🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs
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@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Bullshit.
why? what is your reasoning?
what bug report from a user, possibly excepting those made in bad faith, would not be a bug?
explain to me your reasoning in this matter, for quoting a dead and now zombified president does not carry the argument for me.
(also, the answer is six for female dogs and seven for male, for if you count the tail there's a couple of other appendages you must also consider legs)
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@Yamikuronue said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@loopback0 said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
not all bugs logged by users are actual bugs.
Because...?
that's what i'd like to know.
Security 'bugs' are a popular one:
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I do not think the NOT_A_BUG classification should not exist. I do think it should instead be relabelled 'User is an incurable idiot'. On both the dev and the user side.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
explain to me your reasoning in this matter, for quoting a dead and now zombified president does not carry the argument for me.
You're just repackaging and regurgitating "the customer is always right," which is of course wrong. If you can't imagine a user reporting something that isn't wrong because they made a mistake or forgot that they did something different than they did, then I can't imagine anything I say will help you.
The charitable interpretation of what you're saying is that you shouldn't be rude to them when they report a not-a-bug, which no one here has disagreed with, I think. And no one is saying that the sorts of "managing expectations" things aren't legitimately system bugs either. But users still report things that they think are bugs that just aren't.
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@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@Yamikuronue said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@loopback0 said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
not all bugs logged by users are actual bugs.
Because...?
that's what i'd like to know.
Security 'bugs' are a popular one:
those would be closed as E_NO_ESCALATION. they are security vulnerability reports that do not expose a security vulnerability.
they may show crash behavior and if they induce crash behavior in a microsoft product i would expect an internal issue to be added to whatever bug tracker microsoft uses, but the core of those reports is a security vulnerability that isn't. the user believes it is a security vulnerability and so a bug, therefore it is a bug and as this is an external user E_INVALID is wrong, instead this would be E_NO_ESCALATION because while there is crash behavior or other undefined behavior there is no privilage escalation and so no security vulnerability.
@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
You're just repackaging and regurgitating "the customer is always right," which is of course wrong.
not so, not so. I am arguing that the user submitting a bug report means what you have on your hands is a bug.
@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
If you can't imagine a user reporting something that isn't wrong because they made a mistake or forgot that they did something different than they did
they could report such a bug, yes. and it would be a bug. they followed a procedure in the code that generated incorrect to the user results.
maybe the user needed to release a hold at a certain step and didn't so simply going back and releasing that hold and continuing from teh skipped step is sufficient. in that case that would be an E_NO_REPRO as the correct steps followed produce correct results, possibly with an ancilary issue added to review the indications of the steps completion, how easy is it for the user to not notice the hold that was not released? can that be rectified? is the error text if any sufficient to show the user how to correct the issue? is this a training issue for the user if the software use is particularly complex. if it is that complex can it be simplified?
the user has an issue and filed a bug report. that makes it a bug. is it one that will be fixed in code? not necessarily. is it one that will be addressed in suplimentary resources or materials? mot necessarily. is it one that will be acted on at all after triage, not necessarily. but it is a bug and so it will be triaged and it will not be labeled INVALID or NOT_A BUG
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@Yamikuronue said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Because...?
Because sometimes the user is wrong.
E.g. the user enters the wrong data and so the "wrong" thing happens. Except the "wrong" thing is actually the right thing for the data they entered.
Sometimes, the data is wrong in the way the system could have prevented. Fine - that's a bug. Sometimes it's something like "what is the address the customer wants the service at" and they enter an address which is in a valid format but is actually the wrong address, so later on part of the order is routed to the team which handles region X and not the correct team which handles region Y. Then a bug gets raised saying "this order went to the wrong team".
The only fault here is the user. Pure human error. This is not a bug and so is closed as "Not valid".
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
the user believes it is a security vulnerability and so a bug, therefore it is a bug and as this is an external user E_INVALID is wrong, instead this would be E_NO_ESCALATION because while there is crash behavior or other undefined behavior there is no privilage escalation and so no security vulnerability.
OK, how about this one?
No privilege escalation, but also no bug, yet was reported as such. What would you close that as?
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@loopback0 said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
E.g. the user enters the wrong data and so the "wrong" thing happens.
What did they expect? Why did they expect that? Why didn't they understand what the system was telling them when they got incorrect information?
@loopback0 said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Then a bug gets raised saying "this order went to the wrong team".
Did they see where it was going when they were entering it? Was there a better way the system could have presented the information?
It's entirely plausible that what's there isn't a high enough priority to be fixed, ever. But there's no reason to brush it off without doing due diligence just because "the user was wrong".
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
not so, not so. I am arguing that the user submitting a bug report means what you have on your hands is a bug.
No. You have a bug report. But no bug. A report doesn't make a bug. A bug makes a bug.
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
the user has an issue and filed a bug report. that makes it a bug.
