launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The State of Launchpad Registry
===============================


Bridging the Gap
    The bridging the gap work is nearly complete. Over the last 12 months,
    the Lp Registry team has:

    * Updated the UI to present linked project-packaging information.
      * Fixed bugs to preserve project-packaging links and prevent users from
        creating bad links
      * Show what is linked
      * Show what needs to be linked.
      * Encourage user to link projects to packages by suggesting possible
        matches
      * Automatically link projects registered to create a bug watch

      ! Karmic started with 1216 links that were set over 3 years
      ! Natty starts with 3076 links, 1860 new links in 1 year

    * Updated the UI to encourage users to provide missing project information
      that is needed to share code and bugs
      * Register a project from the source package and link them
      * Configure code hosting--register a branch and set it as the
        development branch
      * Configure bug tracking--register a bug tracker at the same time.

    * Updated the UI to explain where a service is hosted
      * Tell users when Launchpad does not know where a service is hosted
        and tell users about Ubuntu service when there is a project-packaging
        link
      * Tell users where the upstream project's service is hosted.
      * Enable Launchpad applications when Launchpad provides the service,
        or can work with the remote service


Privacy
    The next theme the Lp Registry team is working on is privacy. The team is
    using the "disclosure" bug tag to track bugs that relate to the privacy
    theme. There are many features inclusive in this effort and each will
    have its own priority:

    * Managing disclosure
    * Bug linking
    * Private projects and distributions
    * Private project groups or something to replace it
    * DistributionSourcePackage administrators
    * Private by-default questions
    * Entitlement


Oopes and Timeouts
    Francis announced the Zero Oops policy last October. As of this week
    the registry domain has:

    * Zero oopses!
    * 6 timeouts that may take another 3 months to address because issues
      like merging persons require major reimplementation.


Post 3.0 UI Cleanup
    There are many bugs tagged with post-3-ui-cleanup that are difficult to
    fix. The underlying problem is that the team and person 3.0 page designs
    do not meet the needs of owners/members who needs tools to know what needs
    to be done. We have talked in the past about creating dashboard for work
    items. Regardless of how we solve the user vs. observer dichotomy, these
    pages require a redesign.


Karma and Product Release Finder
    The karma update script consumes huge amounts of memory and causes users
    to see 0 karma for a short time every day. There is an under current
    of thought that karma should be abandoned or replaced. I think we will
    need to reconsider some of the karma management rules in the next 6
    months so that the process runs without worry. Note:
    * Users are quick to ask Lp questions or contact us in IRC when karma does
      not update
    * Karma related bugs are the hottest bugs in Registry

    The product release finder takes too long to run everyday. We often
    see reports that it runs every other day because it did not complete
    quickly. We need to fix this in the next 3 months. Options include:
    * Run the process in parallel to other daily processes
    * Re-engineer to run the downloads in parallel
    * Batch the work


Registry Admins Issues
    50% of all Lp questions are in the registry domain. The common topics are:
    * Renaming:
      There are bugs blocking users from renaming teams. I think users should
      be able to rename a project if it is young or warn user that they
      are breaking off site links and bookmarks.
    * Deleting:
      There are bugs blocking users from deleting teams. I think users should
      be permitted to deactivate projects that have no value. Most users that
      want a project removed did not know about personal branches, or
      understand how PPAs work.
    * Changing ownership:
      These issues are assigned to LOSAs. I want to change the rules to
      allow Registry Admins to change ownership so that we can help users
      immediately.

    Project Registration and Review
    * 100% of projects are reviewed; the backlog of 1000s is gone.
      * We have a license data for hundreds of project missing licenses and
        we can write a script to fix them.
      * There is never more than 20 projects with licensing issues.
    * 14% of all recently registered projects are deactivated because the
      project did not accomplish the user's goal. That is to say, the user
      did not know about personal branches, wanted an archive, did not know
      how to translate a project. We should consider a workflow that asks
      the user his goal and create the appropriate objects to accomplish it.
    * 26% of all projects are deactivated and most of these are before 2008.
      More than 50% of projects registered will fail to produce something
      valuable to a community. We should consider an automated deactivation
      process to clear the namespace and declutter searches and listings.

    Spam
    The last quarter has been quiet. Attacks commonly originated from profiles
    with compromised Yahoo and Gmail email accounts. Previous quarters were
    dominated by spammers creating new profiles or SSO accounts.

     Month   | Suspended | Spam
    ---------+-----------+-----
     2009-12 |  1394     | via project and user pages using registration
     2010-01 |   368     | via PPAs and user pages using registration
     2010-02 |    66     |
     2010-03 |    29     | via wikis using SSO
     2010-04 |    23     |
     2010-05 |     6     | via bug and answer comments using compromised email
     2010-06 |     7     |
     2010-07 |    11     |
     2010-08 |     2     |
     2010-09 |     9     |

-- 
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/

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