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

[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.