How can we encourage more people to sign in to the Ask site?

[qubit1]

It’s important for us to get more people to sign in to the Ask site so that we can grow our userbase. With enough users in the community, users who start out as novices may learn from the site, become more experienced in their own use of the LibreOffice suite, and then be able to turn around and answer questions for other people.

The Ask site currently allows people with an OpenID to sign in. Apparently this can be a bit of a hurdle. One user said they were “not able to sign in because [they] don’t use one of the services listed.”

• Would enabling local log-in help us gain more users?
• There has been prior discussion about LibreOffice becoming an OpenID provider itself – could that provide a user-friendly equivalent to local log-in

[qubit1]

Re: Anonymous login: Can I post anonymously without signing in?

[jiero]

seamlessly registration progress, interactively tells how many steps away from asking the first question. Update on each item you fill in.

[ROSt53]

@jiero - could you please explain your comment above a bit more?

[jiero]

An counter/indicator, that tell the user how many steps needed before they can ask the question. 1. User name 2. password*2 3. email 4. title 5. description 6. tags → OK. count down, you need only 5 steps - - - hmm.

[ROSt53]

Thanks for the details. I assume the guys in charge of this topic will have no sufficient understanding. Now let’s see what will come up.

[oweng]

The Ask site currently allows people with an OpenID to sign in. Apparently this can be a bit of a hurdle. One user said they were “not able to sign in because [they] don’t use one of the services listed.”

I have provided more detail about OpenID in this answer. Are users of this site limited to the available (badged) OpenID providers? Any domain can become an OpenID provider, so if I have a personal domain that I set up as an identity provider, it should be useable (by clicking the “OpenID” badge and entering the required URL). If this particular option does not work (has anyone tested this?) then a bug needs to be raised in relation to this. Having a limited pool of “acceptable” identity providers would seem to defeat the entire purpose of OpenID.

There has been prior discussion about LibreOffice becoming an OpenID provider itself – could that provide a user-friendly equivalent to local log-in?

A single LO-based OpenID login would benefit LO in general and IMO is likely to be the best option as it encourages community participation. A recent discussion can be found here. There is an earlier discussion from October 2010. A comment in this earlier thread indicates:

OpenID should work:

• MediaWiki (through extension)
• Silverstripe (through extension): TDF, LibO, LiboBox
• Bugzilla (through extension, if we host it on our own)
• Extensions & Templates (through extension), FrODeV and ODFAuthors in
  similar way
• Nabble
• Gerrit (already implemented)
• Alfresco (should we use it)
• AskBot (already implemented)
• Wordpress Blog

Unknown state:

• Litmus (with note “Moztrap”)
• Pootle
• Forums depending on software used

Not working:

• Mailing lists
• Planet
• IRC
• Git

Since then, there are probably other services that can be added to the list.

[ROSt53]

@qubit1 - An excellent question! The reasoning behind is good as well.

One idea would be to add a link to AskLibO in the HELP menu. But then comes the registration.

This is, IMHO, extremely cumbersome. Why should I register and log in via FB, twitter, etc? This almost stopped me from registering at AskLibO. I personally hate to be forced to do something via FB, twitter, etc because I don’t want them to know all about me. I want to protect myself and privacy as much as possible. Only the possibility with OpenID let me decide to register. Without the OpenID as an alternative to the social networks I would not be here. And I am also one of the examples you mentioned: starting as a novice and now can answer some simple questions.

Therefore, I propose to offer registration just at AskLibO or LibO in general and then have access to everything which requires registration in LibO, Document Foundation and Bugzilla. Simple and straight forward.

There is also the security issue and a registration. A loggin is at least a kind of barrier against spams and other junk. But maybe @Pedro1’s idea in the link in your comment to your question is a possibility, but I don’t understand the technical details. Could Pedro’s idea be linked with a code behind a link in the HELP menu? Technical experts need to look into this matter. I am not the expert.

Let me sum up: 1 - add a link in the HELP window, 2 - enable direct registration and offer for the social network freaks and OpenID fans registration through their networks, and 3 - keep an eye on security.

[jiero]

In my point of view, as a general user.

I would like to see:

1. Show the achievements of the site, for example, any bugs/feature request solved.
2. Top tips/Common asked questions.
3. Improve the front page?

[oweng]

Agreed. The main offered points of access are for: All questions, Unanswered (correctly) questions, Followed questions, questions by keyword (e.g., enter “OpenID” in the search bar and press ENTER to obtain a list of related questions / answers), and tags (which are notorious for being inaccurate on all such sites).

[artfulrobot]

Make it possible!

Having signed up with an myOpenId account (a service which is now closed), the only way I can possibly sign in now is by using the recovery email route. Using that link crashes the site, but does leave me logged in (hence this answer). However it crashes again whenever I go to Manage My Logins, so I’m stuck forever in limbo!

If it was easy to sign in I would be quite active; I love the stackexchange sites that work the same way (although I appreciate the work that SE must put in to helping users use the site correctly as it’s clear they do…)

[qubit1]

punting on this for now…

[ROSt53]

@jiero - You ask for achievement of this side. Every question answered it an achievement. I think everyday there are many question answered.

As for bugs solved, this is not the side to solve bugs. Here are bugs identified.

What do you mean with

2. Top tips/Common asked questions. 3. Improve the front page?

Could you please explain this in more details?

[jiero]

1. Achievement is answered question, and possible feature arisen from the question later included in LibreOffice. Not badges. 2. Top tips are like FAQ. 3. Front Page, please add “how many solved/answered”; add affricate logo like alfresco’s; work on behaviour- ask a real new question feel why I ask.

[ROSt53]

Number of question and ratio of answered question would indeed be a good parameter. Monthly data would be good.

[jwriter]

I know that Open ID can be a huge obstacle for asking questions here. So much easier with a username and password. Not everybody wants to be continually logged into social media. I believe Open ID only works if you keep cookies on your computer for extended periods. Plus Open ID for Google is going away Apriol 20, 2015. Time for a change?

[ROSt53]

“Not everybody wants to be continually logged into social media.” - you are perfectly right! I really dislike all this social media stuff. I can live better without it. I hope since long for better solution!!!

[physicist]

Today is New Years Day. I really needed an answer about calc on Christmas Day a week ago. Ask seemed a good way to go. The only item on the login page was Yahoo which I had last used well before CY 2000. My password and username did not work and it wasn’t because I had forgotten them. They just didn’t meet modern standards. The lady of the house got me through. It seems I absolutely had to have an Apple cell phone to respond to texting by Yahoo which then allowed the changes. Ask almost died.