Strength In Numbers, aka bug day 2004/02/19

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

It's that time of the week again, where we seek understanding of the
state of bugzilla and hence the state of our project. (And your project
too.) This week's goal will be attacking new nautilus bugs and general
crashers.

What is this thing you call 'bug day'?
======================================

Bug day is a day we get together on IRC, find bugs, and clean bugzilla
so that developers can get more work done by focusing on bugs that
matter instead of duplicates, unconfirmable bugs, and things that
they've already closed. 

Why are you calling it 'Strength in Numbers'?
=============================================

There are about 7,000 open bugs in bugzilla.gnome.org, which is a large
number. If I close four of those bugs, it doesn't make a difference. 

But last week there were over 50 people from 17 countries who dropped in
to #bugs for bug day. If each of those people close only 4 bugs, that's
a significant percentage of the open bugs that just got nailed. And if
only ten of those people come back and close four more a day for a
week... again, big numbers of bugs closed. And if one or two of those
people are clinically insane they can close hundreds of bugs. If you're
closing only four bugs, you're helping. Trust me. :)

Who can help at a bug day?
==========================

Virtually anyone[3]. Bug day can be for the very timid, the very quiet,
or the very persistent.

You do need:
* decent ability to read English 
* a user-level knowledge of GNOME
* 30 or so minutes of the day (the first time, after that you can do it
in very small chunks.)

You don't need:
* any programming ability
* any prior experience with QA
* a deep understanding of GNOME. 

On the other hand, if you do have programming ability, it's also a great
way to get involved- after a few bug days, you can figure out what needs
help in gnome quickly and apply your talents there.

I'm afraid I might be lonely at bug day.
========================================

Nonsense! Strength in Numbers. :)

So when is this 'bug day'?
==========================

Lots more numbers here:

Bug day is from 8:30AM EST to 8:30PMEST on Thursday- that's
13:30UTC->01:30UTC.
http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=5&month=2&year=2004&hour=8&min=30&sec=0&p1=179

Join us in #bugs on irc.gnome.org during that time, and we'll chill and
share the bugzilla love.

There must be numbered Questions somewhere to help me learn more.
=================================================================

Indeed. The FAQ is here:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/bugsquad/triage/faq.html

See you all tomorrow:
Luis