pidgin-cabal

Re: [Gaim-cabal] pidgin.im jabber server questions

[Richard L. <rl...@wi...>]

On Sun, 2006-10-29 at 23:45 -0500, Mark Doliner wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:34:38 -0400, Daniel Atallah wrote
> > In talking to Luke, he came up with the very reasonable requirement
> > that users must be registered in order to file bugs and other tickets.
>=20
> I'm probably in the minority, and I'll probably be overruled, but I don't=
 like
> requiring users to register in order to file bugs, patches, leave comment=
s, or
> modify the wiki.  I think it discourages people from contributing, and cr=
eates
> a less-friendly culture.  I think the barrier to entry should be as low a=
s
> possible.

Requiring a bug reporting account is pretty common. It's a little
frustrating, I'll admit. However, it makes it much easier for us to get
feedback from the submitters, since we'll have their e-mail address. Of
course, I don't have any direct experience with users NOT needing
registration, so I'd be willing to give it a shot.

> I know Adium had problems with spam on their trac.  My best suggestion fo=
r
> counteracting that is to place a .htpasswd restriction over our entire tr=
ac
> with a username/password of "gaimtrac/gaimtrac" or something, and put the
> username in the auth message that prompts for the username and password.

I spoke with one of the Adium developers at the GSoc Mentor Summit and
he told me they used to do this, then they switched to requiring
registration. Apparently, having a shared username and password was more
complicated than requiring registration. The users didn't read the
instructions giving them the shared username and password. I assume
registration was easier for them because it's more familiar.

Richard

Re: [Gaim-cabal] pidgin.im jabber server questions

[Evan S. <ev...@dr...>]

Quoting Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...>:

> I'm probably in the minority, and I'll probably be overruled, but I 
> don't like
> requiring users to register in order to file bugs, patches, leave 
> comments, or
> modify the wiki.  I think it discourages people from contributing, 
> and creates
> a less-friendly culture.  I think the barrier to entry should be as low as
> possible.
A barrier to entry as low as possible leads to sloppy bug reporting, 
unfortunately.  Registration as implemented by Trac w/ AccountManager 
doesn't require an email address, email confirmation, or any of that; 
it's literally a 2-click process with immediate access granted.  
Registration also allows association of an email address with a user 
name in a non-publically-viewable way so that Trac can send email 
notifications of changes *without* requiring users to disclose their 
email publically.


> I know Adium had problems with spam on their trac.  My best suggestion for
> counteracting that is to place a .htpasswd restriction over our entire trac
> with a username/password of "gaimtrac/gaimtrac" or something, and put the
> username in the auth message that prompts for the username and password.

Our initial solution was to just use the Trac antispam measures.  
They're better than nothing... and not nearly sufficient.  We were 
still overwhelmed by spam.

Our next solution was precisely what you describe: username/password 
'adium'.  There are at least 2 problems with this. 1) Users are then 
forced, as of Trac 0.10 and later, to list their name as 'adium'.  
There's absolutely no accountability for bug reports, no ability to 
contact the user to find out more unless he puts his name in the report 
itself, etc.  It's ugly in addition to nonfunctional. 2) Email change 
notifications are impossible.

I strongly recommend against that solution - it sounded attractive to 
me before we implemented it, but experience showed it to be really 
suboptimal.

Re: [Gaim-cabal] pidgin.im jabber server questions

[Luke S. <lsc...@us...>]

On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 11:45:44PM -0500, Mark Doliner wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:34:38 -0400, Daniel Atallah wrote
> > In talking to Luke, he came up with the very reasonable requirement
> > that users must be registered in order to file bugs and other tickets.
> 
> I'm probably in the minority, and I'll probably be overruled, but I don't like
> requiring users to register in order to file bugs, patches, leave comments, or
> modify the wiki.  I think it discourages people from contributing, and creates
> a less-friendly culture.  I think the barrier to entry should be as low as
> possible.
> 
> I know Adium had problems with spam on their trac.  My best suggestion for
> counteracting that is to place a .htpasswd restriction over our entire trac
> with a username/password of "gaimtrac/gaimtrac" or something, and put the
> username in the auth message that prompts for the username and password.
> 
> -Mark

I remember the problems *we* had with the SF trackers before
requiring an account.  We did not have problems with spam, but we did
have problems with utterly useless reports.

To this day, we rarely have a bug report we do not have to ask a
question in.  If we allow anonymous reports, then we have no way to get
answers to those questions unless the anonymous user just happens to
come back and check the status of his/her report at some later date.
experience says this will not happen very often.

Requiring registration with an email address gives us the ability to ask
questions and, as importantly, have the user know we asked a question.
This is, I sincerely believe, critical.

Keeping the bar low is certainly valuable.  That's why I am intrigued by
the possibility of converting email to bug reports.  That should offer
an interesting combination of being able to control spam, being able to
get additional information, and keeping the bar low.  We can filter the
incoming mail to that address for spam before allowing it to post for
example, or require that a responce email not bounce.  I'm not sure how
possible this is with trac though.

luke