Add a quick-start guide.

Add details of what happens when a bug is closed.

1 files changed, 56 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/admin/notes/bugtracker b/admin/notes/bugtracker
index 1a9f6f2bd4c..964cc869b8f 100644
--- a/admin/notes/bugtracker
+++ b/admin/notes/bugtracker
@@ -2,6 +2,36 @@ NOTES ON THE EMACS BUG TRACKER   -*- outline -*-
 
 The Emacs Bug Tracker can be found at http://debbugs.gnu.org/
 
+* Quick-start guide
+
+This is 95% of all you will ever need.
+
+** How do I report a bug?
+Use M-x report-emacs-bug, or send mail to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
+If you want to Cc someone, use an "X-Debbugs-CC" header instead.
+
+** How do I comment on a bug?
+Reply to a mail on the bug-gnu-emacs list in the normal way.
+Or send a mail to 123@debbugs.gnu.org.
+
+If the bug is old and closed, you may have to unarchive it first.
+Send a mail to control@debbugs.gnu.org with
+unarchive 123
+on the first line of the body.
+
+** How do I close a bug?
+Send a mail to 123-done@debbugs.gnu.org.  In the body, explain
+why the bug is being closed.
+
+** How do I set bug meta-data?
+By mailing commands to control@debbugs.gnu.org.  Place commands at the
+start of the message body, one per line.
+
+severity 123 serious|important|normal|minor|wishlist
+tags 123 moreinfo|unreproducible|wontfix|patch
+
+* More detailed information
+
 For a list of all bugs, see http://debbugs.gnu.org/db/pa/lemacs.html
 This is a static page, updated once a day.  There is also a dynamic
 list, generated on request, but since there are many bug reports this
@@ -110,11 +140,7 @@ Remember to fix FOO, as discussed on emacs-devel at http://... .
 ** Not interested in tracker control messages (tags being set, etc)?
 Discard mails matching:
 
-^X-Emacs-PR-Message: transcript
-
-When you close a bug, you get a message matching:
-
-^X-Emacs-PR-Message: closed
+^X-Emacs-PR-Message: (transcript|closed)
 
 ** How to avoid multiple copies of mails.
 If you reply to reports in the normal way, this should work fine.
@@ -131,6 +157,31 @@ There is no need to cc the address without the "-done" part or the
 submitter; they get copies anyway so this will just result in more
 duplicate mail.
 
+** Details of closing a bug.
+(For information only)
+Sending a mail to 123-done does the following:
+
+1) Mark the bug as closed in the database.
+
+2) Send a mail to the original submitter telling them that their bug
+has been closed.  This mail has a header:
+
+X-Emacs-PR-Message: they-closed 123
+
+3) Send a mail to you and to the emacs-bug-tracker list confirming
+that the bug has been closed.  This mail has a header:
+
+X-Emacs-PR-Message: closed 123
+
+4) Send a copy of your mail to the bug-gnu-emacs list in exactly the
+same way as if you had sent mail to "123" (sans -done). This mail has
+headers:
+
+X-Emacs-PR-Message: cc-closed 123
+Mail-Followup-To: 123@debbugs.gnu.org, ...
+
+(This is Emacs-specific.  Normally the bug list gets the same mail as in 3).
+
 ** Setting bug parameters.
 There are two ways to set the parameters of bugs in the database
 (tags, severity level, etc).  When you report a new bug, you can