[Done] Notify the maintainer of the filter

[Wladimir Palant]

Fury, I don't think this is something we want to do here. This is about reporting issues with a certain page, not about collecting overall statistical data from users. The latter might still be an option later - but it is a very different feature.

[Wladimir Palant]

I moved this change to Adblock Plus 1.2.1. This is a major feature and will delay Adblock Plus 1.2 release if implemented - but I would rather release the current improvements ASAP. The other two changes require less effort and might still be implemented while the object tab changes are being tested.

[ComodoF]

What if the user selects "blocking too much" but no filters from subscriptions are applied on that page? Do we disallow selecting this option in that case? Then we don't need to notify authors of all his subscriptions, it's enough to notify the ones who have filters matching on the page.

In this scenario, disabling the option may confuse unexperienced users. Also, they may thing ABP is blocking content (but may be another extension). How about a warning text? If the user still goes ahead, it could be sent to all subscriptions for futher support (assuming there is interaction with the user via forums, email, etc)

I really liked this idea of reporting issues or ad not beeing blocked, for what mentioned above my humble suggestion is disabling the input "adb is blocking too much" along with displaying: "(ABD is not blocking anything in the current page)" (in a clear readable red), so that also newbies can understand what's going on with that

keep up the good work

CF

[Wladimir Palant]

I actually meant the situation where the user has only his own filters applying - unexperienced users occasionally block something but don't know how to undo this. Maybe it is better to allow selecting this option but then show a page along the lines: "Only your own filters are applied on the current page. Here are these filters, please select the ones you would like to disable."

As to the scenario where no filters are applied - it is probably better to send the user to a webpage with useful information. It should explain how to unblock images blocked by the built-in content blocker, list third-party applications that block ads without the user being aware of it (e.g. Outpost Firewall) etc.

[Wladimir Palant]

Here come the first screenshots. This is still very much work in progress - it doesn't collect all the necessary data, edge cases (like users who don't have subscriptions) are not handled, texts are unpolished, and it doesn't have anything to send this data to. I would like to hear your feedback nevertheless.

First page (for me this one goes away after a second if I see it at all):


Second page (added "other issue" because I suspect that people will want to report Adblock Plus issues by these means as well):


Third page (here I removed the login info and marked the word "Bugs"):


Final page (comment and data merged):

[Michael]

The initial screenshots look good and should enable authors to resolve issues in the majority of cases; however, I would suggest that "Report data" is only displayed on request, as it would probably overload many users.

Will there be the option of the user providing contact details in case the author wishes to communicate with them?

[alberto]

Would it be possible to reference the "report data" in an *existing* forum post? For example, to copy-paste or access the "report data" in a human readable format (but not send the report which would create a new forum topic).

[Wladimir Palant]

After thinking about it - "other issue" probably needs special handling. It encourages people to report their issues with Adblock Plus here, I doubt that we will be able to process these reports however. Better direct them to the forum and allow sending in a report in case they want to link to it from the forum - but with no guarantees that the report will ever be looked at if they don't give the link to anybody. This is also useful if we have a user in the forum having some weird problem and want to see his data/screenshot - send him to report "other issue".

@Michael: I was thinking about an optional email address - but the idea is to show the info on a public page and I wouldn't want to have email addresses there. Maybe I can somehow make additional info available to subscription authors only...

@alberto: Sorry, I forgot to write that the current plan is no longer direct spamming of filter authors. Once a report is sent in it should be reachable via a link like "https://reports.adblockplus.org/9bcb571 ... 00200c9a66" (kept for 30 days). There will be no search functionality, to see the report you will have to know the link. The user will get that link so that he can provide it in a forum. Also, filter subscription authors will receive a daily (?) digest with all reports concerning their filter subscription - probably grouped by website and sorted by number of reports. We have the email addresses of all subscription authors on record now so that notifying them is no longer a problem.

[Michael]

I would suggest that authors receive weekly report summaries by default, although the frequency should be able to be adjusted on request. Very few subscriptions are updated daily and most maintainers do not want to constantly know about the problems reported.

[Wladimir Palant]

Ok, sounds reasonable.

[alberto]

Thanks for clarifying, this sounds like a good plan. BTW, this example URL does not work (not sure if you intended to provide a valid sample report).

Another question: Say the problem area is at the bottom of a large webpage (needs to scroll down to see that). Will the wizard show the image of the full webpage or the visible part at that time?

[Wladimir Palant]

No, I didn't mean to provide an actual link - edited my post
The subdomain for reports isn't even set up yet. And there is currently absolutely nothing on the server to deal with these reports.

The screenshot shows the entire web page. Here is one more screenshot to clarify:



Note the scrollbar on the right - it isn't part of the screenshot, you can use it to scroll down in the page.

[Wladimir Palant]

I would also like to add a "timeline" to this dialog. Along the lines of:

(1) Select issue type - (2) Attach screenshot - (3) Enter comment - (4) Send report

With one of the items being highlighted: "You are here now".

[Wladimir Palant]

Another question: Say the problem area is at the bottom of a large webpage (needs to scroll down to see that). Will the wizard show the image of the full webpage or the visible part at that time?

Actually, these screenshots can get pretty large, even when scaled down. I have almost 0.5 MB for heise.de homepage and it isn't even a particularly long page. I don't really want to start an image hosting service, maybe it is better to copy the contents of the current viewport after all - plus one screen on either side if scrollable.

[Hubird]

I don't think the screen shots have to be very high quality, wouldn't using gif's do (the size will certainally be a lot smaller) ?