[19:28:50] Research showcase is just about to start. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrlu5qTgyA for the stream and #wikimedia-research for the Q&A. [19:29:09] details on today's presentations here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#December_2016 [22:00:49] dev summit meeting here now? [22:00:51] #startmeeting ArchCom office hour: Dev Summit [22:00:51] Meeting started Wed Dec 21 22:00:51 2016 UTC and is due to finish in 60 minutes. The chair is TimStarling. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. [22:00:51] Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic #startvote. [22:00:51] The meeting name has been set to 'archcom_office_hour__dev_summit' [22:01:18] it was announced a few hours ago on wikitech-l [22:01:28] ah. thanks. [22:01:34] no qgil present, unsurprisingly [22:02:29] I think DanielK_WMDE_ has some points he wants to talk about [22:04:06] cscott, your topic is mostly now T149282 [22:04:06] T149282: Improved editability, tooling, reasoning, and performance by adopting DOM-based semantics for wikitext - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149282 [22:04:07] ? [22:04:30] Krinkle: 0/ [22:04:37] Krinkle: coming to the meeting? [22:05:19] in T151950 there were originally 4 topics, but two were closed as duplicates [22:05:20] T151950: Wikitext 2.0 Session at Wikidev'17 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T151950 [22:07:37] cscott wrote "I am proposing to combine these in a single 90-minute session. As a first draft agenda, let's say not-more-than-15 minutes presentation for each of these four areas (a joint effort of @cscott and @ssastry), and then 30 minutes of discussion at the end with the goal of unifying them, identifying strong and weak points, and agreeing on next steps." [22:07:56] I think that is quite an ambitious goal for a 30 minute discussion [22:08:53] I think Daniel was also a bit skeptical about the number of topics you wanted to pack in [22:08:59] My topic is T147602 [22:09:00] T147602: Facilitate Wikidev'17 main topic "Handling wiki content beyond plaintext" - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147602 [22:09:20] Subbu and I are going to give a joint talk on "wikitext 2.0": T151950 [22:09:39] I am looking at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2017/Program [22:10:08] hey. [22:10:51] so one thing that isn't clear to me if there is only going to be two tracks on the first two days. I thought there would be more, but currently, it looks like just two. [22:11:37] there's still a list of main topics (including that one) but it looks like they are more like planning topics rather than actual agenda topics [22:11:41] that's quite different from last year. I'm kind of torn on whether I like it... [22:11:49] any thoughts on that? [22:12:35] well, it was pretty hard to get everyone relevant into a room last year [22:12:55] but maybe better to have 3 interesting things to choose from than risk having 0 [22:13:00] yes, there are two tracks on the first two days. *plus* unconference. [22:13:17] i am also torn on multitracking, but that's what was decided. [22:13:36] TimStarling: yea, two sessions is good for keeping focus, but bad if the focus is not what you care about. [22:13:43] i think we did okay in putting all the important general-interest sessions in one room, so you can treat it as a single-track conference if you like. [22:14:04] the second prescheduled room is more specific-interest topics. and the unconference is even narrower focus stuff. at least that's the idea. [22:14:25] i think it's not a bad plan. we'll see how it works out. [22:14:41] as to the wikitext 2.0 session... i think it'll work for presenting, but doesn't leave much room for discussion [22:15:01] maybe a breakout session should be offered for each sub-topic? [22:15:20] yes, that was discussed as well. it will probably be more of an evangelism session than a "we're going to decide in this room right now what wikitext2.0 will look like" [22:15:22] or at least a show of hands of who would be interested in such a session [22:15:35] subbu and i will try out best to dispassionately describe some of the options and directions. [22:15:50] "breakout session" == unconference [22:15:53] * subbu shows up [22:16:05] hey subbu! [22:16:16] cscott and i haven't talked details about how to do that session. [22:16:20] you can propose any number of topics on any number of days, and if enough people are interested, you'll get a room for it. [22:16:40] but, curious if you guys have opinions / perspectives on focus there. [22:16:43] the third day is "completely unscheduled"... but might also have an unconference track? it's not clear. [22:17:02] and the last day of all-hands is also an unconference. i think there will be lots of opportunity for breakout sessions. [22:17:05] Talking of envangelism... i'm not quite sure yet how to fill the "platforms are products" session. I'm