Integrating the Forums with Launchpad: a developer friendly approach

[Martin Albisetti]

After reading and participating in long discussions about why not
integrating the current Ubuntu forums with launchpad, I thought I'd
try and give it a developer-friendly approach.

For everyone who doesn't have time to read too much, I've summed it up:

Why Bother Integrating?
- Userbase: Over 250.000 users registered and 4000 users on average
are using the forums on any given time
- Knowledge: Over 2.2 millions posts, many Google searches lead you to
the forums*
- Friendlier: Forums are more user friendly since most people have used them

Integrate what?
- Launchpad API: Integrate launchpad into the forums, not the other way around
- Let users see related bugs (and status, closed? open? stalled?),
features and answers on any specific thread
- Let users see "related forum threads" from launchpad bugs/features/answers

Advantages?
- Builds bridges, get users closer to developers
- Non-intrusive, developers don't have to see hundreds of
uninteresting forum threads unless they specifically want to
- Pushes users toward Launchpad, showing them the *real* information is there


* See: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2276320

I've taken the approach of an email instead of setting up a feature in
launchpad or a wiki page by recommendation of a launchpad developer.

The main idea behind this would be to take advantage of the enormous
amount of information being produced almost every minute and bring it
closer to Launchpad by having a simple API to communicate both
platforms.

This would also bring interesting information to developers based on
activity in the forums (more open threads, posts and visits probably
mean more users interested in squashing a specific bug).

It would be non-intrusive in Launchpad since it wouldn't take up more
then a small "Related Forum Threads" box on the left side. Depending
on how it's implemented, it shouldn't be too intrusive in the forums
either.

The linking between bugs and threads would be manual, but I'm sure
that with an easy interface for this, the more advanced users will be
more then glad to do the work since it would prevent users asking "is
it fixed yet?" every other day.

I hope I got the idea through as clearly as possible, and I'm anxious
to get some feedback on how possible this would be to develop.


Martin