[support] Ending support thread

[Fernando Silva]

Answers between...

On 1/21/07, Larry Garfield <larry at garfieldtech.com> wrote:
> This is sort of a meta-support question, but this seemed the best place to ask
> it. :-)
>
> I periodically respond to support items in the issue queue.  As an issue, it
> can and should have its status set to "fixed" when the issue has been
> resolved, one way or another.
>
> Who decides when it's resolved, though?

Anyone. Because anyone also can open any issue.

> Should I set a support issue to fixed when I feel I've answered the question?

Yes. Because the person that asked for that certainly will see and
mark as active if needed.

> Should I wait for the questioner to close it himself?

No. Because there are hundreds of issues that are never closed because
the questioner never "had time" to close them.

> Close it for him after he posts a "thanks that worked" post (which often doesn't happen)?

A questioner rarely thanks for the effort after it was solved. In fact
a questioner, most of the time marks the issue as a *bug* instead of
*support request*!

> Should a support ticket be a special case that auto-closes after X days of no activity?

Of course it should! I have a rule: I close all support requests with
1 month. (NOTE: I'm asking for this for a quite some time now)

> Judging by the fact that magico recently went through and closed dozens,
> possibly over a hundred, stale issue queues,

It's an hard job, but someone must do it. *One thousand and hundred*
issues already analyzed, re-classified, patches submitted, owners
contacted, features rediscovered, old bugs fixed....

> it seems that whatever should be done isn't.  What should be done?

I'm glad, that you are offering your time to do an even better job,
and help in this hard task.
Perhaps you can do an audit to my job, so everyone can be assured that
I'm doing the right thing?