It's called a papercut after the "death by a thousand papercuts" chinese torture / execution method. The idea is that a single papercut by itself may not "kill" the project, but collectively they will bleed the project to death out as much as a single massive death-blow.
When viewed from this angle, it's a perfect metaphor.
This is something which does happen in the real world although I don't know that there's a term for it (hence papercut being used instead, as an unnecessary recurring issue which in the grand scheme of things is not exactly deadly — as opposed to sharp edges, which are usually APIs which are tricky to use).
For instance it's common to have bits (of varying sharpness) sticking out of walls and other surfaces onto which things or people will repeatedly snag. Or uneven flooring.
They are generally minor annoyances people live with, though they can cause actual harm (falls, wounds).
and if its located in a high-tension spot (papercuts are always located there like fingers), well then you need band-aids otherwise its recipe for churn.
papercuts is perfect for the methaphor. its tension area, high traffic spots. but the author missed the point about super glue (or duct tape, in other authors words)
Inconsistent, and oft very much a matter of opinion.
If there's a race condition which causes a loading indicator not to show up it's a bug, but is it a bug if nobody put in a loading indicator because nobody cared, or considered that the operation could take sufficiently long some signal would be useful?
But a bug doesn't have to be a malfunction. It can be a terrible UI flow or other annoyance. But if it's not what the designers had in mind, it's a bug.
Meh. It's just as often that they're trying to get something changed against maintenance or stability policy.
is a great phrase, and I'll use it.