#503 fedorahosted: trac: new ticket
Closed: Fixed None Opened 15 years ago by sdeasey.

The "New Ticket" button only shows up if you're logged in. It should always be shown. If the user is not already logged in, it should log them in at this point.

Reporting bugs is a common activity and at the moment it is completely hidden.


This is a choice decision to block out spam, users can always email admin@fedoraproject.org, or stop by #fedora-admin on irc.freenode.net, or join the mailing list, or email an admin directly.

Closing ticket.

How does hiding the button block spam? I'm not saying that users should be able to post tickets without logging in, I'm saying that the button should be visible. After clicking the visible "New Ticket" button, they would then have to log in.

Does this make sense?

Here is an example of an experienced programmer, project manager, open source employer and fedora member completely failing to file bug reports because of this and related interface problems with login/signup and the fedora accounts system/project hosting:

http://thomas.apestaart.org/log/?p=644

Each project may enable anonymous ticket creation by giving the anonymous user the TICKET_CREATE privilege. I don't believe that Trac's design allows you to have buttons for which the current user has no permission. If you have concrete suggestions on how to make that happen we would certainly consider making that available to projects. Existing projects would not be changed, but we could change the default for future projects and give existing project instructions how to change it for themselves.

Here's a ticket at the Trac site which has some suggestions on how to fix this:

http://trac.edgewall.org/ticket/2908

1) install the following plugin:

http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/PermRedirectPlugin

This takes care of the case where somehow the user finds a link to the New Ticket page, they are not logged in, but log in is required. Currently an error is thrown. With this plugin they are redirected to the login screen.

2) at the Trac ticket above there is a very small plugin which shows how to always show the New Ticket navigation item, regardless of whether anonymous posting is allowed. This, combined with the above, looks like it solves the problem outlined in this ticket.

3) It would also be a good idea to fix ticket #504

https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/504

which addresses the problem of there being no way to register for a fedora account from a fedora hosted Trac, in the case where login is required before posting a new ticket.

btw. here is another example of an experienced developer have trouble with the Fedora accounts system and creating a new ticket:

http://www.murrayc.com/blog/permalink/2008/06/17/trying-to-file-bugs-for-fedora-linux

I'm confused, how did the advice given by jcollie about allowing projects to enable CREATE_TICKET to anonymous users not fix this issue?

Also if PermRedirectPlugin is to be used it needs to be packaged and built for Fedora. If you feel strongly enough about it let us know when it is ready.

I'm confused, how did the advice given by jcollie about allowing projects to enable CREATE_TICKET to anonymous users not fix this issue?

As you highlighted in your first comment, people choose to require logins to block spam, amonf other reasons.

This bug report is not about the two choices: allow anonymous bug posting, require log in to bug post. That's a perfectly valid choice for the admin to make, trading off the ease of use of anonymous posting for people with bugs against potential admin time weeding out spam.

This bug report is about the UI glitch in the case where login is required.

It's a reasonably serious bug, in the sense that I've show two examples of experienced developers who couldn't figure it out and were driven by frustration to complain about it on their blogs. Most people just give up. For example, from the comments of one: "I’ve put off reporting several bugs to several different projects just because I can’t remember where the damn register link is..."

It's also reasonably serious in the sense that this is fedora infrastructure which will potentially be used by many projects, spreading the bug far and wide.

I do not think it is very helpful to say that project admins can either have a Trac which is full of spam or a Trac which is so difficult to use that people can't or won't.

I've just fixed ticket 504.

So, whats left here is that you would like the new ticket button to always be available and point to the register link if you aren't logged in?

In order for that to happen:

  • Someone has to package up and maintain the PermRedirectPlugin

  • Someone has to package up and maintain (and actually make sure it works) the snippet in the upstream trac bug you mention. (The one who wrote it notes that it's completely untested and now it's 4 years old).

Personally, I think having the "Fedora Account Sign Up" button should be sufficent...

Closing this now, feel free to re-open if there's further action to take.

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