ubuntu-council-teams team mailing list archive

[Matthew Revell <matthew.revell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!

I'd like to open a conversation about the team polls feature in Launchpad.

Right now, team polls are implemented in a way that makes them less
useful than they might be. There are UI issues but the two main
blockers appear to be:

 * There's no way to ensure all of a team's members are alerted about
a new poll.
 * Only one type of voting is available: first past the post.

As an Ubuntu member, I know that many polls are now held using CIVS.
However, that doesn't get around the problem of contacting all
eligible voters: i.e. members of a particular Launchpad team.

For the foreseeable future, we in the Canonical Launchpad team don't
have the time to turn Launchpad polls into a feature we can be proud
of. However, we are here to support others who want to help improve
Launchpad.

Speaking on behalf of the Launchpad project, I see two possible ways forward:

 1. We in the Canonical Launchpad team work with the Ubuntu community
to do what's necessary to remove the dependency of Ubuntu teams on
Launchpad polls and then we remove the polls feature from Launchpad.

 2. Or we in the Canonical Launchpad team work with people in the
Ubuntu community who are willing to make team polls into something
that's generally useful and also agree to maintain it.

You might wonder why we can't just leave team polls alone. There are a
couple of reasons:

 1. Any feature in Launchpad has an ongoing maintenance cost. Even if
we don't directly touch a feature, it can often be the case that we
need to touch its code while working on something else. That slows
development and ultimately means that Launchpad takes more time to
maintain and develop. As team polls are used less and less, it becomes
harder to justify their maintenance cost.

2. We want every feature in Launchpad to justify its place by being
excellent. When people come to use Launchpad, they should be able to
expect a hassle-free and beautiful experience. I think we can agree
that, as they are now, polls are neither hassle-free nor beautiful.

So, to move forward I'd like to know what we would need to do to free
Ubuntu teams from their reliance on Launchpad polls.

If people from within the Ubuntu community want to talk about what
sort of commitment might be involved in improving and maintaining
polls, we could have that conversation on launchpad-dev [1].

Thanks for reading and, if you want me to see a reply, please do CC me
as I'm not subscribed to this list.

1. https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-dev

-- 
Matthew Revell
Launchpad Product Manager
Canonical

https://launchpad.net/~matthew.revell