Karma listing should link to activity and show more than 25 items

This makes sense only in combination with bug 275941. The karma listing is barely useful at all, batched or not, without linking to the actual things you did.

Karma was never intended to provide an audit trail (and cannot do so in its current design and implementation). What is the point of extending the karma activity log more than 25 entries?

But then what is the point of having the 25-entry log at all?

IOW, if Karma is not to be an audit trail, then it shouldn't show an audit trail :-). But if it is going to show something that looks like an audit trail, that trail could at least be useful in the ways users would expect -- namely, by each entry linking to what it refers to.

IRC conversation between Stu and me just now:

  <kfogel> https://edge.launchpad.net/~kfogel/+karma

  <kfogel> There's some recent activity there, but none of it gives
               details or links.

  <kfogel> It says "Bug Comment Added 2009-02-18 12:25:36 EST 21
               hours ago" but doesn't say which bug/comment. It's odd
               that we'd give such detailed information but leave out
               the key detail.

  <stub> kfogel: Lots of people want the Karma system to be an
               audit trail, but it isn't going to be one. It might be a
               reason to develop one though (separate from Karma)

  <kfogel> stub: agree that it's not necessary for karma to be an
               audit trail, but then it probably shouldn't include an
               audit trail on the karma page :-).

  <stub> kfogel: +1 :)

  <stub> I think whoever wrote that page wanted it to be an audit
               trail too ;)

Tim said in bug 333421 that "by design, the karma events don't map back to what caused the karma to come into existence.". If this is true, and since people commonly expect that it will link back, I'd like to at least see a Launchpad FAQ explaining why it's better that they don't.

I think I've heard that one reason is that database constraints would mean that an object could not be deleted if there are still karma events referring to it, which would mean in practice that objects could never be deleted. If this is the reason why we're not doing it let's just say so and dispel the uncertainty. On the other hand that does not seem technically insurmountable.

In this and other bugs people have said that the karma activity is "not meant to be an audit log". OK, but what precisely do you mean by "audit log" that distinguishes it from the karma view? The name connotes that it's security related or highly trusted; that doesn't seem strictly necessary for the karma log to be more useful.

If Launchpad is going to get some kind of Timeline view (per bug 261628) then presumably karma would just be presented as an annotation to the timeline view.

I think the main use case here is this: we present karma as an indication of how active a person has been in a project. A user viewing that number may want to click through to see what the person's really been doing: ok, they've filed a lot of bugs but are they sensible bugs? Are they a core developer or just a persistent gadfly? The user gets the impression that Launchpad must have this data but is refusing to disclose it, which is annoying.

And the other related use case, though not specifically for karma, is in bug 315533, where users want to find out what they did recently. At least some of them are finding karma as a likely place for this, then being frustrated.

I don't think this is malone-specific.

If the listing could indicate which package an activity occurred in (where pertinent) it would already help me at least.

I can imagine there are maintainers who only make changes within a small number of packages, and would not be helped by such a change, but for the rest of us, it might make the karma page a bit less infuriating and pointless.

Yeah at the moment the latest karma events could do with a bit more individual info.

Tim said in bug 333421 that "by design, the karma events don't map back to what caused the karma to come into existence."

if it did, users would have an incentive to work on higher yielding tasks first, creating an imbalance.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 3:27 AM, Nathan nolast
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Tim said in bug 333421 that "by design, the karma events don't map back
> to what caused the karma to come into existence."
>
> if it did, users would have an  incentive to work on higher yielding
> tasks first, creating an imbalance.
>

If higher-yielding tasks had more value to a project, what would be
the problem with that?

jml

liu bo, I see you have assigned yourself this task. I do not think this can be fixed by a novice developer. Launchpad does not have the information to make links about the activities. There might be information about the project the activity is, but it will not be possible to link to a bug or branch.

The +karma page could use the batch navigator to show more than the most recent 25, which is something a new developer can accomplish.

Changed in launchpad:
status: Fix Released → Triaged

MrJohn, why did you change it to fix released?

pangkit, if you're actually working on this then feel free to explain. However, do pay attention to https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/275938/comments/11 first.

"When looking at the listing of Karma events you will see that you are limited to a single page of 25 items" ' Quote from Original Bug report.' I Translate Language, between 100 to 1500
Translations in 24 Hours. The Karma aspect should hold at least 3000 in the server cache for Translations & Code to reflect the actual Karma count. Some Code are in multiple pages long. Some translations start with all of the different version of Ubuntu that have not been translated thus far.
9 hours ago evince source package in Hirsute
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Yakkety
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Cosmic
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Utopic
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Trusty
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Saucy
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Raring
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Quantal
13 hours ago exiv2 source package in Precise
For one example of only 100 translations.
Which does not reflect anything after I go past 25 entries to reflect for Karma Total.
I as others multi task. Some translations to Ubuntu Answers back to translations.
I Thank every one for all of your hard work and dedication for Launchpad and Ubuntu.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.