"It's his job to fix problems, not yours" Sure. In which case he should make the case that, by investigating the issue before submitting the report, there becomes a necessary duplication of effort. The spiel about it being an actively harmful contribution is just accusatory, undermining nonsense.

The issue I have with most answers here is that if he prefers the "dont give me info, I want the blank slate aproach", how should he phraze it?

He should not say he wants a blank slate. Doing so says you don't value their input. There's plenty of people whose input I don't particularly value but you should never tell anyone that or even imply it. As Rick I would say "Thanks. While I appreciate the suggested fix, we'll need to perform a full investigation ourselves anyway. As such, investigating issues for us in future may not be the most productive use of your time because there'll be a necessary duplication of effort. In future, just a detailed bug report will be more than good enough! Thanks again."

And this is the other problem I find with most answers: "says you don't value their input". That is 100% an interpretation. I didnt come to that conclusion at all, only after The previous comment you just made :) Maybe it's a friendly fellow in real life and when you hear his tone of voice, it's a friendly mail. Could also be that he isn't, but making him the bad guy before knowing that, isnt a solution which should be suggested.

The first paragraph might be somewhat defensible, but the second paragraph where he says he's going to wait a few days before working on the problem is a bit extreme.

I think it's clear that he doesn't value their input: "I'm better off going in fresh and deciding for myself." i.e. "my opinion > your opinion, so don't even bother giving me yours"

Yes, he might've tried working with proposed solutions and found out that he actually is better of starting with a blank slate so he can decide for himself. Might've been phrazed a bit better, but I dont think this mail is that passive agressive as everyone suggests :)

@Martijn You must be Dutch (same), judging by your name. I agree with the part about it not being personal, as we, Dutch, have a tendency to be direct. I disagree with you on the point of trying to phrase it nicer. It's not personal as it is and trying to sugercoat something to avoid hurting some feelings might actually create a situation where the meaning/goal trying to be conveyed is lost. Also disagree with the "his job, not yours" bit. If you're on the dev team, your job is another's job as well (scrum style: everyone's a developer).

But yea, direct & blunt is better because it's to the point. It avoids any misinterpretation. (disclaimer: my opinion, but I've found I'm misunderstood less often nowadays than back when I tried to avoid hurting a few feelings. I also tell co-workers to absolutely do the same about any work I deliver, because I don't like misunderstanding others either (and neither do they like being misunderstood))

Morty makes clear he's a new graduate working at this company. For all we know, Rick is the lead developer with decades of experience. In such a scenario, while it might be well meaning for Morty to try and suggest a fix, Rick is probably more knowledgeable ( both about the technology, and this specific application ).

@DaveMongoose I don't think you've understood the question properly. Morty doesn't say anything about being new - that's the questioner, a third party, who also doesn't say anything about being a new graduate. And the most relevant aspect of Rick's email is not that he recommended against suggesting a fix, but that he claimed that doing so activated crippling cognitive biases in his own approach to the problem. If he's as senior as a lead developer that's an inexcusable professional weakness.

I get your point about being direct, but I have to reject the idea that this is a reasonable response. The fact that having additional (seemingly useful) information from a teammate is being tossed back as something that will add days to this person solving a problem that is potentially already solved is absolutely ridiculous. Imagine being the one who is paying for this problem to be solved.

There is no way to properly phrase what Rick wants, because what Rick wants is simply not acceptable in a collaborative organization. If Rick is truly as disrupted by the kind of information ordinarily and usefully exchanged between technical correspondents, then Rick is going to have to develop his own skills to reduce that impact.

If Rick must have a firewall filter, it's going to need to be inside his own head, or in his email client, not client-side code forcibly distributed to his co-workers to run in their heads; and even then, it's going to cause problems if he doesn't fix the problem raised before his manager asks if Morty's proposal that he ignored, has merit.

As I read Morty's text, it is not even a solution proposal. It is the most conscise way to exactly report the bug! It says, this memory alloction is leaked according to valgrind, and confirmed by using a shared pointer, which fixes the leak, presumably without causing other issues (such as dangling pointers). I don't read any kind of "you must fix the problem this way" tone in Morty's post, it doesn't even say the problem should be fixed at all, Morty just says problem can be fixed like this.

@DaveMongoose - no, Morty is not a new developer, that's the asker, who is not Morty.. Morty was stated to be the system owner, which would mean the person responsible for getting the overall system into a good state, ie the person who has a problem if this software does not work. Morty needs it fixed. Morty researched the problem he needs fixed - that's doing his job.