Go back and re-read that Lincoln quote. You clearly haven't understood it yet.
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
s it one that will be fixed in code? not necessarily. is it one that will be addressed in suplimentary resources or materials? mot necessarily. is it one that will be acted on at all after triage, not necessarily. but it is a bug and so it will be triaged and it will not be labeled INVALID or NOT_A BUG
You have redefined the meaning of the word "bug" to "bug report." Doubleplusungood.
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@Yamikuronue said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
But there's no reason to brush it off without doing due diligence just because "the user was wrong".
No one is saying that. Just that sometimes the user is wrong. And they sometimes report things that aren't bugs.
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@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
No privilege escalation, but also no bug, yet was reported as such. What would you close that as?
given the responses made on both sides i would personally close it as E_REQUESTED_CLARIFICATION_NOT_YET_PROVIDED
MS did a outstanding job of investigating the report, far more than i would have done before contacting the reporter for clarification, at that point the reporter seems to have gone off on a tangent. so the ticket could be closed as noted above, failing that if the user persisted in reporting these security vulnerabilities that aren't i would close E_NO_ESCALATION as before because there is no escalation, or E_EXTERNAL_BUG and the bug exists in the bug reporter's mind, not in anything microsoft has any control over, i might even close it E_DUPLICATE_OF to link it to a preexisting ticket that covers the same issue.
there is an unfortunate sideeffect of being a big corporation with a popular software like microsoft, it leads to a certain class of people, often young and eager to show their skills, to file bug reports against the software without doing due dilligence in determining wether or not the issue is actually a security vulnerability (arbitrary execution alone is not enough, you have to escalate privs, or have the capability to later do so too) nor whether or not the issue they have found has been reported and dealt with before.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
I am arguing that the user submitting a bug report means what you have on your hands is a bug.
On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
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@GOG said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
I am arguing that the user submitting a bug report means what you have on your hands is a bug.
On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
indeed, and yet that very confusion that provoked the question is where the bug lies in this case. why does the person asking the question believe that the right answer will be achieved with wrong inputs? what education was missed? what critical insight?
the bug report so asked is clearly not in babbage's machine for it will indeed produce the correct answer when wrong input is given, it will produce the output that was correct for the input given. so where then is the bug? it is in the users understanding of the machine, and that is where the bug must be corrected.
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@accalia Indeed, we should hope that the user of any calculating engine, being an intelligent and educated individual, having appraised themselves of the means of operating the engine, becoming familiar with its various workings and having exercised due dilligence in entering the data will be provided with a correct result.
What we too often find, however, is a user who considers computers magical apparatus, cannot be bothered to find out what the various options mean and shall restrict their learning to a mechanical reproduction of steps imparted to them by another user - who themselves may have no better understanding of the software.
Sometimes, RTFM is the only legitimate answer to a bug report.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
they could report such a bug, yes. and it would be a bug.
I once had requirements that said:
"Under set x of circumstances, the system will mark a customer's order as 'won't ship'. No reason is to be given to the user".
It was literally illegal for us to explain why we couldn't ship the order. On the back end, we actually sent a notification to a government agency that the order was placed. As developers, we didn't like the UX, so we pushed back. We lost.
We got a lot of bug reports that orders were getting rejected without any apparent reason. We closed them as "Working as designed". This was not a bug.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
you, as a developer can say that you will not fix the user's issue. either because it would be cost prohibitive or because of all the other users who rely on the current behavior, but you cannot say that the behavior the user reported is not a bug, because they woul;dn't have bothered filing a bug report if it wasn't a bug to them.
We close bugs as "Working as Designed", if we think it is valid issue we will open an enhancement request for them. If not, we inform them that they are welcome to submit an enhancement request. But if we work to the spec, it is by definition not a bug in our code.
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@Dragoon said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
But if we work to the spec, it is by definition not a bug in our code.
correct, but that does not make the bug report "Not a Bug"
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@accalia Perhaps I should rephrase it than: "Not my bug", because it clearly isn't in my software.
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@Dragoon said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@accalia Perhaps I should rephrase it than: "Not my bug", because it clearly isn't in my software.
also correct, and this is in fact a perfectly valid response to a bug report once you have determined the source of the bug lies elsewhere and that it is not appropriate or it is not feasible for you to impliment mitigating factors on your part.
but it's still a bug report so NOT_A_BUG is incorrect way to close the bug report. it is a bug, it's just not your bug.
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@accalia My understanding of that article is that, essentially, the bug is '
system()starts a process' or 'Process.Start()starts a process', which is clearly not a bug. In fact, every line of code in all the examples is working exactly as designed, and the language is behaving according to spec.Given that there is no bug anywhere, how could the issue be closed as anything other than
NOT_A_BUG?
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
but it's still a bug report so NOT_A_BUG is incorrect way to close the bug report. it is a bug, it's just not your bug.
