BugZappers/Joining

What is Involved in Bug Triaging?

Bug triagers make sure that:

• bug reports have the information developers need to reproduce and fix them.
• bugs are assigned to the right component and version
• duplicate bugs are found and labelled
• feature requests reported as bugs are properly reported
• bugs already fixed are closed

Triaging bugs does not mean that you have to understand bugs and solve them yourself. It means you should be able to look at new bugs, and report if they are duplicates, if more information is needed, or if it is filed under the wrong component.

There is no requirement of programming knowledge. However, a familiarity with Fedora, and Linux in general will be extremely useful.

This is purely voluntary. We do not expect you to spend hours here everyday (though if you want to, you're more than welcome!). You can triage bugs whenever you have free time. You can spend as little as 15 minutes a week - every little bit helps!

How to Sign Up

1. Obtain a bugzilla account in Red Hat's Bugzilla
   • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/createaccount.cgi
   • Fedora's bugs are tracked in Red Hat's Bugzilla
   • Note that this is all you need to start reporting bugs, but if you also want to triage, then you will also need to...
2. Obtain a Fedora Account
   • It is necessary that the e-mail address used for your Bugzilla and Fedora accounts are the same
3. Fedora encourages you to sign the Contributor License Agreement (giving the project permission to use and keep contributions you make in the course of triaging), but it is not required. Here's how!
4. After successfully obtaining a Fedora account, view the fedorabugs group and apply to the group by clicking the Apply! button. Your membership will need to be approved, so this process is not instantaneous. It may take several days (unfortunately) for your membership to be approved, so please be patient. After your approval, you will have additional permissions in the system which will allow you to triage bugs.
5. If you can commit to being a regular triager for the current release cycle, add your name to the Active Triagers page.
   • This is a simple reference so that package maintainers know who the triagers are
   • It also gives us a rough idea who is triaging bugs in which components

If you are unfamiliar with a component and someone is very active there, it is probably a good idea to pick a different component or talk to that person and see if you can work together.

Communication

1. Join the fedora-test-list
   • All announcements and conversations about bug triage happen on this list
   • https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list
2. Valuable communication and real time help happen in the chat channels on IRC. See Using Internet Messenger for IRC or the XChat setup instructions, and IRCHowTo for more information on using IRC
   • The main IRC channels to join are: #fedora-bugzappers - where team members discuss things - and #fedorabot - where you will see automated messages when new bugs are filed (among other things)
   • Once you are all setup and ready to go drop by and say hello on #fedora-bugzappers
   • #fedora-bugzappers is also a good place to get help if you are having problems with the sign-up process
3. Attend a Bug Triage Meeting. Details on the time and location of meetings are on that page.

Getting the tools

There are some tools, including Greasemonkey scripts, that will make triaging work much easier for you. All Bugzappers are recommended to get the recommended tools from the Tools page.

How to Start Triaging

• See BugZappers/FindingBugs to get a list of bugs to work on.
• See BugZappers/How to Triage for instructions.