IRC office hours/2010-06-15

Philippe: Well, Eekim is out today, so it's just you and me for office hours, folks.

[1:03pm] Risker joined the chat room.

[1:04pm] Philippe: So a quickie-little update on where we are... Werdna has almost finished up his magic extension to track activity and expose it

[1:04pm] Jamesofur|out: when was this announced! (probably when I wasn't getting mail......)

[1:04pm] Philippe: and once that's done, we'll distribute a letter from Michael Snow asking people to pick a proposal and get to work on it, and such

[1:04pm] Rowan joined the chat room.

[1:04pm] Philippe: (when was what announced, Jamesofur|out?)

[1:04pm] Jamesofur|out: hmmm cold weather

[1:04pm] Jamesofur|out: the office hours

[1:04pm] Jamesofur|out is now known as Jamesofur.

[1:04pm] • Jamesofur had no clue

[1:04pm] Philippe: oh, it's our regularly scheduled one

[1:05pm] Jamesofur: schedules

[1:05pm] Jamesofur: psh

[1:05pm] Philippe: And anyway, we'll put up a centralnotice saying "ya'll come look at the proposals and see if there's something you want to activate around", basically....

[1:05pm] Philippe: and then away we go

[1:06pm] Philippe: Hopefully the teeming hordes will descend on strategy wiki, find something cool or propose something cool, gather people to work on it (including building consensus or writing code or whatever) and hop to it

[1:07pm] Philippe: But after that's started.... here comes the fun part....

[1:07pm] Philippe: we need to have a party. Obviously, that's hard to do with people all over the world. So we want to have a VIRTUAL party. I'll even buy the virtual margaritas But seriously, I've put a post on the village pump trying to get people to come up with ideas about how to celebrate the work that was done on the wiki.

[1:08pm] Philippe: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Village_pump#Let.27s_plan_a_party.21_5695

[1:09pm] • Jamesofur pictures webcams and beer

[1:09pm] gopher65: I'm only coming if I can have virtual malibu paralyzers. I don't like margaritas;).

[1:09pm] Philippe: You know, if someone wanted to host a skype conference, I bet we could find a guest speaker or something....

[1:09pm] Philippe: gopher65: deal

[1:09pm] gopher65: heh

[1:10pm] Jamesofur: Philippe: personally I actually think that would be pretty cool, but I don't know how many would come..

[1:10pm] Philippe: Oh, I dunno.... if we got Jimmy or Sue to drop in on it, I bet we'd get a crowd...

[1:10pm] Jamesofur: thats true

[1:11pm] Risker: just like any other party....people show up if the cool kids are there....

[1:11pm] Jamesofur: well Sue was going to do office hours soon, we could link them together

[1:11pm] gopher65: How many simltaneous connections can Skype hold?

[1:11pm] gopher65: Is it still just six, or did they remove that limit?

[1:11pm] Philippe: And if Jamesofur and Eekim and me are there.. well, that's the cool kids, right?

[1:11pm] Jamesofur: Risker: exactly why I'm worried no one will show up if I host

[1:11pm] Philippe: gopher65: I'm not sure.

[1:11pm] Amgine joined the chat room.

[1:11pm] Philippe: I bet I could convince someone here to spring for Webex or something

[1:12pm] Philippe: or if nothing else, we could even do an old-skool conference call.

[1:13pm] Amgine: with or without Skype?

[1:13pm] Philippe: well, we suggested skype first

[1:13pm] Philippe: but there's a question of simueltaneous connections... so I suggested Webex or old skool calling

[1:13pm] Jamesofur: I do think skype still has a limit but not sure how high.. never used webex

[1:14pm] Amgine: <prefers IRC for logs, links, and cheapness>

[1:14pm] Jamesofur: could always use skype, to call the old skool (to be cool spelled words like Philippe) number though

[1:14pm] Jamesofur: *to use

[1:14pm] • Jamesofur sighs

[1:15pm] Philippe: Amgine, we're trying to celebrate... do something alittle different IRC is great, but you can't see the drinks in Eeekim's hand if we do it that way

[1:15pm] Amgine: <considers> I use video chat via aim/iChat/etc.

