Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

I think "merged" (to another bug report) describes better what it means; it's the terminology used by Google Code (which IMHO is generally horrible but sometimes has a point).
Extremely low priority proposal, almost surely upstream and/or WONTFIX, which I file just to track the following circular discussion we had on #wikimedia-tech and which it would help to avoid in the future. ;-)

2012-09-05  2.42 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: exercises in logic clashes? https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36096#c3
2012-09-05  2.43 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: What?
2012-09-05  2.43 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: Why did you re-open that bug?
2012-09-05  2.44 < Brooke> We dupe down unless there's a really good reason to dupe up. In this case, you duped up from a bug with a lot of explanation to a bug with a single sentence.
2012-09-05  2.45 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: you didn't explain this supposed convention
2012-09-05  2.45 < Brooke> Which part is confusing?
2012-09-05  2.45 < Nemo_bis> I keep the most useful bug open, surely not the most confusing one
2012-09-05  2.46 < Brooke> It's about courtesy to the bug filer.
2012-09-05  2.46 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: none, perhaps the part which was missing
2012-09-05  2.46 < Brooke> Saying "oh, your bug is a duplicate" when it was filed months or years earlier isn't very polite.
2012-09-05  2.46 < Nemo_bis> I don't see how.
2012-09-05  2.46 < Nemo_bis> When someone closes my bug as a duplicate my reaction is "oh, nice, someone else has noticed my bug elsewhere!"
2012-09-05  2.47 < Nemo_bis> "Oh, he even described it better!"
2012-09-05  2.47 < Nemo_bis> "Hey, this summary is wonderful"
2012-09-05  2.47 < Nemo_bis> etc. etc.
2012-09-05  2.47 < Brooke> If you really liked Niklas's description better, you can copy and paste to the old bug.
2012-09-05  2.48 < Brooke> And if there are indepedent problems with the original bug, they can be fixed.
2012-09-05  2.48 < Nemo_bis> no
2012-09-05  2.48 < Nemo_bis> uh?
2012-09-05  2.49 < Brooke> Duplicate usually means "you filed a bug that has already been filed." Duping up doesn't make much sense.
2012-09-05  2.49 < Nemo_bis> I disgree with your definition
2012-09-05  2.49 < Nemo_bis> {{citation needed}}
2012-09-05  2.49 < Brooke> It's only ever done when it's too onerous to copy the comments from the newer bug.
2012-09-05  2.50 < Nemo_bis> {{citation needed}}
2012-09-05  2.50 < Brooke> > The problem is a duplicate of an existing bug.
2012-09-05  2.50 < Brooke> That's what our docs say.
2012-09-05  2.50 < Nemo_bis> Yes and it's different from what you said
2012-09-05  2.51 < Nemo_bis> anyway part of my confusion was cause by the ignorance of the verbs "dupe up" and "dupe down", I admit
2012-09-05  2.52 < Nemo_bis> I've never had much luck with English phrasal verbs
2012-09-05  2.52 < Brooke> It's also kind of made-up English. ;-)
2012-09-05  2.52 < Nemo_bis> indeed
2012-09-05  2.52 < Brooke> I think there's a judgment being made on the bug filer when we resolve their bug.
2012-09-05  2.52 < Brooke> In the case of duplicates, I think it's unfair to say "well, you made a copy of a bug that came after yours."
2012-09-05  2.53 < Nemo_bis> marking as duplicate is just moving the bug, not trashing it
2012-09-05  2.53 < Brooke> It's distorted.
2012-09-05  2.53 < Nemo_bis> it's NOT what it says
2012-09-05  2.53 < Nemo_bis> don't repeat it
2012-09-05  2.53 < Brooke> You mean don't make a copy of it?
2012-09-05  2.53 < Nemo_bis> «say "well, you made a copy of a bug that came after yours."»
2012-09-05  2.53 < Nemo_bis> ok, as I sais, this is a logic problem
2012-09-05  2.53 < Brooke> That is what it's saying.
2012-09-05  2.54 < Brooke> You're labeling the old bug as a duplicate (a copy) of a future bug.
2012-09-05  2.54 < Nemo_bis> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation
2012-09-05  2.54 < Nemo_bis> you're messing up with tense
2012-09-05  2.54 < Brooke> spagewmf: Global renames are pretty painful.
2012-09-05  2.54 < Nemo_bis> lead section is horrible; better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation#Definition
2012-09-05  2.55 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: Are you saying a duplicate is not a copy?
2012-09-05  2.55 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: I've no idea how the two terms differ
2012-09-05  2.56 < Brooke> Hmmm.