You're still confusing "bug report" with "bug."
Ce n'est pas un bug
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@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Given that there is no bug anywhere,
there is a bug. the bug is in the users expectations and understanding.
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@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
You're still confusing "bug report" with "bug."
no, i am not. a bug report describes a bug.
that is the definition.
there is always a bug described in a bug report, it's always a matter of where the bug is.
the bug can be in your code, in emergent properties of your code, in your documentation, in the business processes your code implements, in the input screens that allow invalid entries to be saved as valid entries, in the users inputting of incorrect information, in the users expectations of program behavior, in the users own mind, or any one of a thousand other places.
This bug might be yours to fix, it might be yours to mitigate, it might be yours to acknowledge with some variation of WONTFIX, it might even be not your problem entirely, but it is still a bug report and it reports a real, actual bug.
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I invite everyone to file every-bug-report-is-a-bugs against sockbot.
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@PleegWat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
I invite everyone to file every-bug-report-is-a-bugs against sockbot.
if you are doing such filing in good faith, please do, i welcome bug reports against my software that i may use to improve the product i produce.
if you are doing it to troll or otherwise would be acting in bad faith i would ask you to not be a dick.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Given that there is no bug anywhere,
there is a bug. the bug is in the users expectations and understanding.
A bug is 'an error in a computer program or system'; lack of understanding on the part of the user is therefore not a bug by definition
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@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
A bug is 'an error in a computer program or system'; lack of understanding on the part of the user is therefore not a bug by definition
and the user is not a part of the system being so described?
how can this be?
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
if you are doing it to troll or otherwise would be acting in bad faith i would ask you to not be a dick.
We're back-pedalling already are we?
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
the bug can be in your code, in emergent properties of your code, in your documentation, in the business processes your code implements, in the input screens that allow invalid entries to be saved as valid entries, in the users inputting of incorrect information, in the users expectations of program behavior, in the users own mind, or any one of a thousand other places.
This bug might be yours to fix, it might be yours to mitigate, it might be yours to acknowledge with some variation of WONTFIX, it might even be not your problem entirely, but it is still a bug report and it reports a real, actual bug.
Y'know, this reminds me of the question "is the finally clause guaranteed to execute no matter what?"
I propose a different one: if a metorite crushes your computer do you file a bug report? If not, why not?
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@PleegWat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
We're back-pedalling already are we?
no, i'll treat all the bug reports seriously, you'll note i did not ask you to not file the reports, only to not be a dick.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
and the user is not a part of the system being so described?
Correct
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
how can this be?
They are a user of the system, but they're not in the system.
Unless it's 1982 and you're Jeff Bridges.
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@GOG said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Y'know, this reminds me of the question "is the finally clause guaranteed to execute no matter what?"
no, the finally clause is not guaranteed to execute in the case of undefined behavior, or in the case of outside interferenace such as but not limited to:
- terminating the program with
kill -9or equivalent - abnormal shutdown of computer
- abnormal shutdown of runtime environment
- thermonuclear war.
@GOG said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
I propose a different one: if a metorite crushes your computer do you file a bug report? If not, why not?
who would you suggest i file the bug report against?
- terminating the program with
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@blakeyrat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
I might agree with you if the person both marked a sender as safe, and also blocked them at the same time, but what's FAR more likely to happen is that the sender is marked as safe (either because the user marked them, or because Exchange is set to mark senders from that domain as safe), then weeks or months later after they've been sending annoying emails might block them. In that most common case, at the time the user is blocking them, they're not likely to even spend a millisecond even thinking about whether the sender is marked as "safe" or not. It doesn't matter to them, they just wanted that person blocked.
My use case was: spam directly addressed to me. Some kind of webinar. I am pretty sure I had already used the unsubscribe link and was still getting something, so, to prep in case I needed to escalate, I junked that email, but I wanted to not block the user, so I would see if she sent me another email--because in that case, I was prepared to call the 800 number on the email and complain. But apparently if you don't choose "block this sender" when you junk something, it puts them in the safe senders list automatically, and I wasn't ready to do that step. So perhaps junking that message was the wrong thing to do. Later I accidentally blocked her, so I went into the lists to take her off the blocked senders, and noticed she was on safe senders as well.
It doesn't make sense to be on both "safe senders" and "blocked senders", I don't think, because the former means "never block".
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@RaceProUK said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Correct
i argue that you are incorrect. the user must be part of the system, otherwise their actions would be immaterial to the system and they would be unable to influence the system in any way.
once you start allowing user input to the system they are now a part of that system, or so i am arguing.
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@blakeyrat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
, I think this is just another person on this forum bitching about an operation being allowed before spending 26 milliseconds trying to think of why it's allowed.