[1:15pm] Philippe: does iChat do conferences?

[1:15pm] Amgine: Yes.

[1:16pm] Philippe: ooooh, nice

[1:16pm] Amgine: There's a limitation, but I don't remember what it is... 8? 12?

[1:16pm] Philippe: the idea is to find some way to gather together and celebrate the fact that we're done.... i think we'll have more than 12

[1:17pm] zai: teamspeak?

[1:17pm] Amgine: Have the core video subjects stream a feed, and the rest of us subscribe from IRC.

[1:18pm] Philippe: That's over my head.... <grin> Are you volunteering to set it up?

[1:18pm] Philippe: zai: I don't know teamspeak... good?

[1:18pm] Amgine: Not in the slightest.

[1:18pm] Philippe: pity, Amgine

[1:18pm] Jamesofur: teamspeak/vent are nice but audio only

[1:18pm] Amgine: Heh. Ask GMaxwell.

[1:18pm] zai: I dunno ^^ I just heard that it's capable of holding multiple people in a voice call

[1:19pm] Philippe: You know, if we scheduled this right, we could probably do it from Wikimania.

[1:19pm] Jamesofur: zai: it is, and I'd be happy to spring for a teamspeak or vent server to host everyone but would be audio only if we did it

[1:19pm] Amgine: Where there will be people setting up and managing video feeds...

[1:19pm] Jamesofur: oh that would be fun, for the people not there

[1:20pm] Philippe: Yeah... hmmm... that's an interesting idea.

[1:20pm] Philippe: We'll have a few people in the same room..... btw, is anyone here planning to go to Wikimania?

[1:20pm] Philippe: I know apergos is.... I am.... randmontoya is... werdna is....

[1:20pm] • Jamesofur is poor and can't afford it

[1:21pm] Philippe: yeah, Europe is expensive, I understnad htat.

[1:21pm] Philippe: that*

[1:21pm] apergos: yes, going.

[1:21pm] Jamesofur: and the whole job search thing at the same time, hopefully next year if work isn't in the way

[1:22pm] Philippe: I think I might have heard a rumor that a couple others are, but I'll let them out themselves :P\

[1:22pm] Amgine: Where is 'mania happening next year, again?

[1:22pm] Philippe: Gdansk, Poland

[1:22pm] gopher65: Israel in 2011

[1:22pm] Philippe: Yep, Haifa in 2011

[1:22pm] Amgine: Ah, that's right. The really frigging idiotic place to have it.

[1:22pm] Philippe: Amgine

[1:23pm] Amgine: <shrug> Shovels.

[1:23pm] Philippe: So, just a minor scheduling note....

[1:23pm] Philippe: we'll do office hours this week and next, and I believe the final one for the project will be the one for the week after next.

[1:23pm] Philippe: plus whatever celebration we do

[1:24pm] Philippe: btw... have ya'll had a second to look at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/What_do_we_believe%3F-Principles_of_the_Wikimedia_movement  ?

[1:25pm] peteforsyth joined the chat room.

[1:26pm] Amgine: <gg> "Information shall be unbiased."

[1:26pm] Philippe: I hate it when information has an opinion

[1:26pm] • Jamesofur gives thumbs up

[1:27pm] gopher65: So have we decided what's going to happen to strategic planning after the process is done?

[1:27pm] Amgine: Not to mention, as a principle it's... more a desirable goal than a reality.

[1:27pm] Jan_eissfeldt: Philippe: what exactly is this magic extension?

[1:27pm] gopher65: Will we just start preparing for the next round of planning, or will it be shut down?

[1:28pm] Philippe: gopher65: the wiki itself you mean? or the strategic planning department?

