As a maintainer of an open source project there are things that can help to make your role easier. One of them is encouraging useful issues being filed on the project with good information about the problem or suggestion. In this post to his site Sebastian De Deyne shares a few helpful hints on what can make for a good issue.

Maintaining a number of open source projects comes with a number of issues. Reporting a good issue will result in a more engaged approach from project maintainers. Don't forget: there's a human behind every project.

His suggestions include:

• as much detail as possible ("X is broken" isn't useful)
• having a single point or suggestion per issue
• being polite (remember, open source maintainers aren't often paid for this work)

His last point might be the most important: making a human connection. Sometimes it's easy to forget that there's a real person on the other end of the line. If you work with the person reporting the issue rather than just focusing on the technical parts it can make it an easier and more pleasurable process for all involved.