[conspire] Screenshot mentality

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Dire Red (deirdre at deirdre.net):

> On Fri, May 17, 2013, at 01:28 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> > I've found this weird fixation with screenshots as supposed raw
> > diagnostic data, damned near everywhere.  Helldesk (er, 'helpdesk') 
> > staff tend to be deluged with them.  What dumbfounds me, though, is when
> > helpdesk people _request_ it.
> 
> I sometimes get bugs filed as: "This site doesn't render right!" -- with
> a cropped screenshot that provides no URL and with no provided source.
> My usual answer is that we render DOMs, not screenshots. We do also
> request a screenshot as that sometimes provides a context clue,
> especially with DOM-altering extensions out there.

Well, yes:  Requesting a screenshot to show a problem with DOM-rendering
(or, in other contexts, with rendering of graphicsl, layout, etc.) would
make perfect sense.  That would be the edge case.

By contrast, a screenshot of a grep from a logfile is not in any obvious
way more informative than the provided copy and paste of plaintext.

Of course, if the guy insists that he really _does_ need a screenshot of
a console shell session, I will be glad to provide it -- in Comic Sans.  ;->