--- title: "Why Bug Triage?" id: "121" type: "post" slug: "why-bug-triage" published_at: "2008-10-20T22:18:05+00:00" modified_at: "2014-04-12T20:32:23+00:00" url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/why-bug-triage/" markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/why-bug-triage.md" excerpt: "A great observation came out of a recent bug triage meeting by David Nalley who noted that “there is great information about the HOW, but not the WHY or SO WHAT [of why bug triage is important].” I took an......" taxonomy_category: - "Software & Technology" taxonomy_post_tag: - "Fedora" --- [Skip to the content](#site-content) [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com) ### Bringing order to chaos and clarity to confusion - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) Toggle search field - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) # [Why Bug Triage?](https://johnpoelstra.com/why-bug-triage/) A great observation came out of a recent bug triage meeting by [David Nalley](http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ke4qqq) who noted that “[there is great information about the HOW, but not the WHY or SO WHAT](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2008-Oct-14#t07:09) [of why bug triage is important].” I took an action item to try to define this better. We’ll be discussing this more at our weekly meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) on #fedora-meeting on irc.freenode.net @ 14:00 UTC (10 AM EDT). Everyone is welcome! I went through the existing wiki pages to collect some reasons and also tacked on a few of my own. Feel free to add you our own in the comments or talk about it in your own blog about and link here. Here are my ideas so far. Bug triage matters to Fedora because it: - saves package maintainers time chasing down missing information in bug reports - helps to identify bugs that should be fixed before release (adding to tracker lists) - allows maintainers to spend their finite time on bugs that are ready to be worked on - gives bug reporters the feeling that someone has acknowledged their problem - strives to provide a level of certainty that the total number of open bugs is accurate - helps to maintain structure in bugzilla by following defined processes to close bugs for EOL releases - what else? I suppose the possibility exists that some people think there is no value from bug triage. If that is your position, we’d love to hear your constructive suggestions for changes that would make it valuable. How can bug triagers help tackle some of Fedora’s 10,000 [open bug reports](http://tinyurl.com/4cavl2) ? #### John Poelstra John Poelstra coaches directors in finance and software. Trained through the Co-Active Training Institute, he has coached for more than 10 years, with over 520 clients and 3,150 sessions. He brings 25 years of experience from the inside: software testing, project management and team leadership at Red Hat and Dell/EMC, and finance as a bank auditor at Wells Fargo and a CPA at Grant Thornton. He hosts The John Poelstra Show podcast. [Author archive](https://johnpoelstra.com/author/john-poelstra/) [Author website](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146) October 20, 2008 [Software & Technology](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/software/) [Fedora](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/fedora/) [Previous post](https://johnpoelstra.com/final-fedora-10-feature-list/) [Next post](https://johnpoelstra.com/credit-to-ubuntu/) ## 2 Comments 1. [poelcat](http://johnpoelstra.com/) [October 21, 2008 at 1:44 pm](https://johnpoelstra.com/why-bug-triage/#comment-80) mcepl also suggested [http://tieguy.org/talks/](http://tieguy.org/talks/) 2. John5342[October 21, 2008 at 12:30 pm](https://johnpoelstra.com/why-bug-triage/#comment-79) Triaging also helps sift out duplicates which also reduces work loads on the maintainers. It also provides an idea of what the problem areas are in the distribution as it stands from a human perspective rather than a statistical perspective. Some things can be sorted or at least narrowed down before they reach the maintainer. Triagers who can reproduce can also become testers of solutions that may be more reliable than some reporters in terms of availability. If more experienced triagers come accross some bugs then they can often spot workarounds that less experienced user might not have found which may solve the problem until a true fix is found/made. Not sure all of these are appropriate but just things my mind wondered over in my spare time. Comments are closed. ### John Poelstra [https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756](https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) ### Links - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) - [Coaching](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) © 2026 [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com/) — Powered by [WordPress](http://www.wordpress.org) Theme by [Anders Noren](https://andersnoren.se) — [Up ↑](#)