RE: bug tracker woes/misunderstanding

[Drew Adams]

>  > Thanks, but I do not understand how what I did in this case differs
>  > from what I always do, except for changing "RE" to "OT".
> 
> "The doctor says, 'If it hurts when you do that, stop doing it.'"

My question was what was being done that caused this hurt.  Was it just using
"OT"?  Using "OT" in place of "RE"?  Position of "OT/RE" within the Subject?
Something else?

> Explanation:
> Looking at the subject is heuristic.  Typically the rule is: the bug
> number must be the first thing in the subject in exactly the same
> format as the tracker produces, except for "RE:" stripping.  "OT" not
> a bug number, so the tracker assumes it's new bug.

Great.  Please add your explanation as doc, wherever the bug tracker is
documented (assuming this info is not already there).

>  > I just hit `Reply All', as usual.  Looking at past replies of mine,
>  > I see that some of the mails I replied to were addressed to
>  > address@hidden, and others were addressed to
>  > <bugnb>@debbugs.gnu.org - and this within the same thread!  Why?
> 
> Why not?  It works fine as long as you don't try to be smart with the
> subject line.

Undocumented (?).  What is "being smart"?  What should users avoid wrt changes
to the Subject line and other fields?  Apparently (?) one should not remove "RE"
from the beginning of the line (or even move it to the right, from the
beginning?).  Please document just what one should not do - IOW, define "being
smart".

> Some heuristic is necessary because copies of bug
> messages with the generic To: address are always going to exist, and
> people *will* reply to those.

No argument with why things are implemented the way they are.  The question is
from a user point of view: what to do/not do.  That implementation sounds
fragile to me, but I'm not trying to reimplement or redesign it.  I'm just
trying to understand how to use it.  You've heard of users, right?

>  > but `Reply All' to both kinds seems to work.
> 
> <bugnb>@ works by protocol (and is reliable).  bug-gnu-emacs@ works by
> heuristic (don't push your luck!)

Users will use `Reply' and `Reply All'.  Please document what changes to the
Subject line or other fields are no-no's.