launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Martin Pool <mbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

2009/8/12 Christian Robottom Reis <kiko@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 10:57:33AM +1000, Martin Pool wrote:
>> I do think particularly for Answers but maybe in general it would be
>> good to let people start interacting with the project without a
>> blocking or explicit "create an account" phase.  We could still
>> implicitly create an account, and possibly even send mail to say so,
>> but it would not need to be done before accepting their information.
>> But there's some nontrivial work to do this.
>
> The main issue with implicit creation of accounts is that the presence
> of a Launchpad account allows us to decide whether or not we can email
> the person. If a person reports a bug or asks a question but never
> completes their account registration, questions will never get back to
> them.

If a person files a bug or question, it's reasonable to mail them back
about it unless/until they say "no, someone forged my address, go
away" or "I changed my mind, I don't care."  This is pretty much what
would happen if someone sent mail to the list with a bug or a
question, or if they used debbugs or similar.  We'd want to be careful
not to send them any extraneous mail like Launchpad announcements
unless they opt in.

I think they show a lot more commitment by entering a meaningful
question than by doing a registration dance.  If you want to get
people hooked, it's good to let them do the task they care about as
early as possible.

Someone wanting to ask a question without giving an email address is
another interesting question, but a bit separate.

> I think lazy creation of accounts (and delayed creation of bugs or
> answers linked to that) is definitely a valuable feature, but there
> needs to be some work done on specifying how exactly it would pan out.
> elp.launchpad.net/ListHelp

Yes, it definitely needs a lot more work put into understanding it.
It's also probably nontrivial to do and not the highest priority, but
it is a bit of a user issue so worth chewing on.

It seems like it creates a state where an account is valid, but we're
not totally sure the email address has been confirmed.  In the state
the person could do some things like ask questions and be sent mail in
response, but maybe not larger actions.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>