[impdev] Communications policy

[Armin Weatherwax]

Hi,
my  ideas:
 
>   * What should users do with crash logs?

Current state is:
* either the crash log is posted to a public location - with the 
downside that its data might be of privacy concern. Take as example 
avatar names and uuids of people around; or the simulator visited has  
a specific sort of content; etc..
* or the crash log is sent per mail - with the downside only the person 
who got the mail does even know that it was sent, and also the others 
can't use it for bug hunting. 

 So whatever is better should make it possible  that all developers have 
access to the logs while users privacy stays protected within that 
framework. My uncooked ideas are: have a closed mailing list or a 
public key for  attaching encrypted reports to the issue tracker.  

>   * How should users provide feedback about a release (stable or
> experimental)? In the past we created a forum thread for each
> release, but I think that should change. I'd say that bugs should be
> reported on the issue tracker as usual, but other feedback
> (questions, general complaints, praise, etc.) should be posted as a
> comment on the blog post announcing the release. Does that sound
> alright, or can you think of a better way?

I think having feedback threads in the forums is quite useful for users 
to find out about new features and about "hey am I doing it wrong or is 
that a bug?", as long as we haven't the the Q&A/knowledge base running.

 Once Q&A/knowledge base  is up I guess we won't have to do much to get 
people using it instead -  have a look at stackoverflow, it's just 
conveniant. For anything that dosn't seem to fit anywhere else the 
forums are a good place - and of course forums are the best place to 
discuss new features, ideas, and concepst - or flaws of existing ones. 

  About feedback about releases on the blog I think is only misleading 
users to think it would be a good place for asking for support or for 
bug reporting, which it absolutely isn't. Rather than having blog 
feedback for releases activated, I'd say have links to the issue 
tracker, to a feedback thread in the forums, and to the Q&A/knowledge 
base.

>   * What should users do if they experience a problem and aren't sure
> whether it is a bug with the viewer, something wrong with their
> system, or user error? I was thinking perhaps they should:
>
>     1. First, check the knowledgebase/Q&A (when we get it set up).
>     2. If the knowledgebase doesn't have a solution, get help from
> other users/our support team by posting in a "Tech Support" forum
> section or using the inworld group chat.
>     3. If it turns out to be a bug in the viewer, check the issue
> tracker for an existing bug report, and file a new bug report if
> there is none yet.

 Yeah. Some will still ask in the forums where to go, but I think thats 
anyway more managable than it is right now. 

Armin