And, once again, you're wrong. What you describe might be valid but isn't my use case. And again, "never block this person" is in direct opposition to "always block this person", so it doesn't make sense to be in both lists. But it was a mistake on my part to do something that had the result of putting her in both lists.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
the usability study that blakeyrat wants me to prefrom
The forum-approved response to that is "fuck you, pay me." HTH, HAND.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
can the observed behavior be legitimately described as a bug by the user? yes. it can. the behavior is unexpected and counterintuitive.
Remember that, to @blakeyrat, "bug" means "behavior I don't like." If it doesn't bother him, then it's not a bug, by implication. QED.
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@FrostCat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
"fuck you, pay me."
pass, i'd rather not engage in prostitution, but thanks for the offer.
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@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
So, these seem pretty mutually exclusive to me. Hey @FrostCat, which one wins?
I'll let you know the next time I get an email from her.
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@blakeyrat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Except the blocked list is managed by the user, and the "safe senders" list is, for 99% of entries, managed by the Exchange administrator.
My company takes a pretty light hand on administrative-level stuff. Every item in my safe senders list is a single email address I added because I wanted to make sure Outlook didn't junk mail from them (for example, because they sent me a file that Outlook rules would've otherwise blocked, like a DLL, which I sometimes send or receive to/from my clients, because it's the easiest method of getting certain kinds of custom updates to them.)
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@boomzilla said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Fuck them. If it's not a bug I can damn well tell them that and why it isn't.
If something is operating as designed, it can never be a bug, by definition. It may be undesirable behavior to a particular user, but that's not the same thing, unless you're Louise Blakeyrat, Captain of the Time Pod People.
The user may think it's a bug, and they may call it that, but they're wrong. (If it's my user, I will not be rude about telling them that, either. I've had to do it more than once.)
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
yes, it does. that's why it's a bug. it might not be a bug in the code, but it's a bug.
Nonsense. A user's incorrect expecations aren't a bug either. It may be a training flaw, or a learning failure, but "bug" isn't the le mot juste, either.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
who would you suggest i file the bug report against?
Presumably, against the makers of the software you were using at the time. After all, the software did not perform as expected.
Now, I enjoy a good troll as much as the next man, but let's be serious for a moment. A "bug" - broadly defined - is a situation where a valid input state produces an invalid or erroneous output state.
It is not a situation where the user is a muppet.
The way we tell the two apart is by considering what constitutes a valid input and what constitutes a valid - and correct - output for that input, as defined by the program specification. The onus is on the user to become acquainted with this.
It certainly happens that the information provided for the user is incomplete, inaccurate or misleading - and that is basis for a valid complaint. The user's expectation of what the program does - unless founded on the feature documentation - is not.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
no, i am not. a bug report describes a bug.
that is the definition.You're missing something. It's also a bug related to the system it represents. A bug in the user's typing or memory is not a system bug. Just like a bug report for a different system is not a bug for the system.
@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
but it is still a bug report and it reports a real, actual bug.
Your definition has removed meaning from the term bug. I reject that.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
if the user has a problem with your software you have a bug.
it may be a bug where the software let them do something they shouldn't,
it might be a bug that the user had unrealistic expectations of the software,
it might even be a bug in the workflow the user put around your product,
but the user filed a bug report so they have a bug.
it's just that simple.Come on, seriously? So I write a report that writes the numbers 1 to 10, once per line, and the customer says "well, I would like it to write all the even numbers, and then all the odd ones" and you think there's something that could be called a bug?
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@FrostCat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
It doesn't make sense to be on both "safe senders" and "blocked senders", I don't think, because the former means "never block".
There is an argument that it doesn't make sense to prevent it. For example, if you want to move an address from one list to the other, there may be a time when it is on both lists. Preventing an address from being added to the second list while they are still on the first list will annoy the user that wants to make sure they have it on the second before removing it from the first, perhaps because they are concerned that they won't know the user's email address if the successfully remove it, then have some sort of computer problem, or other interruption.
My philosophy is that you shouldn't prevent an action unless it is always inappropriate to perform that action. If it's simply "odd" to perform an action, that isn't good enough for me to justify maintaining another business rule.
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@FrostCat said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
Come on, seriously? So I write a report that writes the numbers 1 to 10, once per line, and the customer says "well, I would like it to write all the even numbers, and then all the odd ones" and you think there's something that could be called a bug?
Yes, she has her own rather meaningless definition of bug.
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@accalia said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
and the user is not a part of the system being so described?
how can this be?because those silly humans don't like to be called a System, It or Borg
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@Jaime said in 🔥🐞 outlook bugs and not_a_bugs:
For example, if you want to move an address from one list to the other, there may be a time when it is on both lists.
But you can't do that. You have to add it to one list, then add it to a second list, then remove it from the first. Or you can do the last two steps in the other order. There's no "Move to a different list" UI--at least not in Exchange.
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