How to Improve Bug Report/Feature Request Input

[cbpelto]

This current system of reporting bugs or requesting improvements, a.k.a., features, is cumbersome, to say the least.

In the first place it is hard to find. I—who have worked with computers from the 60s—took an inordinate amount of time to find this. When it should be just a click away from Brave’s home page.

Secondly, there’s talk of a ‘template’. What is offered here is just guidelines. NOT a template.

A template is a form that has specific places on it to input the information desired by the developer. It can be done easily enough on a web-page. So I recommend the web-meister get with the program and set up a true template that is easily found from the Home page.

The data can be readily extracted into a database of your choice for compilation, correlation and analysis for prioritization.

[Mattches]

@cbpelto,
Thank you for the suggestions. You’re welcome to split hairs with the semantics of the site, but 99% of the users that pay attention to the template/guidelines/general rules of the site have been able to discern that what we are really asking for is information about their setup and/or their issue.

Which – by the way – you yourself did not follow, as you have left this “suggestion” for improvements here in the Support and Troubleshooting category which is specifically for users requesting help with actual problems. Not feature suggests or suggestions for site improvements which might go in Feature Requests or Feedback. Unless those titles are wrong in the same way “template” was?

@cbpelto

In the first place it is hard to find. I—who have worked with computers from the 60s—took an inordinate amount of time to find this. When it should be just a click away from Brave’s home page.

Apologies you had trouble finding it. I would like to note that it is quite literally one click away from the Brave homepage:

It’s also at the footer of that same official website:

As well as the footer of our Help Center:

And in the expected areas on our other socials, such as Reddit:

While we are presently working on additional support mechanisms/methods, at this time the best way to get support for an issue is here on Community.

[cbpelto]

Just to provide a bit of ‘perspective’….

RE: My Background

I’ve been working with computers since the late 60s. I bought my first of many personal computers in ’80. I used it to plan rail movements of mechanized combat forces across the country, calculating railcar types and quantities. The system was used to mobilize National Guard and Army Reserve formations across the country during Gulf War I.

I managed a Fortune 500 Company computer lab in the 90s. We laid-out and published a book almost more widely and frequently distributed as the Giddeon’s Bible. And in the management of that lab, I built database systems that inter-operated with applications to generate those books. Streamlining and standardizing data input while reducing human errof by 97% in the first year after implementation.

This household eats-sleeps-and-breaths Macs. There are four in the server closet and a lot more scattered throughout the house for various activities. I ran my own BBS in the 80s and 90s. Designed and operated my own web-pages in the early part of this millennium.

That’s just part of my overall computer experience.

RE: Suggestion

I offered a suggestion to improve your operations. You’re welcome to use it or continue to denigrate the idea of a pre-established, standardized form which REQUIRES users to fill in the proper blanks, or do whatever they want, to your chagrin.

RE: One Click from the Home Page

What is the verbiage of the ‘One Click’. It wasn’t intuitively obvious to me when I was there.

By the way, I understand your sensitivity over suggestions from the outside. I experienced it when dealing with the IT types while working for that Fortune 500 Company. Any suggestion I made to improve their activities and support of the ‘end user’, i.e. myself and my staff, was pretty much rejected. But several months later many were implemented.

It’s your ‘baby’. And suggestions that it’s not perfect are taken as an offense.

But do try to keep an open mind. It’s not YOU this is about. It’s the company……

Regards,

Chuck Pelto

[Mattches]

@cbpelto,
You’re absolutely right and I apologize for coming off salty and/or rude. The current climate both online and off has me a bit on edge and there are times where not everything I say gets filtered properly. Thank you for understanding and not laying into me as you very well have/had the right to do.

We are working on a more general web form that users can submit issues on in the (very) near future. The drawback of that system being that may potentially take longer for users to get responses via that method and more importantly (imo), user’s may ultimately get “less” help, given that a conversation submitted by form will only be between the user and the support agent.

This is opposed to a conversation here on the Community forum where, if I or any other support rep are late to respond to users (or simply glaze over their thread given the high volume of requests we get every day), other users can offer their advice or suggest actions for the requester to take. We actually have quite a strong Community here with many regulars who help solve issues just because they can.

Regardless, we are fully aware that the support flow from user --> agent can be improved and it is something we are actively working on. You should expect to see some changes or, at minimum, new additions to the flow in the upcoming weeks. I’d like to thank you again for your understanding and apologize again for letting my fingers move faster than my brain.

[cbpelto]

In the words of the immortal Lieutenant McClain……

I’m watching something I laid my life on the line for 28 years being tossed into a toilet. I’m a retired paratrooper.

I’m pleased to hear there are proposed improvements being developed. However, the concerns over slowing down process is ‘interesting’. Although I can understand the trade-off, if I get the gist of your comment correctly.

I see the value of the community forums, i.e., bulletin boards, providing advice amongst users. Albeit, I’ve seldom found the answer I’m looking for by going through such systems.

If the modified system doesn’t allow for that, perhaps a ‘sharing’ approach could be established. A user making a ‘Report-Request’ would have it placed in two places: one for the developers, e.g., a database as i proposed earlier; and on a bulletin board in the forum as well, where other users might be able to assist.

I presume Brave already has a database for holding ‘Report-Requests’.

If the system being worked on is amenable to Brave users such as myself, may I offer my services? In the 90s, as well as managing that lab, I was also a beta-tester for Apple’s Clarisworks and Filemaker Pro.

Regards,

Chuck Pelto
LTC, IN (RET)