launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Jeroen Vermeulen <jtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2011-05-31 11:36, Robert Collins wrote:
> We're clearly talking past each other.

Clearly!  I was vague in my original email because I was thinking 
solutions might go in very different directions than I was suggesting, 
but after the first misunderstandings there was just no way to get back 
to the core question.  I'm deeply relieved to see that we're past this 
hurdle.


> Either I don't understand the problem, in which case please help me
> understand, or I do and my points are not clear for some reason.

No, it's not that your points aren't clear at all; it's just that they 
had nothing to do with the problem I was trying to inquire about.

My question is about celebrities like the Janitor, strictly to serve as 
a Person to refer to in the database when no human or team is 
appropriate: as an owner of things, as an author of messages, and so on. 
 Entirely passive from a technical perspective.

From the user's point of view, it's a persona representing some aspect 
of Launchpad.  They would perceive it as an actor, but it isn't one in 
the technical sense.  As an outcropping of the passive "person in the 
database" essence its email address could be used here and there (e.g. 
on outgoing emails or bzr commits), but that's about as far as the 
"actor" aspect goes.

Think of this as part of Launchpad's "face" that just grew without 
concerted design.  Currently, that face comes with a broom.  When I ask 
"in whose name should Launchpad generate this persistent message that 
will show up in the UI?" people tell me "just use the Janitor, that's 
what everyone else does."

Now, I feel that:
 * Impersonating people covers many use-cases.
 * That's one reason why we shouldn't just keep adding celebrities.
 * So far we have only a few, but for convenience not by design.
 * The technical friction of adding one is greater now than it was.
 * Impersonation doesn't solve _every_ need.
 * For remaining cases, a "Launchpad" persona can still be useful.
 * We currently over-use the Janitor for that.
 * Again this is through least resistance rather than by design.
 * A "Launchpad" persona would be more widely appropriate.
 * We ought to take a step back and consider this non-ad-hoc.

So these feelings drive me in the direction of a "Launchpad as a Person" 
as a celebrity to end all celebrities, sort of.

Especially when it comes to Person references, email addresses etc. that 
the user will see, this could replace "I guess we'll just use the 
Janitor" and possibly (though not necessarily) "whatever account this 
script runs under" as choices of Person in cases where neither of those 
nor impersonation is appropriate.

But most importantly I wanted to have a shared look at what we really 
need here, and come up with a properly considered guideline instead of 
an organic growth of rubber bands and paperclips.


Jeroen