Enabling an Observer to comment on their issues

The way dev.java.net is setup - an Observer can only submit issues but not comment on them as many of you know. I don’t think it’s possible to change this.

However it is possible to create a new project role (eg. “Tester”) - and give the new role all of the permissions of Observer with the additional permission granted: “Project Issue Tracking - Change”

An owner of a project can do this by following “Edit this project”->“Edit project-specific roles”->“Add Project Role” (having the Observer roles open in the background for reference is probably a good idea.

Maybe we could have somthing like this for xith3d so that non-developers can activly participate in the Issue tracking?

Will.

My vote is definitely +1, or even +2 if possible

Yuri

+1

not so sure about casting two votes :wink:

It’s a bit silly - there is no such permission as “comment on an issue” only “change issues” which gives people slightly more controll than just commenting on them (ie they can resolve them and stuff). Maybe collabnet should have a “comment on issue” permission and have it set in the Observer role but they don’t so we just have to be a little picky not to give Tester status to absolutely everyone.

Will.

Well, we potentially can even set up our own installation of Bugzilla or something like… but I prefer to have this working on Java.net, as well as more convenient forums.

Yuri

I agree no point creating extra work (not related to making Xith better) either - the workaround will solve our problem - it’d be a good feature for collabnet to add in the future however.

I guess it’s up to David then :slight_smile:

Will.

Or if he is busy with enhancements somebody of the community should contact CollabNet support and check what is possible.

Yuri

One can create a new role such as this very quickly.

Steps:

goto Membership Management -> Add a new role
fill in the text fields, give it a name, eg. “Beta Tester”
Click “Clone permissions from another role” select “Observer”
Click Create

Then once created, click “Beta Tester” to edit it - click “Add Permission”, select “Issue Tracking - Change”, and save.

Will.

My vote is +1 to add Beta Tester role to Xith3D project also.

Yuri

bump

Its not letting me do this. I don’t see a “member management” option anywhere.

[]http://xith3d.dev.java.net/
[
]Click ‘Edit this project’ link at top of page
[] Right down the bottom click Edit project-specific roles which takes you to https://xith3d.dev.java.net/servlets/RoleList
[
] Click Add Project Role - create a new role based on the Observer
[] Edit that role and click “Add New Permission”
[
] Add the permission “Project Issue Tracking - Change”

Users with that permission are able to comment on issues and change their status etc. More permissions are given than just “add comment to issue” but it will be good if the project gets very big as it will mean any of the beta testers can field questions and mark bugs as dupes etc.

Collabnet is like a maze :slight_smile:

Will.

Thanks for the help. Done.

no worries, thanks for adding it, I think it will prove useful.

Will.

Do we need to request this new role in addition to our Observer Status, so that we can comment on our own issues?

Eric

Yes.

the reson being that unlike the new one, the Observer role is a system wide role so that David can’t modify it’s permissions.

Will.