How to post a problem report

[BIM]

Anybody who ever tried to help people with aproblem will probably have received at least one bad report. Reports that say nothing ("It doesn't work!"); reports that make no sense; reports that don't give enough information; reports that give wrong information. Reports of problems that turn out to be user error; reports of problems that turn out to be the fault of somebody else's program; reports of problems that turn out to be network failures.

There's a reason why technical support is seen as a horrible job to be in, and that reason is bad reports. However, not all bug reports are unpleasant and sometimes this forum receives wonderfully clear, helpful, informative reports.

In this post I'll try to state clearly what makes a good report. Ideally I would like everybody in the world to read this posting any problems.

In a nutshell, the aim of an error report is to enable the help provider to see the problem failing in front of them. You can either show them in person (not very likely here), or give them careful and detailed instructions on how to make it fail. If they can make it fail, they will try to gather extra information until they know the cause. If they can't make it fail, they will have to ask you to gather that information for them (this will be the most likely here).

In error reports, try to make very clear what are actual facts ("I was at the computer and this happened") and what are speculations ("I think the problem might be this"). Leave out speculations if you want to, but don't leave out facts.

When you report an error, you are doing so because you want the problem fixed. There is no point in swearing at the helper/advisor or being deliberately unhelpful: it may be not be your fault but the bug will get fixed faster if you help them by supplying all the information they need.

Remember also that if the help is free, then the author is providing it out of kindness, so if too many people are rude to them then they may stop feeling kind.

"It doesn't work."

Give Nintendo/Microsoft or whoever some credit for basic intelligence: if the game/system/app really didn't work at all, they would probably have noticed. Since they haven't noticed, it must be working for them. Therefore, either you are doing something differently from them, or your environment is different from theirs. They need information; providing this information is the purpose of a report. More information is almost always better than less.

Many times you can find a list of known problems, it's worth reading it to see if the problem you've just found is already known or not. If it's already known, it probably isn't worth reporting again, but if you think you have more information than the report in the list, you might want to contact the post anyway. The next person to suffer this ame problem will be able to fix their problem more quickly if you post them information they didn't already have.

This essay is full of guidelines. None of them is an absolute rule. Particular helpers have particular ways they like problems to be reported.

If you are asking for help, you should state where you have already looked for the answer to your question. ("I looked in chapter 4 and section 5.2 but couldn't find anything that told me if this is possible.")

"Show me."
They may decide they need more information. They may ask you to talk them through the procedure, so that they can reproduce the problem for themselves as many times as they want.

Give the helper all the input you can think of.

There was a case of this last week when someone had a problem with a disk, people tried to help and then the guy came back with the fact his wii was modded and every other post had been a waste

When asking for help please include everything that might be relevant, and try to state exactly what you did

[Garrett]

You spelled week wrong...I mean thanks for helping me help people with their Wii's, now people can help themselves by helping other people trying to help them by giving the right information...

Try saying that 10 times fast.