[1:28pm] Philippe: Jan_eissfeldt: Lemme find the page for it....

[1:28pm] gopher65: The wiki and the process, I suppose

[1:28pm] Philippe: Jan_eissfeldt: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Werdna/testing

[1:28pm] Jan_eissfeldt: thx a lot Philippe

[1:28pm] Jamesofur: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Activity_bot_for_strategy_proposals,_task_forces

[1:28pm] Philippe: and what Jamesofur gave it

[1:29pm] Philippe: James gave the outline of what we wanted it to do, and I linked to the beginning of the output that it is creating

[1:29pm] apergos: is there a spot on there for what is meant by "all knowledge" i.e. that this means, in practical terms, that everyone is sharing in the building of this pool of knowledge, not just sharing as consumers ?

[1:29pm] apergos: (on the What do we believe page)

[1:29pm] Jamesofur: oh look it's prettier even though no edits were made to the page after Philippe and I, that means the code changed!

[1:29pm] Philippe: gopher65: the strategic planning department will cease to exist. The future of the wiki is still up in the air: there are a number of possibilities... one is that it will simply be locked and marked historical and made ready for the next round of planning.

[1:30pm] Philippe: The other is that it may shift to becoming a volunteer activation wiki.

[1:30pm] Philippe: Nothing is decided yet, and opinions are welcome

[1:30pm] gopher65: Volunteer activation wiki? What's that?

[1:30pm] Philippe: Jamesofur: yep, it changed

[1:30pm] Jamesofur: The only thing that concerns me is confusion about it's role meshed with Metas

[1:31pm] Philippe: gopher65: Well, we're bringing a lot of people via centralnotice to the wiki, right? The idea is that they'll look at proposals and say "I'll do it, who's with me!" and this magic extension will tell us which ones are getting activity, etc.

[1:31pm] Jamesofur: if it is left as as a volunteer run wiki

[1:31pm] Philippe: that's what we mean by volunteer activation wiki, gopher65 ... and Jamesofur I don't think it's an unsurmountable issue. We talked about merging it into meta too.

[1:32pm] Jamesofur: oh, not necessarily unsurmountable just my major concern

[1:32pm] Amgine: I wrote the wikiHow on how to block centralNotice.

[1:32pm] Jamesofur: I would prefer to merge them then create 2 ghost wikis

[1:32pm] Philippe: Jamesofur: nobody wants a ghost wiki, I assure you

[1:33pm] Jamesofur: but if they are both active and different then hey cool

[1:33pm] Philippe: I suppose there's another posisibility, which is that someone from the Foundation would be assigned to serve in the role that Eekim and I do now, but I think that's the least likely option.

[1:34pm] Philippe: There's actually a thread about this on the wiki at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Village_pump#Future_of_this_project_5540

[1:34pm] gopher65: If nobody wants a ghost wiki then why is Arabic Wikinews still around?

[1:34pm] gopher65:

[1:34pm] Philippe: You think they want it to be a ghost wiki?

[1:34pm] Philippe: I bet they want it to be more.

[1:35pm] gopher65: They have a grand total of 1 very part time edtior

[1:35pm] gopher65: And sr.wikinews is run entirely by bots. The bots copy PD stories to sr.wikinews, and then publish them. And that's it. Nothing else.

[1:36pm] Philippe: We've spent a lot of time talking about when it is/isn't appropriate to consider a project dead. Never really got to a conclusion on that tho

[1:36pm] gopher65: It's a tough decision

[1:36pm] Jamesofur: it is, since if you close/lock it you also run the real risk of having people decide not to deal with it (and therefore not reactivate it later when their is interest)

[1:37pm] gopher65: For instance: what happens if - for some reason - there is a huge surge in interest in community driven news in the arabic speaking world 5 years from now? It would be handy to have a pre-made wiki already there, with templates already made, and rules already in place

[1:37pm] gopher65: Rather than having to start from scratch

[1:38pm] • gopher65 is still sore about Klingon Wikipedia being killed

[1:38pm] Philippe: Yeah, this is one area where I really wish we'd driven to some recommendations.

