Re: [PATCH] git.txt: mention mailing list archive

[Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 10:05:29AM +0200, Martin Ågren wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 at 21:07, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> > Martin Ågren <martin.agren@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > In the "Reporting Bugs" section of git(1), we refer to the mailing list,
> > > but we do not give any hint about where the archives might be found.
> >
> > And why is it a good idea to give that information in Reporting Bugs
> > section?  Are we asking the bug reporters to look for similar issues
> > in the archive before they send their message?  If so, I think that
>
> Your guess is correct, sorry for forcing you to make one.
>
> > we should be explicit about it, too.  Otherwise, the list archive
> > location would look like an irrelevant noise to those who wanted to
> > find the address to report bugs to.
> >
> > For example, we can say something like this:
> >
> > >  Report bugs to the Git mailing list <git@vger.kernel.org> where the
> > >  development and maintenance is primarily done.  You do not have to be
> > >  subscribed to the list to send a message there.
> >   +If you want to check to see if the issue has
> >   +been reported already, the list archive can be found at
> >   +<https://public-inbox.org/git/> and other places.
>
> I think that one reason I avoided spelling out why giving the archive
> location was a good thing to do, was that I didn't want to begin a huge
> list of "please do this and that", scaring away potential bug reporters.
> I think your "If you want to" solves that problem very nicely. I'll wrap
> this up later today.

Yeah. This is a tricky issue in my mind. On the one hand, getting a
deluge of duplicate bug reports is a burden for people who actively
read and respond to the list. On the other hand, imposing such a burden
on bug reporters is a detriment to Git users, who wouldn't benefit from
the fixes that would come with good bug reports.

But I think that the above is only a problem if bug reporters are
consistently ignoring this advice. I don't think they will, since the
barrier to entry is already quite high (e.g., sending email is more
foreign to some than opening a GitHub issue, say).

So, I think that the suggestion above is a good one, since I believe
we'd rather get some bad bug reports than no bug reports at all.

Thanks,
Taylor