McClatchy Unstructured Exploratory Bug Hunt Challenge

 Hello Topcoders! Welcome to the McClatchy Testing Challenge. This is a Bug Hunt style competition.

If this is your first competition on Topcoder do not fear - we have all the instructions, you need to participate in this challenge specification and in the challenge forums.
Click the register button on this page to sign up, and then you’ll be granted access to the challenge forums where you can find documentation and ask questions.

IMPORTANT - This challenge has more than one prize placement! Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 scorers as follows:
1st place: $600 | 2nd place: $300 | 3rd place $200

ABOUT THE APPLICATION

The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in 14 states and has an average weekday circulation of 1.6 million and Sunday circulation of 2.4 million. In 2006, it purchased Knight Ridder, which at the time was the second-largest newspaper company in the United States (Gannett was and remains the largest). In addition to its daily newspapers, McClatchy also operates several websites and community papers, as well as a news agency, McClatchyDC, focused on political news from the U.S. capital.

Following are 3 news websites operated by McClatchy company.

Read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. Let us know if you have any questions in the challenge forum! This contest won't have a 24hr notification period.

WHAT TO TEST

Scope:

1. Home page
2. Various sections [News, Sports, Politics, Business, Living, Entertainment, Opinion, Obituaries, Classifieds etc]
3. Detailed story pages
4. Videos
5. Photo gallery
6. Ad Displays
7. Subscription navigation
8. Checking on number of pages/stories before hitting paywall (when not subscribing to digital news)
9. Random navigation across the news sites and simulating what a typical news site reader would do

All the other areas/pages are out of scope.

• Test URLs: http://www.miamiherald.com | http://www.sacbee.com | http://www.newsobserver.com | http://www.mcclatchydc.com/  [All three websites are in scope and Sub-Domains are OUT OF SCOPE if they won't fall within the scope]
• Test URL: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/ ONLY Home Page/Politics pages are in scope. Other pages are excluded from this test cycle.
• Primary target device(s): Desktop, Mobile and Tablet
• Browser Requirements: Latest Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge on Windows/macOS.
• IE11 and below versions are out of scope.
• Safari on Windows is out of scope.
• All the websites have 'This week's circulars' section; don't log issues separately instead just applying the appropriate labels.
• Valid UX, Usability issues are accepted.
• Content Bugs are OUT OF SCOPE: (Content, Spelling and Grammar, Spacing Issues, Tooltips, Missing/Broken Images/Videos, Font mismatch, Broken links on news articles, blog posts, products details pages, FAQ, Privacy, Terms and Conditions and articles)
• Also other minor UI, Usability issues that are not affecting to the core functionality of the application are likely to be REJECTED.
• Important: Because you are testing a live website DO NOT Test/send data via contact forms. They are out of scope. Also don't complete the 'Subscription' process because you won't get a refund.
• An edge case would be anything that does not reflect typical user behavior. They are accepted according to the impact to the end-user and based on the workarounds available.

HOW TO CREATE NEW BUG REPORTS

1. Create an account on GitHub (if you do not already have one): http://www.github.com
2. You can get access to the GitHub repo using ‘Self Add to repository’ tool specified in the challenge forum thread to create new bugs OR If you are getting 404 error, request access to the repo using correct forum thread.
3. There is an issue template whenever you click New Issue in Github. Please use this template.
4. Issues/Bugs found in this application/App must create here: (URL for creating Bugs) https://github.com/topcoderinc/qaas-mcclatchy/issues. DON'T use any other link to create new issues OR submit a document, they won't be counted and won't be paid.
5. Please label issues with the appropriate browser type and mode, bug type, and platform type.  The labels can be viewed here: https://github.com/topcoderinc/qaas-mcclatchy/labels

ISSUE REPORTING GUIDELINES

For each report of a limitation or bug, we need the following information:

1. Reported URL, URL where the bug is occurring. (You can copy paste the URL from the browser address bar)
2. Steps to reproduce, including any needed information (Must list all the steps that need to reproduce the bug, DON'T list only the URL without test data)
3. Current results before the bug is fixed
4. Expected results, after the bug, is fixed
5. If it is a UI bug attach a Screenshots (Mark the area where the bug is) | Functional Bug - Videos | Crash - Console/Crash Logs
6. Attach the high-level labels. If you are selecting multiple labels (Platform/Device); You have to provide screenshots for each and every Device/Platform you have selected; If not Bug will be REJECTED.[Eg: If you select labels Device: iPhone, Device: Android you have to provide screenshots of all the device types you have selected]. Same applies to Platform
7. Attach detailed platform, device model (iPhone, iPad, Laptop, Desktop), operating system (Window 7 64bit, iOS 11, Android 7.0 etc.), Frequency and browser version information in the issue detail.  The high-level labels aren’t sufficient for issue replication and diagnosis.  
8. If it is a comparison, You must provide the URL and Screenshot/video of that location.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Missing or Incorrect details to ANY of the above fields will mark the bug report as INCOMPLETE. 