[1:39pm] gopher65: My personal feeling is that we should just leave inactive wikis alone for X amount of time (say... 10 years) unless there is a good reason to delete them (they're taking up too much needed space on the servers, or something).

[1:39pm] gopher65: Just in case they revive

[1:40pm] gopher65: Wikis haven't been around very long. We don't yet have a lot (any) data on long-term user trends

[1:40pm] Tempodivalse joined the chat room.

[1:40pm] gopher65: For all we know wikis naturally go through boom and bust cycles every 14.3335 years or something, and we just haven't been around long enough to witness it happening yet

[1:41pm] Tempodivalse: What's on today's agenda?

[1:41pm] Philippe: That's an interesting idea, gopher.... the other thing is that we don't know yet what the levers to manage that are.

[1:41pm] Tempodivalse: i've missed some stuff it seems

[1:41pm] Philippe: No agendas, Tempodivalse

[1:41pm] gopher65: It would be a shame to kill various wikis only to find out after the fact that they would have revived if we'd just left them alone for a while.

[1:41pm] Tempodivalse: Hehe.

[1:42pm] Amgine: gopher65: Mishna are a long-term version of a Wiki.

[1:42pm] Philippe: We've talked about how we celebrate the end of the year-long planning process (and I hereby volunteer Jamesofur to investigate options for a video and/or audio conference), and also about our next steps moving forward.

[1:42pm] • Jamesofur will do so

[1:42pm] Philippe: ah, I love willing volunteers

[1:43pm] Jamesofur:

[1:43pm] Philippe: oooh, Sue just left an interesting post of gender and diversity on strategy wiki

[1:43pm] Jamesofur: gopher65: I feel that there was an investigated 18 month cycle of some sort.. but not sure if it caries over to smaller wikis as well

[1:44pm] Jamesofur: oh you're going to make me go look now ARENT you Philippe

[1:44pm] • Jamesofur goes to look

[1:44pm] Philippe: I would make you do nothing

[1:44pm] • apergos goes to look

[1:45pm] Philippe: Wow, she makes really interesting points.

[1:47pm] Jamesofur: Philippe: you went to a quilting show to see how their community building worked?

[1:47pm] Philippe: i did

[1:47pm] • Jamesofur will have to discuss how that went later

[1:47pm] Philippe: Jay and I did, actually

[1:47pm] Amgine: <cusses @ usability skin, logs in to see it in Simple>

[1:47pm] apergos: Disharmony disproportionately drives away women.

[1:48pm] Philippe: mmhmm, yeah, good point, apergos

[1:48pm] • Jamesofur still finds reading in liquid threads very difficult I want to like it

[1:48pm] apergos: and I wonder why when I talk about the value of people being nice to each other on wiki, it falls on deaf ears so much of the time )no joke)

[1:48pm] apergos: (I was quoting Sue's post)

[1:48pm] Amgine: oh, frak, it's liquid, yes.

[1:48pm] Philippe: Yeah, but it's a good one to highlight

[1:48pm] • Jamesofur wonders how many people would hit him if he commented about the disharmony created by women......

[1:48pm] Philippe: 1

[1:49pm] apergos: none. I would just ask you to compare it to the disharmony created by men and by others

[1:49pm] Jamesofur: this is true, and I'm not actually sure I'd say that the disharmony created by one or the other is more. But I do think they are different

[1:50pm] gopher65: Yeah Amgine, liquid threads. I actually find it a lot harder to follow dicussions in LQT than in regular wikitext. But I also find that LQT is *great* for the comments pages on Wikinews.

