Launchpad itself

"This bug doesn't affect me (change)" doesn't make any sense

Bug #284256 reported by Matthew Paul Thomas
46
This bug affects 8 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Launchpad itself 10.01

Bug Description

On every bug report page I visit, the page begins with the text "This bug doesn't affect me (_change_)".

This doesn't make sense in three ways:

1. The standard point-of-view style for computer interfaces, including the rest of Launchpad, is to refer to the user as "you" in non-interactive text like this (e.g. "Comment only if you think the duplicate status is wrong"), using "me" only for interactive text (e.g. "[ ] Include bug descriptions when sending me bug notifications").

2. Usually the reason I'm visiting the bug page is because the bug *does* affect me, so the statement is false most of the time. (Especially on bug reports that I wrote myself!) This would make more sense if the statement was a checkbox or radio button label, but it isn't.

3. The link implies that I can "change" whether a bug affects me by twiddling knobs in Launchpad, which is also false. If only it were that easy! Whether a bug affects me is dependent on what software I use and how I use it, not on what I do in Launchpad.

How to fix this bug depends on what the recorded information is used for. Since it's currently not used at all (bug 283539), the simplest and most understandable way to fix it would be to remove the text and link entirely. An alternative method would be representing the toggle as a vote, with a "Vote" or "Remove Vote" button depending on the current status.

I strongly suggest removing or hiding the function until it does something visibly useful, otherwise it will discredit the usefulness of other functions in the bug tracker.

See original description
Tags: lp-bugs
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
description: updated
description: updated
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Caroline Ford (secretlondon) wrote :

2. is bug #285167

Revision history for this message
Marius Gedminas (mgedmin) wrote :

When I first heard of this feature (and I think it's a wonderful idea that helps avoid a huge number of 'me too!' comments) I expected a nice big red button saying 'This bug affects me too', similar to the 'Report a bug' button found on other pages. Instead I had to look for 5 minutes all over the page until I finally found it. The location and phrasing of the text don't make much sense still, but I got used to it. It's incredibly psychologically satisfying to do something after you spent minutes looking for your bug and saw it already filed.

In short, great feature, poor UI.

Revision history for this message
Adi Roiban (adiroiban) wrote :

I saw the link for some time but because it was written in a very strange way I did not what to do.

I also expect a red button saying "This bug affects me too", of a link saying "Click here if this bug affects you"

I would like to have "This bug affects me top" as a big visual notice!

Revision history for this message
goto (gotolaunchpad) wrote :

And I would like to know how many people clicked on "this bug affects me". :)
So how many people are affected.

Revision history for this message
Benjamin Prosnitz (aetherane) wrote :

Agreed. Link should be changed to "Flag as Affecting You" or something like that.

For change, it is very clear what the destination and what the current state is.

Revision history for this message
Martin Pool (mbp) wrote :

I agree with you about the phrasing being wrong.

I think renaming it to "vote" would be a step backwards though, and is orthogonal to improving the text. (A direct substitution would be "I don't vote for this bug (change)" which is no better.) Also voting indicates you're trying to control the order of development and that you may have a limited amount or weight of votes, rather than just reporting the objective fact that the bug affects you.

Deryck Hodge (deryck)
Changed in malone:
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Karl Fogel (kfogel) wrote :

This is marked as "Fix Committed", and if it's just about a change in the UI presentation -- the language -- then the rest of my comment doesn't apply. However, on the off chance that this is relevant:

When determining whether a bug affects a given user, we probably want to include affected users from dupes now that we can. The following new properties were committed in the fix for bug #505845:

   Bug.users_affected_with_dupes
   Bug.users_affected_count_with_dupes
   Bug.users_unaffected

Gavin Panella (allenap)
Changed in malone:
milestone: none → 10.01
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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