For example Incorrect/Missing Reported URL (This is the URL where you can see the bug, You can copy paste the URL from the browser address bar), Screenshot/Screencast (If it is a UI issue, You have to mark it on the screenshot), Incorrect Actual and Expected results etc.

Be careful when you are providing only the direct URL and not listing the steps to go to that page in 'Steps to reproduce' section. Sometime the Provided URL with parameters won't load the page for the reviewer and the bug may be get closed as 'CAN'T REPRODUCE'. So better to list all the steps until the end or double check the URL is loading or not

IMPORTANT NOTICE

• Follow the standard Topcoder Bug Hunt Rules
• If you do not properly document your bug reports, they will likely be rejected due to lack of information or documentation. If you submit the same bug in multiple areas/pages, (for instance, Same validation issue of a form can be found in different pages/sections) you will likely get credit for the original bug report only. The others will all be closed as duplicates.
• If you duplicate an issue on a platform or browser that hasn’t been tested yet, you should create a new issue and add a link/reference in the issue description to the existing issue number. Our copilot will review these items and consolidate them later. Please don’t make adjustments or change labels of existing issues logged by other competitors.
• DON'T RE-OPEN the issues in the review phase and anyone who RE-OPENS a ticket will be disqualified from the challenge.
• If Mobile and Tablet testing are available DON'T create the same issue on different platforms; instead, merge them into one; All the others will be marked as Duplicate.
• You must not edit the bug report once created, so make sure you enter all the details at the time you create the issue, otherwise, your issue will be moved to the end of the queue. If you really need to edit an issue you must use the comments section for this (i.e. add a comment to describe any changes you want to make to the issue), and we'll decide whether the changes are major enough to move the issue to the end of the queue. You are allowed to add screenshots in the comments section though, assuming your issue report contains all the details when created.
• You must specify the test data you have used in the 'Reproduction Steps', All the issues will be marked as 'Incomplete', if the correct test data is not provided.

SCORING

• Scoring will be based on the number of bugs by weight.  Be sure to correctly attach a weight to your bug.  The delivery team has the right to change a severity at their discretion.
• Scoring is directly proportional to weight:  Weight 1 = 1 point, Weight 10 = 10 points.
• The participant with the highest score will win the 1st place - $600 the member who gets the 2nd most points will win $300 and third place will win $200.
• Only verified issues will be counted.  Tickets created for enhancements or that are not bugs will not be counted. Duplicate issues will be closed and not counted. Log issues according to the guidelines above issues that do not follow these guidelines may be rejected due to lack of information.
• For challenge scoring, the user with the most verified issues will be selected as the winner. Submitters that do not take 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place will be paid $5 for each non-duplicate and verified issue up to a maximum of the 3rd place prize. If two users submit the same issue, the user that submitted the issue first will receive credit.
• Please focus on functionality/UI testing based on the requirements, all bug reports based on your own assumptions will be rejected.
• We'll decide whether a bug is valid or not based on our knowledge about the app, it's totally up to us.

ISSUE WEIGHTS

• Functional Issues - 10 Points
• User Interface Issues - 4 Points
• Usability/UX Issue - 2 Points

TIPS

Some of the tips helpful for the contest:

• Submitting what is obviously the same issue multiple times with small variations will only annoy the reviewer that has to sort through all the issues and will only count as one issue anyway. If it's less obvious if it is the same issue or not, use your best judgment and the reviewers will do the same.
• Keep an eye on the issues being submitted by other participants to minimize the time you may be spending on duplicate efforts. Knowing what has already been reported will allow you to better focus your time on finding yet undiscovered issues.
• Double check your steps to reproduce and test cases to make sure they are clear. Make sure your steps include the creation of any necessary data.

Final Submission Guidelines

Submit all your bugs directly to Github. When you are done with your submissions please submit a .txt file to Topcoder Online Review using the Submit to this Challenge button. In this file include:

Issues/Bugs found in this application/App must create here: (URL for creating Bugs) https://github.com/topcoderinc/qaas-mcclatchy/issues. DON'T use any other link to create new issues OR submit a document, they won't be counted and won't paid.

• Your name

• Email address

• topcoder handle (The one displayed in the top right corner near the Profile picture)

• Github handle used to raise the issues. (Login to GitHub and click on the Profile picture > Your Profile. Check the URL https://github.com/