[18:56:10] We'll be starting office hours with Gayle (WMF Chief Talent and Culture Officer) in around 5 minutes. [18:57:03] hello!! just getting an extension cord and looking for a quiet room [18:58:09] Happy $timeofday :) [18:58:15] TZAG all [18:58:18] hi MissGayle Philippe and Jamesofur [18:59:29] Hey matanya :) [18:59:47] I think Gayle is in transit on her way to the conference room [19:00:00] :-) (hi@all) [19:00:40] Hey Steinsplitter :) [19:00:41] Hello!! :0 [19:00:42] :) [19:00:46] Settling in. How is everyone today? [19:01:05] Great :) [19:01:09] Hi HaeB how are you? :) [19:01:18] Bence! :) LTNS [19:01:59] Bence! :) [19:02:14] hi :) [19:02:23] Well, it's time - shall we start? I don't know if Gayle has anything particular to say to start us off, so ... do you, Gayle? :) [19:02:28] I forgot to calculate lunch into my day. Humph. Ah, well... [19:02:47] People take _lunch_, MissGayle? :O [19:02:57] yeah, I forgot too. Which should make me a lot of fun in a couple of hours. [19:03:11] talking about lunch isa good start imho [19:03:13] And now that we're officially beginning … I will say that I'm glad to be here. It's been way too long and I've missed doing these. :) And I'm open to talking about whatever is up for people. [19:03:24] And talking about lunch is making me hungry. My own fault since I started it. :) [19:03:26] matanya, I'm always happy to discuss food. [19:03:28] :p [19:03:43] so the first question is: recruit me pls? [19:03:55] One of my favorite office things that's been happening lately is people bringing in homemade things. Like - James A has been making homemade chocolate truffles... [19:03:56] Hmm, I suppose I'll start off with a tough one. What do you see as the most needed cultural change? Or the most overdue recent change, if you'd rather not answer the former? [19:04:12] Philippe: not too bad, good sir [19:04:13] ooooh, good question, pakaran :) [19:04:14] Ellfix - http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us All the info needed to join. :) [19:04:15] Anna Koval made lemon bars… Okay, on to most needed cultural changes! [19:04:19] * HaeB goes back to work-lurking [19:04:26] (Oops, Elfix - sorry. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us) [19:04:43] (/me votes for recruiting Elfix) [19:04:51] Maggie_Dennis: was just trying to get the ball rolling :P [19:04:59] I think one of the things that we can do at the Foundation is to rethink what leadership looks like in a very different way than a lot of other organizations think about leadership. [19:05:15] * pakaran sits back and listens. [19:05:26] (Eflix, gave me an opportunity to plug it. We have positions open! :D) [19:05:44] * Philippe listens to Gayle clicking away on her keyboard as she types. [19:06:14] The fact that leadership is as much of a personality thing as it is a job title thing takes a bit of getting used to. [19:06:18] Even though we are less hierarchical than traditional orgs (we have hierarchy, but people can talk to whomever, in whatever different departments), we'd still like to continue to move along the continuum towards really emergent leadership practices. So one of the focus areas for my group this year is supporting leadership at the team-level in terms of decision-making and affecting the course of the Foundation, rather than being particularly to [19:06:19] heavy - and that's definitely a direction we're moving in. [19:06:29] You can be in an "entry level" leadership position at the WMF. [19:06:46] "emergent leadership practices"? Define? [19:06:52] I talk personally a lot about the invisible work of leadership, and how we need broader models of leadership so that it doesn't look like (and is only recognized within) narrow bands of behavior. [19:07:17] Philippe: process for asking questions? [19:07:33] So traditional leadership development helps leaders be good leaders by doing a lot of good things - having people assess their strengths and weaknesses against traditional leadership models. [19:07:36] Nemo_bis: nothing formalized so far, because we're just getting started, so toss 'em out there. If it gets chaotic, I'll start a queue [19:08:14] oki [19:08:21] ah, but if everyone is able to be able to be a leader within their own expertise/ability, it works better? [19:08:23] Or what? [19:08:49] But I think what we're seeing more in the field is a move towards redefining leadership as much about really making space for other people to come in with their thoughts and ideas and process - and the question and tension always arises around how do you move a lot of work that has to happen through a system in an aligned way with a reduction in noise and still have room for a lot of individual