current "Priority:" setting isn't useful #60

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zooko · 2007-05-30T15:07:45Z

zooko commented

2007-05-30 15:07:45 +00:00

I'd like to configure trac so that we can use "Priority" to keep track of which tickets are more urgent. Currently two of the values are urgencies and two of them are importances. I think I would be happier if they were named "1", "2", "3", and "4".

zooko added the

labels 2007-05-30 15:07:45 +00:00

evilrob commented

2007-06-04 22:37:11 +00:00

urgency and importance are two orthogonal dimensions oft conflated.

it sounds to me like you want an 'urgency' field to organise tickets on, which imho should be distinct from importance.

and it seems like 'importance' is the more natural interpretation of 'priority' - or is at least the interpretation implied by the existing values.

minor/major/critical/blocker is a pretty standard descriptor for bugs in bug tracking, in my experience. eliminating that in order to support urgency tracking seems like a mistake.

(and in reply to a question in #53 -

'critical' means critical for the successful delivery of the denoted milestone)
neither urgrency nor importance are the 'right' place to track 'interest'
)

urgency and importance are two orthogonal dimensions oft conflated. it sounds to me like you want an 'urgency' field to organise tickets on, which imho should be distinct from importance. and it seems like 'importance' is the more natural interpretation of 'priority' - or is at least the interpretation implied by the existing values. minor/major/critical/blocker is a pretty standard descriptor for bugs in bug tracking, in my experience. eliminating that in order to support urgency tracking seems like a mistake. (and in reply to a question in #53 - 1. 'critical' means critical for the successful delivery of the denoted milestone) 2. neither urgrency nor importance are the 'right' place to track 'interest' )

warner added

dev-infrastructure

and removed

code

labels 2007-06-06 19:50:41 +00:00

zooko commented

2007-06-28 16:06:29 +00:00

So what do you want, functionally, out of the bug tracker's ticket status fields? How should we use them?

What I want is:

(a) when it lists things in descending order, with some things in different colors, I want to notice the things that I ought to be working on next, because they are closer to the top and in different colors.

(b) I want to communicate to other people what I'm working on next by changing some field of the ticket.

I don't currently see why I would want to mark some tickets as minor/major/critical/blocker, other than as a proxy to achieve (a) and (b), above.

So what do you want, functionally, out of the bug tracker's ticket status fields? How should we use them? What I want is: (a) when it lists things in descending order, with some things in different colors, I want to notice the things that I ought to be working on next, because they are closer to the top and in different colors. (b) I want to communicate to other people what I'm working on next by changing some field of the ticket. I don't currently see why I would want to mark some tickets as minor/major/critical/blocker, other than as a proxy to achieve (a) and (b), above.

zooko added

0.6.0

and removed

0.2.0

labels 2007-09-25 04:19:12 +00:00

zooko added this to the undecided milestone 2007-09-25 04:19:40 +00:00

warner modified the milestone from eventually to undecided

2008-06-01 21:02:43 +00:00

zooko commented

2008-06-07 00:17:04 +00:00

I just removed "blocker" and "trivial" from the list of priorities, leaving "critical", "major", and "minor".

I've noticed myself wanting to use "critical" to highlight issues which can cause harm to customers (security holes, data-loss issues). "major" is the standard value. Most issues ought to be considered "major" in my opinion, because someone cares about them (or they wouldn't have shown up on the tracker). Occasionally someone who cares about an issue decides to mark it as "minor" in order to convey that they care about it less than they care about most other issues.

I just removed "blocker" and "trivial" from the list of priorities, leaving "critical", "major", and "minor". I've noticed myself wanting to use "critical" to highlight issues which can cause harm to customers (security holes, data-loss issues). "major" is the standard value. Most issues ought to be considered "major" in my opinion, because someone cares about them (or they wouldn't have shown up on the tracker). Occasionally someone who cares about an issue decides to mark it as "minor" in order to convey that they care about it less than they care about most other issues.

zooko added the

fixed

label 2008-06-07 00:17:04 +00:00

zooko closed this issue

2008-06-07 00:17:04 +00:00

warner commented

2008-06-07 01:29:31 +00:00

It is unfortunate that now all the ticket lists are bright yellow.

What harm were "blocker" and "trivial" causing?

It is unfortunate that now all the ticket lists are bright yellow. What harm were "blocker" and "trivial" causing?

zooko removed the

fixed