[1:50pm] Jamesofur: and the responses can often be different as well (the driving away is part of that, I think men tend to... for lack of a better word "get over it" faster)

[1:50pm] Jamesofur: that sounds very sexist it isn't meant to be

[1:50pm] apergos: well or not; they will just slug it out

[1:50pm] apergos: where other folks don't really thrive in that sort of environment

[1:50pm] Amgine: <avoids LQT specifically> It also breaks some wiki precepts.

[1:50pm] Philippe: I disagree. Let's fight.

[1:50pm] Philippe: :_P

[1:51pm] apergos: chocolate cream pies at 5 paces!

[1:51pm] • Jamesofur puts em up

[1:51pm] Philippe: oh god, it's Dr. Strangelove.

[1:51pm] Jamesofur: drinking Dr. Pepper

[1:51pm] Amgine: I would ask all of you what you consider "women" and "men".

[1:52pm] Philippe: Ah, interesting, Amgine

[1:52pm] apergos: in sue's post she tlaks about people socialized as women (or men)

[1:52pm] Amgine: <shrug> It's a false dichotomy. For example, I and my family do not fit any of her categories.

[1:52pm] apergos: so to be very precise, those that the categories I would be referring to here, generalizing of course

[1:52pm] apergos: no, it's not. it is a generalization that is useful in describing social interactions

[1:53pm] Philippe: Yeah, I think it's important to point out that even Sue says "women vary widely; men do too"

[1:53pm] Philippe: It's not intended to assert that everyone fits neatly into these roles

[1:53pm] Jamesofur: Amgine: You are very right of course

[1:54pm] apergos: I was socialized in a particular way. now I didn't turn out the way I was socialized but some of that I have certainly internalized... and as a generalization it is useful (do we need to refer to the studies on everything from use of personal space to interruptions in conversation?)

[1:54pm] Amgine: <queer look> The world is round is a great generalization, but not when you're trying to locate something exactly on its surface. When you're talking about a gender-related issue, it's much more useful to have an exact concept so communication may successfully take place.

[1:54pm] Philippe: We're not really trying to locate something specifically... we're trying to look at broad concepts. And for that, "the world is round" is probably a good place to start

[1:55pm] • Jamesofur nods

[1:55pm] Jamesofur: the broad strokes will always be broad (god knows what "men do" doesn't always/usually work for me in my mind, which may be part of it as well)

[1:55pm] Jamesofur: but can still be useful

[1:56pm] Amgine: <shrug> Okay, I guess if making generalizations will solve things then feel free. But I have large-scale survey data which suggests some US populations have as much as 10% failure on "what is your sex" question.

[1:56pm] apergos: <genderqueer look> or we can pretend that the existing communities are equally welcoming to people socialized as men or as women and move on

[1:57pm] apergos: I am talking about socialized behaviors, not about biology here. I thought that was clear (and I thought that was extremely clear in Sue's post).

[1:58pm] Amgine: Yes, it is/was.

[1:58pm] _jem_ left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 245 seconds)

[1:59pm] Philippe: And with that, folks, I have to move on to a meeting...

[1:59pm] Philippe: Thank for being here, as always.

[1:59pm] Philippe: Jamesofur: you'll find out about conference options and post them somewhere?

[1:59pm] Philippe: village pump maybe? in answer to my post about celebrating?

[1:59pm] Jamesofur: aye, anywhere that is good for people

[1:59pm] Jamesofur: that may be the best

[1:59pm] Tempodivalse left the chat room.

[2:00pm] Philippe: Amgine, it was a pleasusre to see you again.

[2:00pm] Philippe: The rest of you too, of course, but I haven't seen Amgine in a while

[2:00pm] Amgine: <blames gopher65 for bringing me>

[2:00pm] Philippe: gopher65 clearly can't be trusted then.

[2:00pm] Philippe: takes you bad places

[2:01pm] Jamesofur: but obviously deserves a treat for dragging you here

[2:01pm] Amgine: <gg>

[2:01pm] Philippe: Thanks, folks!!