Bug Status perceptions and pyschological impact

[TJ <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been working with launchpad bugs as a reporter and more lately as a
bug-hunter and there's always been an issue with perceived
user-friendliness of 'Status' I've railed against.

When a bug is resolved through some combination of events, or has just
gone away often as a result of some update, the only option is to mark
the bug 'Invalid' as I understand it (Won't Fix/ Fix xxx aren't
appropriate).

Psychologically I've never been comfortable with this since the bug
reporter gets the feeling they wasted the someone's time, or their
efforts weren't appreciated. It can be highly demotivating for casual
users of the bug-tracker who 'just want to help'.

I'm hacking kernel and other bugs and yet I still get that feeling and I
know what I'm doing and how bug reporting works, so I extrapolate my
feelings to less well-informed users and grow concerned.

I'm guessing this has come up before but I couldn't find anything
specific to the issue of the chilling effect on users of marking a valid
bug that has somehow been fixed outside the bug-tracker process as
'Invalid'.

I noticed Mario Limonciello's comments about the bug-expiration spree
and it spurred me into querying this since the combined effect on users
of the abrupt-sounding 'Invalid' is the impression that their efforts
were not appreciated and is demotivating.

I find myself looking to mark bugs that have 'gone away' as "Resolved"
to reflect what might be non-trivial user effort to find a solution.

In Mario's case a status that is more psychologically friendly would be
"Inactive" or similar language.

So from the standpoint of users the allocation of a status that sounds
more friendly and appreciative of their efforts would be an improvement.
Something like:

New > Incomplete > Invalid

New > Incomplete > Resolved

New > Incomplete > Inactive

New > Incomplete > Triaged   > Won't Fix
                   Confirmed

New > Incomplete > Triaged   > In Progress > Fix Committed > Fix Released
                   Confirmed


Thoughts?

TJ.
IntuitiveNipple