What are we up to?

[Renegade]

... I never could figure out how to read through the mess, to see what bugs have been tested, and what haven't...

^ Is more my problem. I can test things, no problem, but I can never find what is NEW (what is Feature X), somewhat because of the fact the manual isn't updated often enough. Not that this is any one person's fault.

But if I ever do figure out how to test, I will be sure to contribute by making a video of how to do it effectively, for you SM.

These changes are new. But that's irrelevant, because that's not what we're looking for. The implementation of these changes could have destroyed features that were running fine since pre-0.1.
Hence why I constantly reiterate that targeted testing is bullshit and not helping.

Telling us whether those linked changes behave as intended would be nice and appreciated...but telling us whether the entirety of Ares 0.1 P1 still works as expected inside Ares almost-0.2 would be vastly more helpful.
Because the fact that those two changes went through fine means jack shit if half of our original feature base is in ruins.

Or, to answer your question of "what is Feature X": Feature X is every feature, all the time.

@SM: What is so complicated about "pick any feature and tell us what state it is in" that people need a 12-step-plan to do it?

I understand your reasoning and I understand what you're getting at, it's just a question of cost-benefit calculation: How much education can we provide before it would've been more economical to do the test ourselves, and how little information can be in a report before it becomes worthless to us?

Basically, the more help someone needs with the simple task of trying out a feature and telling us how it went, the higher the chance he's not someone who's gonna be helpful in the first place.

And before you say "beggars can't be choosers", consider that we still have to sift through the reports, helpful or not - no reports means no work, a hundred pointless reports means shitloads of work for no gain.

I'm really not trying to be negative here, I'm just trying to point out that not all testers are created equal, and that not everyone must be turned into a tester at all costs.
We're not literally looking for as many reports as possible. We're looking for as many helpful reports as possible.

That all being said, the stubs in the FAQ section exist for a reason. Of course we'd like to provide as much guidance as possible/necessary. The FAQ would probably greatly benefit from a "How to properly test Ares" entry. But I'm not the one to write it, and I'm not sure the other devs have the time or the necessary point of view to do it.

So while I am in favor of more documentation of the process, right now, I'd be more in favor of testers understanding simple instructions.