show badges when searching/selecting a launchpad user

To avoid ambiguity, we display the account name in addition to the user name. (hector-acosta vs hector-acosta-7) in your screenshot. This completely removes ambiguity, whereas showing badges would not.

Respectfully, Aaron, I completely disagree.

I may not recognize or even know the Launchpad ID of the user I'm targeting.

However, if they're a member of a particular restricted team (ie, they have the badge), then that's really what I care about. Is this the hector that's a member of the foobar team? If yes, then that's the one I want. If not, then it must not be the guy I need here.

Especially when the user's LP id has nothing to do with their name or irc nick. See: Clint Byrum / Spamaps / clint-fewbar for only one such example.

The problem is that badges are not authoritative - nothing stops someone grabbing e.g. the ubuntu server team logo and using it elsewhere. So while you are right, that the screenshot you show does not help all that much, badges are not a good vector for fixing it.

Showing involved roles is something we do in bug selection; each context needs to be taught how to be related - PPAs are only related to the team, so there isn't any particular context to use.

As it stands, I doubt there is anything we can do directly to address the difficulty.

As a side-note it would be better if the bug didn't presume the solution but focused on the problem :)

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:54 PM, Robert Collins
<email address hidden> wrote:
> The problem is that badges are not authoritative - nothing stops someone
> grabbing e.g. the ubuntu server team logo and using it elsewhere. So
> while you are right, that the screenshot you show does not help all that
> much, badges are not a good vector for fixing it.

True, but hovering over the badges should reveal the URL of the team,
itself, which would be authoritative.

When I'm adding users to a Google Plus Circle, LinkedIn connection, or
Facebook, I typically see other relationships I have with those
individuals. It gives me some confidence that the 'John Smith' I'm
associating with is the right 'John Smith' I'm looking for. But I'm
experiencing this same problem with Launchpad, and it seems these
other social sites have solved it in a sufficient manner.

Maybe it would make sense to at least show badges of the teams that
you're *both* members of? That would be sufficient for my reported
problem, and address your concern, Robert.

> Showing involved roles is something we do in bug selection; each context
> needs to be taught how to be related - PPAs are only related to the
> team, so there isn't any particular context to use.

Ack.

> As it stands, I doubt there is anything we can do directly to address
> the difficulty.

Again, I disagree. But it seems most bugs I report against Launchpad
itself have the same conclusion :-(

> As a side-note it would be better if the bug didn't presume the solution
> but focused on the problem :)

Heh. Well, my apologies, as I am an engineer, developer, and
problem-solver at heart ;-)

Badges will not be shown in the person picker because testing revealed that they are an opportunity for a man in the middle attack. Lp does show the context's icon next to the user when the user is affiliated with the context, the context being a project or distro. The picker will even show multiple badges if there user is affiliated with several projects affected by a bug. We trust this interaction because Lp determined this relationship rather that the user claiming to have a relationship.

We may remove team badges from user pages because they are an excellent means to impersonate membership.

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 3:23 AM, Curtis Hovey
<email address hidden> wrote:
> We may remove team badges from user pages because they are an excellent
> means to impersonate membership.

Do you mean the list of badges?

-Rob

Yes, I do mean the list of badges shown on the user/team page.

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Curtis Hovey
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Yes, I do mean the list of badges shown on the user/team page.

That certainly can add confusion. Folk seem to really like it. I
wonder if there is a way to address the spoofing aspect without just
removing it. </wishful>

So it looks to me like Launchpad is now showing affiliations when I search for a user -- it's *perfect* for my purposes! Love it! Not sure if you want to link this bug to that feature/commit, but this bug is certainly "fix released", IMHO. Thanks!

That's been around for a few months, but it works only on things that have a project context. Private PPAs, as in your original report, aren't related to a project so don't have affiliations.