Comment 26 for bug 434733

Today I filed bug #975939. Shortly afterwards apport added "This particular crash has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug #954736, so is being marked as such." OK, fine. But that's an automated service, and since #954736 is private, I have no way of confirming whether it really IS a duplicate.

Additionally, there is a huge irony, since apport adds "Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report.". Great. :( How the [ahem] do I do that, if the other bug is private?

Wouldn't it be far more useful if the OTHER bug is marked as a duplicate of the public one? Then likewise any further bug reports that apport believes are duplicates of #954736 would instead also be marked as duplicates of the public one.

People here seem to be focussed on whether to give a 403, a 404, a more friendly report, etc etc, yet there is a far more fundamental problem, namely how reporting of duplication is organised.

I was going to ask if this topic is appropriate for this bug, or should I be opening a new one? But then I found #396406, which is absolutely spot on, but has been closed (!!!) by referring to this bug.