trying to decide whether it would be a good idea to discuss the role of ArchCom in that context [22:17:22] the prescheduled tracks are just "sessions that someone will actually prepare material for in advance" [22:17:42] cscott: what day is the last day of the all-hands? [22:17:53] would ousiders like me be welcome? [22:18:00] friday. [22:18:17] i have no idea! i would hope so, but i don't have anything to do with allhands planning. [22:18:17] so the all-hands proper is just one day? [22:18:23] but TimStarling yes, all 4 original topics might be too much material for that wt 2.0 session .. [22:18:37] i only have a tangential thing to do with dev summit planning, but i seem to be the only person here who knows enough to answer questions [22:19:16] subbu: maybe the scheduled session could be a teaser for more detailed breakout sessions. i think that could work [22:19:30] DanielK_WMDE_, all hands is 2 days always. [22:19:48] i think we proposed 10 slides each for 4 topics, a minute per slide, something like that. so we'll probably say *something* about all 4 topics, but it's not going to be an incredibly deep dive. [22:19:58] dev summit is mon-wed, all hands is thu-fri [22:20:01] subbu: i though so, but cscott just said that the 2ndday of the all-hands would also be an unconference [22:20:19] yes. friday is an unconference. [22:20:26] DanielK_WMDE_, yes, but that is part of all ahnds. :) [22:20:47] mon/tues are 2 tracks of scheduled dev summit + unconference. wed is dev summit "completely unscheduled hacking time". thur is all hands. fri is all hands unconference. [22:20:50] and probably not about technical topics [22:20:53] it can include all kinds of topics not only technical. but, why are we discussing all hands now? :) [22:21:02] all hands unconference sessions have quite a different flavour to dev summit sessions [22:21:26] yes and no, i had some very technical all hands sessions with robla last year [22:21:37] i'd expect that to be about team dynamics and organisation and such [22:21:45] I don't know if Daniel would be allowed, I guess that is a question for the organisers [22:21:59] ya. we cannot answer that. [22:22:13] ok, we'll see, then [22:23:15] so. "platforms = products" and ArchCom. I know what I want to say, but I'm not so sure about the format of the session yet. [22:23:48] it could be a "how do we want platform ownership / governance to work" brain-storming [22:23:52] would that be useful? [22:24:30] i think that's roughly what people (ie the program committee) were hoping it would be. [22:24:43] that's good to know :) [22:25:23] there are a bunch of high-ranked related questions at http://www.allourideas.org/wikidev17-product-technology-questions too [22:26:10] oh interesting, i didn't know that page! [22:26:20] "What should be the role of the Architecture Committee in WMF planning (priorities, goals, resources...) and are we there yet?" is #6 .. [22:26:22] are the results going to be public? [22:26:26] it's been posted by quim several times [22:26:36] the results are already public, just click "view results" [22:26:57] and there will be a Q&A session with Victoria and Wes going through the questions in order from highest ranked down. [22:26:59] that is the voting for what qns. victoria / wes should address. [22:27:05] ha, too obvious. i guess i'm a bit tired. getting late here... [22:28:08] i'm just saying, there is general interest in questions about "role of arch commitss in WMF planning" and "whose responsibility is it to assure ... active maintainers" and a bunch of other questions that would fit into a "platforms and products" session [22:28:11] if you need inspiration [22:29:06] it's not my topic, but my suggestion would be to spend 15 or so minutes at the start describing the current way arch com works, with some retrospective about 2016 and things that worked well/didn't work well [22:29:22] maybe specific technical questions that (a) were successfully resolved, or (b) met an impasse. [22:30:04] and then give a loose structure to the remainder of the time, choosing a topic like "who's responsible to ensure components have maintainers" or "what is our deprecation process" [22:30:20] and giving each topic say 15 minutes so we don't get stuck discussing one thing for 45 minutes straight. [22:30:34] of course, you're free to ignore this advice as well! ;) [22:31:27] cscott: that's quite useful, thank you! [22:31:55] the voting page is quite nice, i'll look into that a bit more [22:32:09] * cscott is glad he could help! [22:32:10] so I suppose at least half of that session will be about archcom [22:32:37] well, it's a session of questions to wes and victoria, so who knows? [22:32:51] TimStarling: do you think it would work to use that session as input for a more specific discussion about archcom's role, and a charter? [22:33:11] in theory, a listening manager should have talked to archcomm first and attended the platforms&products