threads keep properly, if there has been
discussion under both ids.)
=head1 I don't want to bother p5p with a bug related email. How do I get it into the database?
Send (or CC) the email to track@bugs.perl.org. Your message must have a
subject line that contains C<< [ID <bugid>] >>, where C<< <bugid> >>
is the bug ID number.
=head1 What versions of perl should I check for bugs to have been fixed in?
Generally, you should check 5.00503, 5.6.1, perl-current, and
perl-5.6.x-current. Theoretically, once it works in an earlier
version, it will work in all future versions, but it can't hurt to
perform the regression test by hand.
=head1 Web Interface: Those Checkboxes
Discussed in bugmongers Message-id: <397466D6.6F05E8B8@m.dasa.de>
The perlbugtron user interface has a lot of checkboxes. When you
modify an item, you need to check the box for that item. Otherwise,
when you click C<update>, nothing will happen and you will receive an
error message.
The page you get back after altering bugs will only have the bugs
checked on it. So if you have a list of 25 bugs, and you edit 3 of
them, the page you receive will have only these 3 bugs in it.
This is so it is easier to check that your changes were entered correctly.
=head1 Why is the note text displayed I<outside> of the textarea?
The note is displayed outside of the text area so you can add a new
note I<in> the textarea. If there's more than one note, the form will
contain links to all the notes instead of the actual note texts.
=head1 What is the I<abandoned> status for?
The I<abandoned> status means: "This bug probably cannot be fixed. We
may come back to fix it after all the other bugs have been resolved."
Bugs are very rarely abandoned without good reason.
As of this writing, bugs in the pre-5.6 install process are being
abandoned. The installation system changed a lot for 5.6, and many
issues were resolved.
=head1 How do I get more help?
To get more help on the email interface, send a message with the
subject C<-h> to bugdb@perl.org. For more detailed help, use C<-H>;
Or you can use
http://bugs.perl.org/perlbug.cgi?req=mailhelp
The definitive location for more help on the web interface is
http://bugs.perl.org/admin/perlbug.cgi?req=webhelp for administrators
and
http://bugs.perl.org/perlbug.cgi?req=webhelp for normal users
=head1 AUTHOR
Robert Spier <rspier at cpan.org>
=head1 THANKS
Mark-Jason Dominus
Richard Foley