and team-level autonomy. [19:09:32] pakaran, really good question. :) I'm learning. [19:09:46] It's partly thinking through supporting people in having very distinct types of leadership. The way Philippe leads vs the way I lead is and should be very different - but we should have some underlying values in common. [19:10:04] MissGayle: how volunteers fit in what you are describing here ? [19:10:10] It's been really fun doing the ED and VP Eng and CCO interviews because it's made us look organizationally at what makes successful leadership here at the Foundation... [19:10:25] (CCO = Chief Communications Officer) [19:10:52] Contemplating Matanya's question - I think there IS an ongoing conversation that needs to happen about how to support volunteers in expanding their own leadership skills so that they can be more effective in supporting the overall free knowledge movement. [19:11:08] "what makes successful leadership here at the Foundation" sound like a good topic for a blog post ;) [19:11:42] For instance, one of the things LCA is going to support OTRS training and possibly other domains, so that volunteers are more effective, and that's a leadership role in the movement. [19:11:48] Actually, that would be - that's a great idea anomie. :) [19:12:17] MissGayle: can you give us a brief update on the search for ED, since you mentioned it? [19:12:37] And one of the things I'd like to do at WIkimania this year (that I wanted to do at the chapters gathering but I won't be there) is talk about some of our failures as well as successes, because I think that's an important leadership conversation. [19:13:02] one of the unpleasant questions that always comes up on office hours, and I'm going to be guilty of it here as well, is "what about the tension between the volunteer community members and the WMF employed community members?" How does that work at the WMF at the HR layer? [19:13:25] Martijn, she's answering the ED one, I think, and then on to yours :) [19:13:28] I'd be happy to. We've got 3 final candidates, with an extremely high likelihood that one of these will be the next ED. Two of these will be doing 3rd round interviews with board and staff this weekend. :) I'm pretty excited. [19:13:42] Excellent :) [19:13:44] Happy to answer more, contemplating Martijn's question [19:14:22] The third will be eliminated before, or interviewed later? [19:14:28] That's a complicated answer because different individual volunteer community members have different relationships between WMF employed community members - and that's a good thing. [19:14:37] ....there is (what has to be) the loudest helicopter in history, hovering over our office right now. [19:14:54] zomg call glenn greenwald [19:14:55] these tensions being all the more reason to have volunteers, or ex-volunteers as leaders [19:15:15] Interviewed later…wasn't able to make it to town this weekend due to prior commitments... [19:15:17] Agreed. [19:15:40] We have an astonishingly high % of staff who were volunteers first…over 50%. i can't remember the exact number right now. [19:15:45] But it's a metric we keep track of. [19:15:51] There's always going to be acultural disconnect. And, the volunteer community is so huge that no matter what you do, someone will be upset. [19:16:24] I think it's really beautiful that some of our staff definitely consider their identity as community first, and have strong and close relationships with the community. And where there's acrimony - it's interesting to dig into why. [19:16:50] there is a reason why I awkwardly phrased it the way I did :) [19:17:02] It's also a fair statement that when a volunteer does something stupid and gets blocked, it isn't seen to reflect on all volunteers -- people just move along. [19:17:09] Philippe MissGayle speaking of which, open-ended request, any comments on emphasis/de-emphasis of remote staff vs. SF-office based staff would be of interest. I find it interesting that many of my SF colleagues have recently been WFH because working in the office is not easy, yet many open positions strongly favor SF candidates. [19:17:44] (+1 to what chrismcmahon said) [19:17:44] pakaran, interesting, for some reason I hadn't ever thought of it from that angle. [19:18:28] I can't speak for anyone else, Chris, but for me, I end up doing "work" in the mornings before i come into the office, and then in the evenings when i come home. While in the office, it's difficult to get to focus. [19:18:35] too many meetings, context switches, etc. [19:18:49] And the "whys" can be a variety of reasons, ranging from ways that they instigated a negative relationship (way too many ways to do so), or vice versa… Part of the complexity