User:Torley Linden/PJIRA

Warning: This is partially outdated and is being kept for historical purposes, since it refers to some things Torley worked on but isn't necessarily still active at.

This page details what I do on PJIRA, aka Public JIRA, aka the Issue Tracker. It's a lot of meta-stuff involving increasing education of how to use it, housekeeping and maintenance, and tying up lots of loose ends.

On the Resident-facing side

I:

• Write and edit help guides and blog posts to boost understanding and awareness.
• Pre-screen and confirm repros for bugs so our Quality Assurance & Developers can get to them.
• Resolve fixed issues with their correct statuses — "Fixed Internally" if not yet in a public release, or "Fixed" if it is available to the public. Specifically, after Joshua Linden or someone else makes a release post to the Official Linden Blog, I parse the release notes for PJIRA issues, open them up, and resolve them accordingly.
• Link related issues together so they can be found easier.
• Resolve duplicate issues and link those, too, so Residents can find the open issue we're focusing on.
• Generally resolve issues that are misfiled, need more info, etc. and leave a comment explaining why or asking for further details.
• Make comments pointing out historical context (e.g., "This bug has actually been around a long time") or offer pointers and workarounds to known issues.
• Sync external issues with internal ones, meaning: if an Issue Tracker report very closely or exactly matches an existing issue in our internal systems (aka LLJIRA), I make sure that they're linked to each other — see the "Linden Lab Issue ID field".
• Retitle issue summaries as appropriate, e.g., if the original isn't clear enough, too long when it could be simplified, or missing an important piece of info.
• Add new release versions when they're released so they can be selected as "Affects Version/s" and "Fix Version/s".

On the Linden-facing side

I also:

• Bring pain points (often severe bugs voted for by many Resis) to the attention of Studio Blacklight, an engineering group at Linden Lab ensuring that "critical issues are given the attention they need in order to improve the Resident experience".
• Add new Lindens to PJIRA so they can participate and assign issues to themselves, or be assigned issues by other Lindens.
• Forward relevant issues to the right Lindens so they can action them further (e.g., a sculptie issue goes to Periapse and Qarl Linden, or a First Look: Voice issue goes to our Voice Team). (Wish there was an easier way on an issue's own page to email it to someone.)
• Connect issues internally and encourage Lindens to look on PJIRA for newest Resident comments.
• Import issues both during formal bug triages and my own scouting for further investigation. Bugs with useful info such as a solid reproduction are far more likely to be imported, simply due to how actionable they are.
• Tweak look 'n' feel to be more useful — see WEB-194 for examples.
• Ping Rob Linden (PJIRA point person) about performance issues and Resident suggestions for improvement.
• With the aid of a tool Rob created, I create new agendas for bug triages, so we have fresh issues to go through.

That covers most of it, but there's always more work to be done.

Much of the above is manual, hence why I'm involved, but it's better than not communicating at all — I hope for a future when we have a single, unified issue tracker, but that time is realistically far away, so until then, I'm continuing onwards and upwards, as they say. :)

Where can I see a list of issues you've reported?

(For historical purposes.)

I know what you're thinkin'... "Practice what you preach", right?

Have a look at this if you wanna see what I've been up to, and/or if you don't know what a filed bug should look like. As a Linden, I'd like to help set a good example and help you be more comfy.

Note that as of 2007-11-26, I haven't been a very active reporter because I've spent much more time triaging issues after they've been reported by our dear Resis.

You can also see Gigs Taggart's SLJiraStats, where I'm one of the top bug reporters.

[UPDATE @ 2007-12-31] Over the holidays, Gigs graciously let me know SLJiraStats has also added Personal Stats (see mine) and you can view bugs right on the site (see example). Linden comments are in red, which may help you parse through a plethora of data.