Why does Launchpad email me when I change a bug?

Created by Christian Reis
Keywords:
bug mail bugmail notification
Last updated by:
Jeroen T. Vermeulen

Whenever a change is made to a bug, even if the change was made by you, an email notification is sent to the subscribers of that bug. Some people find it surprising that Launchpad would email you a message for a change that you made yourself. The rationale behind this is:

    * Most of our most active users actually want a copy of the email to
      ensure that a) the operation went through b) a thread with the
      history of the bug is stored locally. I realize that the bug
      activity log also captures this, but being able to browse offline
      is definitely a plus, and for some very important users, a requirement.

    * Any added preference is added complexity and decreased usability.
      You can argue that in this case it is negligible, but it means two
      codepaths, additional support overhead and more testing.

    * You can easily filter this email away by tracking the From: header
      together with the X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale header. You can
      read more about email filtering and bugmail headers at

        http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/procmail/qs/
        http://www.bearfruit.org/blog/2008/11/06/gmail-filters-for-launchpad-bug-email
        https://help.launchpad.net/LaunchpadMessageRationale