Bugzilla name etiquette

[mark]

Bugzilla lets you set your "real name" (which doesn't have to be real), here:

http://bugs.dwscoalition.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=account

I would like to have us do what the Mozilla people do: adding usernames to the field. For example, my "real name" on Bugzilla is:

Mark Smith [:mark]

It would be great if everybody could append their username, prefixed with a colon, and optionally set off with brackets. This does a few things:

* For committers, it makes our lives a lot easier. If I see a patch by "Foo" with an email of "bar@miepnel.net", I have no idea who that actually is. Personally I can try to finduser you, but other committers can't. Now, if that said "Foo [:sparklyvampire]" then I know immediately, you are sparklyvampire.

* For assigning bugs, or CCing someone, it's generally much easier to remember someone's username on the site than try to remember what they typed as their Bugzilla name or email address. "I want to CC this to yvi, so I can type :yvi" is a lot easier than "I have no idea what her Bugzilla account is."

Obviously, this is very optional, but it would go a long way towards making Bugzilla usage faster, easier, and more intuitive.

Also note that the colon is very important. (Otherwise, if your username is a common word/name like 'mark' or 'jen', it doesn't work so well. But ':mark' will only find me!)

Comments

[damned_colonial]

DW username (damned_colonial) or dreamhack/irc/everywhere else username (skud)?

[mark]

Ouch.

When I'm trying to assign/CC, I'd prefer to type :skud since that's what I think of. But if a committer comes along, they will try to link that to a DW account, and it won't work.

I suppose we'll have to stick to DW usernames. That seems the most reasonable to me, personally. What do you think?

[janinedog]

I agree, we should use DW usernames. Though I could see having another indicator (with a semicolon or something?) for common/IRC/whatever names. Though we don't want it getting too unwieldy.

Also, thanks so much for posting this! Not knowing people's usernames when committed has always been an issue for me. :)

[damned_colonial]

Is it actually built into bugzilla that it works that way or is it just a convention? What would happen if I set my "real name" to: Kirrily Robert [:skud] [:damned_colonial] ?

*tries*

[mark]

I'm pretty sure that'd work for searching, but the committer won't necessarily know which one is your DW username, or might think both are.

On third thought, maybe this isn't really a problem and I'm just imagining it could be. We can correct it if we see it committed wrong, that's pretty easy to see/fix.

[sophie]

I know this is old, but I was coming back to this and, based on the #nymwars, I don't see any reason why you couldn't use "Skud [:damned_colonial]", since everyone knows you as Skud.

I'm mostly just stating this as a reply for future readers (although I'm not staff, of course), but if you wanted to ever get involved, I'd say you should do that.

[mark]

Speaking as staff, the ONLY thing I care about is the ":username" portion. Anything else you put (if anything) is at your own discretion.

This helps us track CLAs, commits, and other contributions if we tie them to an account. The account doesn't even have to be your main one. If you want to make "dev_foobar" as your account, that's fine. As long as your CLA is in order, that's all we really care about.

[yvi]

"I want to CC this to [info - personal] yvi, so I can type :yvi" is a lot easier than "I have no idea what her Bugzilla account is."

Yvi, since I figured this out three days ago ;) Well, that's my username, there, which I suppose is as good as that? But I can also add [:yvi] :)

[mark]

If there's no colon, then it's hard to find. On Mozilla, some people do have username [:username], just so that people can find it both ways.

[yvi]

Heh, I see. I am all for making stuff like that easier.

[pauamma]

Oh, so that's what (:foo]'s for? I was wondering.