lies in the staff/community ratio too. I think it's easy for the relatively small number of staff feel the pressure of "representing WMF" to the community, that it's hard for them to walk the line of both being individual people with different opinions and still want to [19:18:50] work hard for this specific mission, and to get overwhelmed by the input. One of the things we talked to various candidates about is how much their days may sometimes involved communicating - and that's great on one level and hard on another when so much time is committed to interactions and you're still expected to drive results [19:19:33] jorm, +1 [19:19:41] and the community often doesn't give you enough space [19:19:52] I know that I feel frequently like I'm one of those kids on Ender's Game with the multi-tracking helmets trying to keep up with whole fleets of different kinds of issues…some days it's everything to "write up your plan for training for the next year", "what's the ED new onboaridng going to look like", "will you please tell X person they have a body odor issue?" [19:19:55] so the range is huge [19:20:01] I remember how upset people were when, for a week or two, the visual editor was slowing down windows machines that scanned pages for malware on load. [19:20:07] (+1 to what jorm said, in my limited time in the office. I got most work done in the evenings after most people left) [19:20:07] okay -r eating scroll since I can't read and type at the same itme [19:20:13] (FYI, I am sitting in a presentation at a conference, so i'm gonna be out soonish) [19:20:13] and +1 to Jorm and Yuvi [19:21:04] (i think -r eating scroll means "reading scroll" ... I was trying to see if Gayle was talking unix commands with the -r, but...) [19:21:34] it is a unix command for speedy scroll read [19:21:42] * MartijnH approves of eating scroll recursively [19:21:53] ...and we're back to lunch. [19:21:54] Going to chrismcmahon, I also find it interesting to have the WFH. I support it because we have different kinds of people here and I respect that there are days I work from home. I also know that sometimes f2f really reduces friction and part of the reason we favor SF candidates in specific roles is the level of coordination necessary. I think a lot of that is up to the ability of individual teams/managers too, to be able to manage that level [19:21:55] coordination well - and this is an example of helping people get better at it as increasing leadership skill [19:22:23] whoops - yes… that was supposed to be "reading scroll"…but AM hungry. :) [19:22:28] jorm, I get so far behind when I visit the office. :) [19:22:37] i think it's okay as long as it's actually "work from home" and not "fuck off from home" [19:22:51] jorm has such a delightful way with words... :: grin :: [19:22:53] Agreed. I know when I get into the office, my day is back to back meetings until I leave. [19:23:04] :D [19:23:13] jorm: git doesn't lie [19:23:13] MissGayle: my personal concern is that the number of remote staff overall becomes small enough that communication out is hampered. I have been in that situation before and it is not fun. [19:23:23] for eng department atleast [19:23:28] Let's be real - we're all a bit colorful and quirky in the office. [19:23:44] quirky? ~me~? :) [19:23:55] definitely :D [19:24:01] KTC: don't help :P [19:24:03] yeah, but hte more senior your role, the less that's a good measure, right? raw code/design output slows down in place of other things, like code review, or mentoring. [19:24:03] chrismcmahon: agreed. It's something to be actively worked, particularly as we add folks, to try to keep the practices in place or grow them that people feel included. [19:24:12] Which reminds me that I really need to spend more time on IRC. [19:24:14] so when I read about releases being held up by last minute bugs, I should assume it's really a celebratory nerf war? [19:24:16] * pakaran hides.  [19:24:19] :) [19:24:25] :D [19:24:26] * Philippe fires a nerf shot at pakaran [19:24:52] SOMEONE has to shoot the people who made the bugs! :) But… nerf wars are actually a contested thing in the office I'm trying to figure out. [19:24:58] * pakaran sighs, and goes back to the respawn table.  [19:25:14] * pakaran was a nerf war rep for a convention a few times. [19:25:17] *ref [19:25:22] pakaran: I'm generally the guy that finds the last minute bugs. From my point of view, you can assume that QA is functioning well. [19:25:25] With a significant position of the office population, they're a pain in the ass and disrupted. And another, they're blowing off steam and fun…and we need to balance them both. [19:25:30] and seriously, why so? annoyance of non-participants? [19:25:42] yup. [19:25:45] * Philippe waves to lfaraone [19:25:53] there was a proposal to "Disarm WMF" [19:25:54] Exactly. So we're trying different things - warning people in advance, etc. [19:25:56] * lfaraone apologises to Philippe for being late.  [19:25:58] (it lost) [19:26:11] no worries, lfaraone [19:26:18] what is that disarm wmf ? [19:26:20] Gayle, on "plan for training for the next year": can you explain what's the role of HR in this, how the WMF helps the personal growth of staffers and also how this growth is shared with others outside the org? What's the role of GSoC in this, howw does [19:26:33] matanya: essentailly, no more nerf guns [19:26:36] WMF support that kind of program and those who engaage in it [19:26:36] it was get rid of all the nerf guns. [19:26:41] But it's an ongoing balance to let people have fun in their respective ways and also let people have peace in their various ways. [19:26:53] was the disarming implemented? [19:26:57] * Nemo_bis would find it appropriate [19:26:58] It was not. [19:27:01] I personally took a lot of satisfaction in targeting Oliver with a nerf gun... [19:27:11] ....the dream of so many, for so long [19:27:15] :D [19:27:16] * Nemo_bis doesn't know what other country needs a parallel disarming to get it done though [19:27:24] Nemo, a big part of my role is mentoring other designers. [19:27:27] I see. how unfortunate [19:27:37] ok jorm [19:27:48] (GSoC, for those who are wondering = Google Summer of Code) [19:27:54] In fact, that's why I'm at Fluent today - May wants to learn how to build javascript/css prototypes. So I'm teaching. [19:28:07] HR does a couple things - we experiment with different trainings. So for instance, next week, I've got an expert coming in on conflict resolution so we can hopefully increase skills in that. I had an expert facilitator teach facilitation, and a negotiations trainer teach negotiations (went not so great, so we won't have her back again), and generally trying to increase skills we frankly all need - even with each other [19:28:15] maybe especially with each ohter [19:28:52] Good organizations that are committed to their staff and people's learnings try to offer training opportunities. Also - we'll support people going to trainings or conferences where they can learn skills - like improving their coding skills or design skills or what have you. [19:29:14] "skills we frankly all need" makes it sound some sort of centralised decision rather than persnal growth on aspects of interest for the individual [19:29:20] And GSoC….we have staff actively involved in that mentoring, and that's always a great way to both learn and support other people in their learning. [19:29:35] It's all voluntary - if people want in, they tell me, and I never make anyone attend. [19:29:44] Define voluntary? [19:29:51] They tell me they want to attend. :) [19:30:10] Or they recommend something to me and I try to make it happen. [19:30:17] * Philippe has recommended, and has had it happen. [19:30:25] I'm getting a bt [19:30:27] lost [19:30:35] We sometimes have staff offer things - like Heather teaching an art class over lunch one day! THat was fun! :) [19:30:38] (also I'm clearly not keeping the keyword in appropriate position) [19:30:42] :) [19:30:54] We need to do that again. THat was really fantastic for me. [19:31:07] I'd rather call it a drawing class ;) [19:31:27] mark making? [19:31:29] hrm. lunch. [19:31:30] Nemo - where are you lost? How can I answer the question? [19:31:44] So, any questions on the table, or shall we continue here? I want to be sure that we handle any others if someone really wants to ask, or we can expand on this more. [19:32:11] or we could have a nerf fight. /me aims at pakaran again. [19:32:23] * Nemo_bis invokes UNO [19:32:44] the peacekeepers leave, because it is becoming hot... [19:32:48] To the "skills we frankly all need" topic - I DO think because of my background that I have a systemic perspective (and it's my job to keep a systemic perspective) of where I see organizational gaps and try to offer solutions…but I'm also hugely averse to mandatory trainings so I make them invitations, and what I've found with folks at WMF is that part of what drew them here in the first place is intellectual curiosity - and I think some pe [19:32:48] have learned to trust me more over time to try to find them good people (even with my occasional misses). [19:33:04] MissGayle: I don't understand if you think mentoring for GSoC is a benefit for the staffer and hence for the organisation and what that implies [19:33:58] I think mentoring anyone is a benefit for the mentor and the people they're mentoring. I like that WMF does