How Do I Set Up a Public Bug Tracker?

A public bug tracker shows players what's broken and being worked on, which builds trust and deflects duplicate reports, but exposing your entire bug list has downsides. The key is curation. Here's how to set up a public tracker that captures the benefits while controlling the risks.

Decide What to Expose

The first decision is scope. A fully public list of every bug exposes flaws and sets expectations you'll be held to; a curated view of the major known issues gives most of the benefit with less downside. For most games, curated is the sweet spot, acknowledge the significant problems without advertising every trivial one.

Bugnet lets you keep your full bug list internal while publishing a curated set of known issues, so you control exactly what's shown. Deciding what to expose is the core setup step: it determines whether your public tracker builds trust or just airs your laundry.

Publish Status So Players See Progress

A public tracker's value comes from showing not just what's broken but that you're on it. Publishing each known issue with a status, acknowledged, in progress, fixed, tells players you're aware and working, which is what turns frustration into patience and makes the page worth maintaining.

Bugnet's public tracker shows issue status fed from your real tracking, so players see genuine progress. Status is what makes a public tracker reassuring rather than alarming: a list of acknowledged, in-progress issues signals competence, not chaos.

Let Players Upvote to Reduce Duplicates

A public tracker also deflects duplicate reports: when players can see an issue is already known and add their vote instead of filing a new report, you get a sense of demand and less repetitive volume. The upvotes double as a soft signal of what your community cares about.

Bugnet supports upvotes on public issues, so players rally behind existing reports rather than creating duplicates. Setting up a public bug tracker is curating what to show, publishing status, and enabling upvotes, the combination that builds trust and cuts duplicate reports without over-exposing your game.

Keep your full list internal, publish a curated view of major known issues with status, and let players upvote. You get trust and duplicate-deflection without exposing every minor flaw.