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A question I recently saw was closed for being a bug, and one of the commenters pointed to the bug report ticket that was open for it. However, the linked bug report (and, in fact, the only related bug report in the system's tracker) had an "unconfirmed" status, and had been open for nearly three months, nor had seen any activity in over a month.

This led me to wonder - should questions here really be closed as bugs if there are no confirmed bugs in the relevant system's tracker? While I think they should certainly be referenced ("hey, there is a bug report open on this already that might be of interest to you, but it's not yet confirmed"), bugs that aren't confirmed aren't acknowledged by the team as being a bug, and the bug report's status can just as easily be changed to "invalid," "not a bug," etc., effectively nullifying/invalidating the AskUbuntu verdict that the question is a bug.

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The reason for closing as a bug is not just because there is (what should be) a better resource elsewhere, it's to make sure that people file bugs and subscribe to things.

If there's a bug already, that just helps to confirm that something somebody is talking about is a bug.

If there's no bug already, that's all the more reason they should be filing a new one instead of posting about it here.

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  • But what good does an inactive bug report do?
    – Shauna
    Commented Sep 3, 2012 at 23:28
  • @Shauna More than a but report on here will ever do. We're not designed to take bugs. Package and project maintainers don't subscribe to their products here.
    – Oli Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2012 at 23:28
  • I'm not saying that this is place for bug reports, but unless there's substantial crossover between the bug tracker's community and the AU community, there's still a reasonably good chance that someone with an immediate solution will come along (and the solution may not always be kosher in the bug tracker, such as using different software) if the question is still open.
    – Shauna
    Commented Sep 3, 2012 at 23:34
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    And that's why we don't close all problems as bugs. The process is subjective but it really doesn't depend on there being an existing bug in the wild.
    – Oli Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2012 at 23:40
  • "it's to make sure that people file bugs and subscribe to things." - Ask Ubuntu and Launchpad are two different forums catering to two different types of people. I expect Ask Ubuntu users to be regular folks who need help with a problem. I expect folks who lurk on bug trackers to be savvy users. Why would you force an un-savvy user to swim with the sharks?
    – user207039
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 3:43
  • @noloader I'm not having this conversation on a 18-month-old thread. I'll answer on your question.
    – Oli Mod
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 9:52
  • @Oli - no problem. I was not interested in conversing either.
    – user207039
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 9:59

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