Reply to The Vague Email option A: This might be one of the 8 reported errors in your version, does any of the following apply to your situation (link-to-bug-tickets)? Please check if upgrading to version+1 beta (link) fixes the problem. If not, please if possible provide an exact step-by-step reproduction recipe, as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors.
Reply to The Vague Email option B: This is not a known error, and XYZ works for me. Please if possible provide an exact step-by-step reproduction recipe, as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors.
Reply to The End of the World Email: None. This is always more political than technical, so the department leader gets to handle these ... people.
Reply to The Red Herring Email: Yes, it is working. Can you please give details as described on as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors ?
Reply to The Ideal Email: Thank you for the detailed report. We will start working on this issue immediately/next tuesday/next month. You can try workaround ZYX or download version+1 beta in the meantime. If the problem becomes urgent, please let us know.
I find that for each of these e-mails, I make a decision about what to do based on who the user is. Some users are much more careful about writing an 'End of the world' e-mail than others and should be handled accordingly.
Comments
This is how we handle those emails:
Reply to The Vague Email option A: This might be one of the 8 reported errors in your version, does any of the following apply to your situation (link-to-bug-tickets)? Please check if upgrading to version+1 beta (link) fixes the problem. If not, please if possible provide an exact step-by-step reproduction recipe, as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors.
Reply to The Vague Email option B: This is not a known error, and XYZ works for me. Please if possible provide an exact step-by-step reproduction recipe, as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors.
Reply to The End of the World Email: None. This is always more political than technical, so the department leader gets to handle these ... people.
Reply to The Red Herring Email: Yes, it is working. Can you please give details as described on as described on http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors ?
Reply to The Ideal Email: Thank you for the detailed report. We will start working on this issue immediately/next tuesday/next month. You can try workaround ZYX or download version+1 beta in the meantime. If the problem becomes urgent, please let us know.
I find that for each of these e-mails, I make a decision about what to do based on who the user is. Some users are much more careful about writing an 'End of the world' e-mail than others and should be handled accordingly.