Reporting a bug is an important way of helping with development: when reporting a bug it's then very important to be helpful.

While this may seem obvious, it can turn out to be difficult to do when a bug is reported after the frustration of struggling with a problem.

It is important to be in a good mood when reporting a bug. It can help to take a breath or a walk to the fridge (unless it's empty) to allow frustration to wear off.

If the bug comes from a trivial mistake, try to remember of the trivial mistakes you did in the past: don't necessarily assume that the maintainer knows less than you.

If you find trivial mistakes, however, the best thing to do is to make sure that the main point in the report is a nice patch to fix them.

Finally, other poeple may not use the software in the same way that you do: this means that, if you propose an idea for solving the problem, you should be prepared for it not to be accepted if there is a more general solution.