As a user of software, what bothers me a lot is that some software packages don't have clear contact details and instructions for reporting bugs.

Dear developers, if you release any software package, please include at least the following information in the documentation.

  1. The address of the official website of that package, from where you can download the newest version of the package and anything related. (This is less of a problem with CPAN modules, because it's easier to guess, but it can be surprisingly hard to find for some other packages, especially when installed through an OS distribution package or other third party source.)
  2. Address of where to send bug reports and where to review previous bug reports. (This is a problem for CPAN modules too. Eg. until someone told me, it wasn't clear to me that Mark Lehmann does not like the CPAN bug tracker.)
  3. Some hints for what information to include in bug reports. (I have sometimes forgotten important pieces of information like the version of the module. Yes, it's my fault when I do that, but such a checklist can still help.)

These can help a lot to users like me, and it's not much work for you, just a few paragraphs (of mostly cut-and-paste text), so please include them. (To Anon OP: you might already know this, so don't take this personally. I'm asking developers in general.)

Also, when you get such bad reports, instead of trying to reproduce the problem from very few information, have you tried just replying the submitters asking for more information? I don't really know if that works, just wondering.

In reply to Re: Sometimes, just saying "Thank You" is not good enough by ambrus
in thread Sometimes, just saying "Thank You" is not good enough by Anonymous Monk

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