bug report workflow could use some improvement

[macosforge@…]

currently, I click "Report a bug" on the webpage and I'm being greeted with "login with email and password".
First fail: it doesn't tell me what to do when I don't an account ("register" is at the top right and not that intuitive), but more seriously,
2) why require a login at all? millions of blogs can live without that. Let me enter an optional(!) email address to get notified if I want to, maybe make me confirm it via an optin link sent there (to catch spelling mistakes) - but the whole process needs to be much more accessible (see any study on how many users you lose if you require users to log in to your site).

another small suggestion - it's good to refer to the bug submission guidelines, maybe a small executive summary would be nice:

• tell the user to search for duplicates first
  
• explain the format for summary: [port] [version] [concise description] - example: ...
  
• use { { { ... } } } in description for terminal output)

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

We require you to register for and log in to Trac to prevent spam. It's the same reason we require you to subscribe to our mailing lists before you can post to them. Requiring you to register also ensures we have your valid email address, which is essential so that we can contact you with follow questions or suggestions. So I don't think it would be wise to allow anonymous submissions. And if you're ok with providing your email address and verifying it, well then that's exactly what the existing registration process does.

Yes we could perhaps adjust the appearance of the login page so that the registration link is more prominent (e.g. adding text like "Not registered? Register here" with an appropriate link, near the login form). I'm not certain to what extent the Trac software that we use allows us to customize that. I'm Cc'ing our server administrator who is the only one with access to adjust the Trac installation.

The new ticket page already has in large red letters at the top of the page the words "Please read the Ticket Guidelines before submitting" which are a link to the relevant section in our guide. Bill, it might be clearer that this is a link if you would adjust the CSS formatting so that the linked portion is underlined.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

jmpp is no longer active. See #44809.

Maybe Shree (CC'ed) can look into this?

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

As login is tied to GitHub and there is a big link to the ticket guidelines, I do not think there is much left of the original request.