session, and then repeat back the answers from that session when put on the spot during the Q&A [22:33:32] yeah, sounds good [22:34:02] i wouldn't necessarily make it 90 minutes on archcom charter, but some portion would probably be good [22:34:29] when i hear "platforms are products" i wonder who's responsible for writing developer documentation, or bot documentation, things like that. [22:34:49] cscott: documentation is important, but i'm more concerned with vision and direction [22:35:22] it's not su much about implementing good engineering practis, as about leadership and vision. defining the engineering goals for the platform, not just for the website. [22:35:26] sure. but if "mediawiki 1.29" is a "platform", there's a lot of stuff to make it easier for folks to work with that platform that we're neglecting. [22:35:37] we don't do mediawiki version releases like they were product rollouts [22:35:37] yes, exactly that [22:35:42] who owns that problem? [22:35:49] that's the essentail question [22:36:00] first question in the session could just be, "what are our platforms"? [22:36:13] maybe. or "what are our products"? [22:36:13] mediawiki, sure. what else? [22:36:41] well, on some level, our platforms include maria and apache and linux, etc. [22:36:41] i was at a political meeting last night, and the organizer -- a silicon valley type -- had set up a wiki. [22:36:53] but which platforms are we *creating*? [22:36:54] which was barebones mediawiki-with-no-extensions [22:37:17] it's pretty terrible as a platform for collaboration. no visual editor, no echo, no notifications, no flow. [22:37:34] that's so 2005 ;) [22:37:37] yeah [22:38:01] but we don't really document anywhere all the extra steps to actually get a fully-functional wiki "like wikipedia has" [22:38:37] so, what's the platform? Bare mediawiki? Mediawiki-with-some-extensions? Mediawiki-with-exactly-the-extensions-we-run-at-wmf? [22:38:37] but for the mediawiki expierence, there are the "editing" and "reading" product owners. with editors and readers as the users. [22:38:46] miraheze.org is people going the furthest in copying us [22:38:57] they take the puppet code and stuff [22:39:04] to create an entire mw farm [22:39:09] mediawiki is *a* platform. mediawiki+parsoid+restbase is also a platform. [22:39:20] i'm thingking of the things that have developers as their "users". [22:39:48] mutante: oh nice, i didn't know about that [22:40:17] anyway, seems to be fertile ground for a session. ;) [22:40:33] mira and heze are wmf server names :p [22:40:53] DanielK_WMDE_, mutante i ran into miraheze on github .. they seem to be doing a lot of hosted wikis .. also see https://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Miraheze-1-year [22:40:54] and i'm sure the non-WMF folks will want to know if "enterprise mediawiki" or whatever is actually a platform. [22:41:09] cscott: yea, there is enough to talk about. i need to think some more about the structure [22:41:44] mutante: heh, nice [22:42:08] cscott: it certainly is a platform. but is it a product? is it wmf's product? [22:42:08] i think "prepared intro", then discussion questions w/ minutes each is fine. you just need to come up with the perfect questions. ;) [22:43:07] well, that assumes it's a 100% discussion session. which is an option... [22:43:15] anyway. i think there is enough potential [22:43:22] so... [22:43:26] any other sessions to talk about? [22:43:59] "First Tech Debt Bash"? [22:44:04] perhaps it would be good to prepare the tech debt session a bit. what's your pet peeve tech debt? [22:44:13] cscott: ha! you beat me to it :) [22:44:15] Abandoned extensions in Gerrit [22:44:28] Wikitext [22:44:43] Talk pages [22:45:04] Hitting reload to refresh [22:45:08] cscott: that'S more like feature dept. [22:45:19] servers that are removed from DNS but still running [22:45:45] i was more thinking of "fix how gadgets work" or "rewrite the skin system", etc. [22:46:11] Breaking up monster objects like User... [22:46:37] Useroid [22:46:47] hehe... as a service... [22:47:02] Untangle LocalisationCache and MessageCache and Language... [22:47:23] Integrate notifications into core [22:47:37] TimStarling: what's your favorite tech dept? [22:47:51] EditPage [22:48:02] DanielK_WMDE_: dept and debt are a bit different :P [22:48:12] Reedy, i was resisting that comment .. ;) [22:48:22] me too [22:48:32] TimStarling: Ah yea, jucey ;) [22:48:54] but that's probably a month of work :) [22:48:59] Reedy: damn, i know, but i have to really concentrate to not type the wrong one ;) [22:49:03] goes both ways, too! [22:49:26] TimStarling: 6 months to get it all merged :D [22:49:56] Reedy: should we have a tech debt dept? [22:50:20] Are they adding it or removing it? [22:50:23] Cause... [22:50:27] hehehe [22:50:45] lol [22:51:16] hehe [22:51:56] debt is a good work for german people wanting to make fun of english [22:52:05] Reedy: you think if it's the former, we might