it. [19:34:09] I wonder how the skills development scales to remote staff, and by extension, whether there are learnings that could be used for providing skills development to volunteers who are distributed [19:34:09] What risks do you see in it [19:34:10] ? [19:34:23] in mentoring in general? Or running GSoC? [19:34:24] (my question was to MissGayle about GSoC) [19:34:35] mentoring for GSoC [19:34:49] I don't know what those risks might be. I haven't run into them yet, but if you have ideas of what they are, do let me know. [19:34:52] for the individual and by extension the org [19:35:08] Risks to the individuals for doing the mentoring? [19:35:13] MissGayle: apropos of GSoC etc., you mentioned once rewarding good mentorship. because he is not very visible, I'd like to point out that Zeljko Filipin is a truly amazing mentor, he is particularly patient with new volunteers and also with staff, but because of time zones and such is rarely acknowledged [19:35:16] (Bence, we see you, you're next) [19:35:33] Like, I think jorm mentioned something about overworking, how do we ensure people don't get burnt [19:35:34] Thanks, chrismcmahon!!! [19:36:01] chrismcmahon: he isn't? I constantly see a queue of pretendants for the pairing sessions :) [19:36:16] Ensuring people don't get burnt? or burnt out? Sorry - I think we're having trouble getting at the same thing. [19:36:17] Nemo_bis: yes, but the QA mail list is hardly wikitech-l [19:36:24] burnt out [19:36:41] chrismcmahon: nobody reads wikitech-l, it's a write-only mailing list [19:36:48] and Nemo_bis Zeljko is far more patient and kind than me :-) [19:37:11] thus a great mentor [19:37:29] Bence, I wonder that too. :) We need to get better at including remote staff - though sometimes when things are relevant, I try to schedule it especially when remote staff will be in town or invite them in. And training has been more in testing phase… the next step this next year will to be more comprehensive. I've been more "hmm…I wonder if this works" because often what worked with other orgs, in my experience since getting here, hasn't [19:37:30] worked with this one [19:38:34] So being in the same location still seems to be part of the recipe... [19:38:58] Or finding a good way to extend training virtually. Which is something we're all trying in various ways, and I know Geoff and LCA are thinking about. [19:39:44] Yeah. I thought about partnering with one of the many remote learning orgs - and I've recommended MOOCs to my staff. For instance, there's a great one called "immunity to change", and I know the content and my staff and I will try to take that together as an experiment [19:39:53] MissGayle, another question, what kind of skills do you seek out of people applying for a legal/community advocacy position? do you not think only volunteers, or ex-volunteers from Wikimedia should be doing these jobs? [19:40:00] Bence: GSoC is all online! :) So it helps getting experience in mentoring/training without physical presence [19:40:27] I asked because there is a proposal that AffCom should be involved in providing training to people setting up affiliates (volunteer organising, governance and leadership), but the how is still a question (among the who, and other w letters) [19:41:12] For being a lawyer here, not necessarily. Yana, for example, wasn't a Wikipedia volunteer beforehand and she's been awesome. But Stephen was a volunteer for years, and that's also served him. For community advocates, generally yes - but we'll take someone with awesome history and community experience elsewhere because we can also learn things from other community managers [19:41:16] apropos, people might be interested in these two blog posts about how the WMF mobile team makes remote collaboration work in practice: https://blog.wikimedia.org/author/awjrichards/ [19:41:35] a very practical question: how do things work with work visa for people who aren't U.S. residents? I could imagine difficulties there can be an enormous hurdle in employing community members [19:42:15] Bence - I'd love to coordinate with you on that…because I think if we're providing trainings, we should have some common points of thinking on effective organizing, governance, and leadership - not necessarily to be the same, but it'd be a fun conversation and possibly build broader leverage [19:42:43] Visa issues - yes, complicated, but we have a really fantastic immigration firm that helps us uphold our pluralism, multiculturalism, and diversity policy. [19:43:18] MartijnH: Speaking from experience as someone on a visa that the WMF procured for me, the WMF makes that process as smooth as possible. [19:43:26] And because we have a