Request for help: bug tracker

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

I've got a bit of a dilemma going on here.

End users are finding the OfflineIMAP bug tracker, which is a good
thing.  There are people submitting bugs and patches there, which is
good.

On the downside, there are also people submitting what are essentially
support issues and questions there.  These do not amount to
identifiable bugs in OfflineIMAP that can be addressed by committing
some sort of patch to the OfflineIMAP repo, and ought to have been
directed to the mailing list instead.

I'm wondering:

What do you all think would be a good way to encourage newbies to
participate in this small community in a constructive way?

What would be a good way to minimize the number of non-bugs reported
to the bug tracker?  Should the bug tracker be nixed, or bug creation
privileges guarded?

I suppose I also ought to write up some patch submission guidelines.
Patches that add new features and also update the documentation to
describe those features are far more likely to be committed than those
that are undocumented, for instance ;-)

I unfortunately am past the point where I have a lot of time to
support OfflineIMAP newbies or document others' code, so I have to
play somewhat of a gatekeeper I suppose.

Any other ideas on ways to strengthen this community would also be
welcome.

-- John