already have such a department?... [22:52:31] Should I answer that question? :P [22:52:32] it was spelled "dett" in middle english but deliberately screwed up in modern english by elitists [22:52:59] s/work/word/ [22:53:30] Hi, sorry for missing most of this meeting. One request to the ArchCom (and whoever else is interested): please add your questions to http://www.allourideas.org/wikidev17-product-technology-questions [22:53:39] (it kinda feels your "voice" is not very present there, although the ArchCom is explicitly mentioned in one question) [22:53:40] that's like apple used to be spelled appel, but they changed it to look more french, because french was posh, or something... [22:54:19] qgil: i just learned about that page. i'm sorry i was a bit out of the loop lately. [22:54:34] I like it a lot! I'll read through the questions and perhaps add one or two! [22:54:34] it's ok, and not too late [22:54:53] thanks [22:55:27] * cscott has to run; i'll hand over the answer baton to qgil [22:56:02] thanks cscott , sorry, I should have expected some Summit conversation here & now. [22:56:07] qgil: is there a deadline to that poll? [22:56:28] I guess I will extract the questions right before starting the Summit [22:56:40] ok, that gives me some more time... [22:57:17] The later you add questions, the more you risk that people won't evaluate them [22:57:24] true... [22:57:27] or that not enough people will evaluate them [22:57:52] but the ranking used is not sensitive to total # of votes, so latecomers aren't penalized [22:58:51] cscott: so later votes have effectively more impact? [22:58:55] sounds easy to game [22:59:05] hmhm... [22:59:10] "sounds easy to game" but... is it? [22:59:28] anyway, thanks for all the fish! err, for all the input! [22:59:28] It's oss so someone good in math could check the algorythm [22:59:34] submit proposal just before closing, then vote up from a couple of connections / browsers [22:59:47] * DanielK_WMDE_ 's brain is giving out [23:00:00] http://www.allourideas.org/about [23:00:07] you can read the papers [23:00:25] you are still competing with a collection of thousands of votes and interrelations. I think that system that looks so simple has more endurance than it shows [23:00:44] but it is all subjective\I have seen the list evolve these days. It is quite entertaining actually. :) [23:00:54] (my comment was based on "late comers are not penalized") [23:01:10] because it is based on direct comaprison of pairs, not on counting votes... i can kind of see that... [23:01:11] if there is a penalty for late comers, then it wouldn't be that easy to game [23:01:14] i was trying to give a readable summary of what I understand to be a quite complex algorithm [23:01:31] anyway, it's cool to have that page :) [23:01:36] don't take my words as a specification of the algorithm [23:01:46] it's an experiment, that so far is going well [23:02:20] gwicke, one factor for instance being that you don't choose which pairs you vote [23:02:20] qgil: maybe we should use that to come up with the schedule in the first place [23:02:43] qgil: yeah, but you can just provide 99% of the votes in the last hour or so [23:02:53] anyway, back to the actual topic ;) [23:03:21] DanielK_WMDE_ not a bad idea [23:03:25] oh, ruby code [23:04:13] I guess we are all done? [23:04:26] #endmeeting [23:04:26] Meeting ended Wed Dec 21 23:04:26 2016 UTC. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot . (v 0.1.4) [23:04:26] Minutes: https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2016/wikimedia-office.2016-12-21-22.00.html [23:04:26] Minutes (text): https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2016/wikimedia-office.2016-12-21-22.00.txt [23:04:26] Minutes (wiki): https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2016/wikimedia-office.2016-12-21-22.00.wiki [23:04:26] Log: https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2016/wikimedia-office.2016-12-21-22.00.log.html [23:04:31] thanks TimStarling [23:04:51] TimStarling, off topic but... do you know anything about Darwin (the Australian city)? [23:05:11] maybe a few things, I haven't been there though [23:05:43] ok, if there is a chance in SF, I will ask you. :) [23:06:15] about travelling there, or what? [23:06:54] if you ask me on facebook then I can loop in people who have actually been there [23:06:58] yeah, loosely thinking of spending some time there with the family... just because it looks in an interesting place of the map (and a bit more, but not much more) [23:07:12] ah, good idea [23:07:34] thanks! [23:21:44] aww too late, i have stayed in Darwin before for a while [23:22:21] the Kakadu National Park was great.. the city of Darwin itself might get boring if staying too long [23:22:42] it's easy to get to/from Bali to Darwin though, so nice combo [23:23:03] i used to know the Youth Hostel management [23:24:04] prices for groceries /food / drink are high because it's so remote