Sidewinder ticket guidelines

• DOs
• DON'Ts

There is as much responsibility on the individual(s) raising a ticket to provide good information as there is on the individual(s) responding to a ticket to address the problem. A good ticket assists in the swift resolultion of an issue by being clear, accurate, comprehensive and by omitting anything that is irrelevant or speculative in its nature. A bad ticket can lead to an issue being delayed or even ignored, if the information that it contains is misleading, incomplete or unrelated to the core subject. By reading and adhering to the following lists of DOs and DON'Ts, you can ensure that your own tickets are good ones that get resolved swiftly.

DOs

Do:

• Search for an existing ticket before raising a new one;
• Open a single ticket for each bug, feature request or task that you are reporting;
• Write a title for the ticket that concisely summarises the specific bug, feature or task that you're describing;
• Provide details of the Sidewinder version that you're using;
• Provide full details of the appropriate platform or platforms;
• Provide clear, comprehensive instructions for reproducing a bug;
• Provide a minimal test case that demonstrates a bug or missing feature, in isolation;
• Limit your description of the ticket to the facts of the matter, without any other speculation.

DON'Ts

Don't:

• Raise a ticket that duplicates an existing, open ticket;
• Group multiple bugs, feature requests or tasks into a single ticket;
• Write a generic title for the ticket, such as "Error" or "Crash";
• Omit any information, regardless of how unimportant it may seem;
• Attach an unnecessarily large or complex test case (e.g. your whole application) to a ticket that concerns only a small part of that case;
• Attempt to diagnose the cause of a bug or suggest a suitable fix, based on the external symptoms of a problem that you're reporting.