UbuntuForums username in Launchpad Profile

[Mike Basinger]

Could a setting be added to user's launchpad profiles for username from UbuntuForums. UbuntuForums has a large presence in the Ubuntu community, and this would help link forums users with the rest of the community.

[Matthew Helmke (matthelmke)]

I think this is a good idea and would like to second the request.

[Jenda Vančura (jenda)]

Great idea. I can't believe it hasn't been thought of and done yet :)

[Ryan Troy (rtroy)]

Outstanding idea.

[Ryan Troy (rtroy)]

I added the option on the forums for people to link to their Launchpad account.

[Matthew Helmke (matthelmke)]

Thanks, Ryan! I've added my Launchpad info to my profile page in the forums.
http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=17635

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I can understand how it might be useful to link from your forum profile to your Launchpad profile (so people can see that you really are a developer, for example). But what would be the use case for seeing someone's Launchpad profile and wanting to know their Ubuntu forum account name? Putting your IM details, IRC nicknames, and e-mail addresses in Launchpad helps people contact you directly, but that's not the case for a forum account name. (Launchpad also records wiki names, but arguably they're none of Launchpad's business; see bug 1745 and bug 86253.)

The other drawback is that it could be a turn-off for people in most of the projects interested in using Launchpad, who have nothing to do with Ubuntu. Maybe we could have some generic table of "I am user X on forum Y", but again, I don't see what it would be useful for.

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

I can think many good reason.

1. The forums is a communication tool just like IM, e-mail, or IRC. Maybe not as direct, but very widely used by the community.

2. Many times a forum thread is cited in a bug report. It may be nice for developers to check a Launchpad user forum profile to see if they are new to the forums, a veteran user, a team leader, moderator, or even a member of the Forum Ambassadors (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ForumAmbassadors?highlight=%28forum%29), a group design to work more closely with developers. In many case knowing a person knowledge level can help a developer tell if something might be a bug or a misconfiguration (not a perfect system, but it may help).

3. There has been talk in the past on syncing peoples Ubuntu Forums to their Launchpad accounts. This could be stop gap till developers on both sides have a chance to work on that.

I understand not wanting to chain Launchpad to Ubuntu, but in reality the relationship between the two is fairly symbiotic.

Any addition like this would totally be optional, just like having your IRC nick into your Launchpad profile.

[ubuntu_demon (ubuntu-demon)]

+1 on this idea

[Jenda Vančura (jenda)]

Last time I looked, launchpad allowed you to add wikiname X on wiki Y - it should be the same for forums.

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

Good point. maybe the request should be to be able to add a username on any forum ( UbuntuForums, Kubuntu forums, Ubuntu Studio), etc...).

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I still doubt there's any reason to do this. It wouldn't help people communicate: forums are at their best communicating to groups, with e-mail and IM being much faster for communicating individually. It wouldn't help in evaluating bug reports: it would be weird for a report to be handled differently because the reporter happened to be a Forums user. It wouldn't help in syncing the Launchpad and Forums accounts: any such syncing will involve the Forums knowing what your Launchpad ID is (thanks for adding that field, Ryan!), not the reverse. And as I suggested, Launchpad's knowledge of wiki names is a bug, not a feature, and not a precedent.

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

This should be looked at again since in the spirit of forum/launchpad intregration.

[Matthew Helmke (matthelmke)]

I second Mike's comment. It would be a nice thing to do.

[Fabio Alessandro Locati (f4l3)]

Great idea :) but I agree with Mike. I think that forum and launchpad have to be merged.