Why I am making defects public

I am liking the concept of making "charity" defect reports. Rather than ranting and raving about the ineptitude of developer X because of problem Y, I will raise a defect, make a post and hope that it gets fixed. I call it a charity because I won't charge for this service; it's more about making software better. Every second post won't be a defect report either. More likely no more than one a week depending on how many bugs are inhibiting my current work. I won't go looking for defects; I get paid to do that already and have much better things to do with my spare time.

My justification and reasoning for making them public and not just silently reporting the defect are as follows:

Firstly, one can never be sure that a defect will be fixed once it has been reported. The vendor may just ignore the defect thinking it only effects a minority. Making it public can allows other users to become aware of the defect and can therefore add their weight to the "urgency factor".

Secondly, inexperienced users often suffer from a lack of self-confidence with computers. When something doesn't work they blame themselves. If they read about a defect that I or someone else raises they realise it wasn't their fault. This may strengthen their resolve towards continuing the use of the application.

Next, some bugs present an inability to achieve a workflow. Making the issues apparent may not provide the workaround, but may enable someone else to uncover a workaround. This can be appended to the initial defect which is now the common source for knowledge on the defect. This can maximise the dissipation of knowledge to users and provides a problem and solution in a single place. This leads me to my next point.

This is all indexed by Google. When I have a problem with an application I search for a solution, then a workaround and finally, if I can't find either, a different application. By making a defect report public I can help others in their defect resolution quests.

Defect resolution

With the Nokia defect, someone posted a comment saying "thanks". I don't expect that. What I do expect, as I'll raise a defect directly with the vendor/developer, is that when the defect is resolved, they will notify me. If such an event occurs. I will edit and top-post my original message with the updated information saying something like: "Defect has been fixed in version X.Y. Upgrade to solve this problem".

This now provides the ideal scenario. Anyone who hasn't upgraded yet, and searches for the problem, will find the defect and solution posted together.

note: I don't expect every defect I raise to be solved post-haste. Some may never be. But I've done what I can to help the situation outside of forking my own branch of the code and fixing it myself.