partnership with Yale law school as a non-profit, we're not subject to the same visa caps that would make it prohibitively restrictive to bring in people who are skilled from other countries. [19:43:27] visas are also a problem for remote employees visiting conferences in various places [19:43:41] MissGayle: will reach out to you when we have something more concrete - too bad you can't be in Berlin to be part of the discussions on these :( [19:43:43] Yeah - and to the extent that we know about that, we try to work with our firm in advance [19:43:45] or any for that matter [19:43:50] MissGayle: well, the problem is that Wikimedia has no community like those of other projects. Someone with great community management experience may, for example, not be sure what to do regarding the hr.wikipedia.org ongoing issues [19:43:56] I know. :( Too much going on here at WMF - I'd have loved to talk in Berlin about these things. [19:44:03] it sounds like it might often be an insurmountable issue for those not meeting the visa requirements [19:44:22] Elfix: uh? how does that relate to WMF [19:44:26] I'd say Elfix, fairly safely, that very few people in the world know what to do those issues :) [19:44:28] Elfix, no, but they might have great ideas for different ways to approach it and look at it. [19:45:07] A lot of countries are a bit nuts on visa issues - we do the best we can and some of them are nuts. I remember the last time I had to get a visa for China. It was insane. [19:45:34] HaeB: MissGayle YuviPanda one of the reasons I asked about emphasis on local vs remote staff is that the author of that blog post will very shortly be the only remote member of the Mobile team. Coincidentally we live in the same town and have lunch together or pair-program from time to time. [19:45:36] Nemo_bis: their community advocacy staff? [19:46:34] Elfix: I don't see a connection [19:46:55] MissGayle: So there was obviously some very... passionate viewpoints on free software / free knowledge lately. Do you think those types of discussions are healthy internally? Any recommendations for how those conversations should be worked out in the future? [19:47:03] Some of the visa difficulty is totally unavoidable though. For Gayle's example, it's no secret that China makes it harder for American citizens to get visas than others, due in part to the US making it more difficult for Chinese citizens. There's no way that could ever be avoided. [19:47:13] Those are facts of life, and the WMF does the best it can to mitigate those facts. [19:47:29] MissGayle, Philippe: dont get me wrong, I love the job most of you do. It's just that in some cases, there are some pending problems (like the hr.wikipedia.org one, which isn't just a tiny issue), and we need some skills to help us sort them out [19:47:54] Elfix: Absolutely. Some of what needs to be sorted, though, is what the role of the WMF should be on that type of issue. [19:47:58] And I don't think that's a closed question. [19:48:10] chrismcmahon: otoh, i think the Growth team is almost entirely remote at the moment, with only StevenW (and moiz as part-time designer) based in sf [19:48:12] because in the mean time, there is a rogue wiki, and no one to do anything about it [19:48:27] Deskana: well, WMF could move to a more visa-friendly country ;) [19:48:50] HaeB: good point about Growth [19:48:51] One of the things a relatively small organization has to balance is where we can do the most good and also not put our oar into things we would only botch further. One principle I have in my personal life is "conserve energy". Sue used to tell me that when I first joined and I think I have come to a different relationship to it. There are things I WANT to play a role in, and there are things that I have a healthy inquisitiveness around whether [19:48:52] should or not…but that also doesn't mean just turning away…it means staying in conversations about possibilities. [19:48:59] Elfix, I worry a little about the precedent. Does the community want CA making the types of decisions that need to be made for hrwiki? Personally, I think that's a community role - it's far safer, rather than being subject to the whims of WMF staff. But we can and should bring experience and best practice to bear. [19:50:04] We also, in my opinion, need to be very careful to not hire someone for '1 problem' because that doesn't scale. I think we have some of the best in the world (obvious bias warning) at some of this stuff but we could certainly use a lot more help and be a lot better. [19:50:14] Nemo_bis: Would uprooting actually save more than it would cost, at this stage? I'm not convinced. [19:50:16] reading scroll - back to csteipp … I think making any discussion undiscussable is the unhealthiest option, so creating room for those conversations internally is important. [19:50:16] Deskana: what? [19:50:25] Deskana: also, I'm not trying to convince anyone, just saying nothing is a given period [19:50:27] and, as always, visa friendly may not be as friendly in other ways. It's a very complicated question. [19:50:28] yeah chrismcmahon my entire team is remote except for me, and Moiz as secondary designer. [19:50:31] * Jamesofur nods, that's very true Nemo_bis [19:50:34] Nemo_bis: Indeed, yes. That actual solution doesn't seem so feasible, however. [19:50:47] I wish we had a better method of working them than on mailing lists - and then resurfacing the conversations again and again every few months, which I know makes everyone frustrated. I also think that we haven't really mapped out all the different organizational tensions…. I wonder if a robust, real-time facilitated conversation would be the best way, and have thought about it, but again, I run up against my own bandwidth issue [19:51:08] where are we…are we wanting more about visas? [19:51:45] Something about uprooting the Foundation? That would be…really, really hard. [19:51:56] Do we have any other outstanding questions that I've missed?\ [19:52:59] OK, so we have about 8 minutes left here, it seems [19:53:24] MissGayle: on resolving tensions, this again makes me wonder how GSoC can contribute; I mean, if there are tensions and deficiencies in commmunication/integration of points of views then there must also be problems in integrating, say, new members in a team or project [19:53:38] Should we let Gayle off early so she can grab a bite before the next meeting? :) [19:54:19] integrating a GSoC student in a software project, is it different from integrating a new staff member and can the two matters share learnings, is one more important than the other, dunno [19:54:30] I'll snarf some junk food. :p Actually trying to get away from that… but… contemplating. [19:55:05] I think different teams and projects integrate new people in different ways. [19:55:18] Nemo_bis: I think that's a complex question, and likely one we should pay attention to this summer. Maybe we can get some feedback from them as we're finishing up that? I don't know, it's not a project I'm directly involved with. [19:55:40] Which means…yes there are likely issues, but not burning ones that I've heard of [19:55:42] Beyond occasionally giving feedback on a project (I have one request outstanding on my meta page right now, I think) [19:55:47] it's not something HR or LCA runs but it would be interesting to know if it's felt important [19:55:55] and GSoC is likely one of many ways to surface what those could be [19:56:08] I suppose internal training has some internal priority, e.g. jorm said it's a big portion of his work responsibilities [19:56:11] I like tensions in organizations [19:56:33] they're really useful and a necessary part of having organizations be healthy [19:56:33] Nemo_bis: from my side, I feel very little impact from it. But I know that's not the same in, for instance, engineering or the engineering community team. [19:56:45] Nemo_bis: From a mentor perspective, training up a new GSOCer is way easier than an employee, there's far less infrastructure they need to be aware of [19:57:01] Nemo_bis: Wikitech and IRC are important, and CR/labs/bug infra, but otherwise it's super simple [19:57:05] it means we're better able to come up with creative solutions if we can be awake to and aware of various tensions and be /willing/ to engage with them and not shy away from them [19:57:20] So at this point, I think it makes sense for us to start to wrap up. [19:57:37] Thanks, Gayle for showing up.... and thanks to everyone here for really terrific and engaging questions. [19:57:37] rdwrer: what do you mean simple? Google says 5 hours per week for instance [19:57:54] I'll post logs, and I'm sure that discussion will continue [19:58:00] Philippe: impact on people or on deliverables [19:58:07] Nemo_bis: Not for mentoring, for onboarding [19:58:10] er "onboarding" [19:58:14] But I have to bail, because I have another meeting :) [19:58:20] on boarding is one of those things that needs its v2.0 [19:58:21] :) [19:58:27] rdwrer: I meant training including the whole GSoC in it, not some days of it [19:58:35] Ah. [19:58:38] Thanks, everyone! :-) [19:58:46] Thank you! :) [19:58:49] Compared to training up new employees, got it. [19:59:07] especially as GSoC's objective is to get new constant contributors [20:03:28] Logs from the last session for those interested https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2014-03-13