2012-09-05  2.56 < Brooke> I think I see what you're saying.
2012-09-05  2.56 < Nemo_bis> light came
2012-09-05  2.56 < Nemo_bis> :p
2012-09-05  2.56 < Brooke> But even with a copy, you still have the original.
2012-09-05  2.56 < Brooke> There's always the one that came first. It's timestamped, even.
2012-09-05  2.57 < Nemo_bis> I see duplicates just as another way to mark templates.
2012-09-05  2.57 < Brooke> templates?
2012-09-05  2.57 < Nemo_bis> It's different from blocker vs. blocked
2012-09-05  2.57 < Nemo_bis> bugs, sorry
2012-09-05  2.57 < Nemo_bis> It's different from blocker vs. blocked only in that it doesn't have nice graphs, but that's a bugzilla issue
2012-09-05  2.57 < Brooke> Right, but there's something to be said about the sequential nature of the bugs.
2012-09-05  2.57 < Nemo_bis> naaaaaaaaaaaaaah
2012-09-05  2.57 < Brooke> They're chronologically sequential.
2012-09-05  2.58 < Brooke> So to say "39000 is a dupe of 2400" is just wrong. :-/
2012-09-05  2.58 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: doesn't make any sense
2012-09-05  2.58 < Brooke> What doesn't?
2012-09-05  2.58 < Brooke> That view?
2012-09-05  2.58 < Nemo_bis> "The problem is a duplicate of an existing bug." != "The problem was a duplicate of a bug existing before its creation"
2012-09-05  2.59 < Brooke> That it doesn't make sense is what I've been saying. ;-)
2012-09-05  2.59 < Nemo_bis> aka you're adding unstated assumptions somewhere
2012-09-05  2.59 < Brooke> They're not unstated. The bugs are chronologically sequential.
2012-09-05  2.59 < Brooke> They're ordered.
2012-09-05  2.59 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: the correct definition is the first, you're trying to impose the second
2012-09-05  2.59 < Brooke> You're viewing them as unordered.
2012-09-05  3.00 < Brooke> Which doesn't make much sense, because they're ordered. And timestamped.
2012-09-05  3.00 < Nemo_bis> ordering doesn't mean that the first has some entitlemenet
2012-09-05  3.00 < Brooke> It does when you're determining which to keep open.
2012-09-05  3.00 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: tautology
2012-09-05  3.00 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-come,_first-served
2012-09-05  3.01 < Brooke> It's a fairly old principle...
2012-09-05  3.03 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: which is not stated anywhere in our bugzilla; besides, a dupe is not unserved, the issue it is about is just moved elsewhere
2012-09-05  3.04 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: I kind of always assumed that everyone else looked at the numbering and felt similarly.
2012-09-05  3.04 < Brooke> But, sure, it could/should be better documented.
2012-09-05  3.09 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: actually, when someone closes my bug as duplicate I receive an email which says I've been kindly added to the cc of the other bug. I've always taken that as a kind redirect, a pointer, a "let's continue here". 
2012-09-05  3.10 < Brooke> Nemo_bis: I personaly don't like having my bugs marked as duplicates.
2012-09-05  3.10 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: why
2012-09-05  3.10 < Brooke> It usually means to me that I was stupid and couldn't find the original bug.
2012-09-05  3.10 < Brooke> Or the original bug was vauge.
2012-09-05  3.10 < Brooke> vague
2012-09-05  3.10 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: it doesn't if the other bug has been filed afterwards 
2012-09-05  3.11 < Nemo_bis> so this case doesn't make anyone feel stupid
2012-09-05  3.11 < Brooke> It can also make me as a bug filer feel ignored.
2012-09-05  3.11 < Brooke> I dunno.
2012-09-05  3.11 < Brooke> I view it as a principle of fairness.
2012-09-05  3.11 < Nemo_bis> I too feel stupid in the other case, but I think "oh well, I've added some sort of redirect for people searching my definition of this bug"
2012-09-05  3.12 < Brooke> Except resolved bugs rarely show up in searches. ;-)
2012-09-05  3.12 < Nemo_bis> Brooke: duplicates are shown by default
2012-09-05  3.12 < Brooke> Fair enough.
2012-09-05  3.12 < Nemo_bis> which is another reason why bugzilla surely doesn't treat them as trash as you seem to say
2012-09-05  3.13 < Nemo_bis> maybe we should call it RESOLVED #REDIRECT
2012-09-05  3.14 < Nemo_bis> and a bug like that receiving any sort of change after years is a relief for the reporter (at least when I'm the reporter), whatever the change