IRC office hours/2010-06-29

eekim: okay, it's 1pm, let's get started!

[1:01pm] Blurpeace: Hi eekim

[1:01pm] Amgine: <pops cork, pours sparkling>

[1:01pm] eekim: so this is the last office hours

[1:01pm] eekim: although, there will be some type of virtual celebration next week

[1:01pm] eekim: and we should decide what that will entail

[1:02pm] eekim: it should include Amgine's virtual champagne

[1:02pm] Philippe: I just came from a staff presentation on Webex, btw... we can only have 25 participants in "presentation/screenshare/video" mode, but audio mode seems to not have a max that we're likely to hit.

[1:03pm] eekim: will someone take notes on http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Process/Celebration?

[1:03pm] eekim: is there some kind of video group thing we could do?

[1:03pm] Tempodivalse: So I've heard that the strategy wiki could be closed or merged.

[1:03pm] Philippe: eekim: max of 25 participants on webex

[1:03pm] Philippe: for video

[1:03pm] eekim: will that show everybody participating?

[1:03pm] DG|away: <waves>

[1:03pm] eekim: hi DG

[1:03pm] Philippe: everyone who is logged into the software, who wishes to

[1:04pm] eekim: okay, that's an interesting option

[1:04pm] eekim: to answer Tempodivalse's question...

[1:04pm] eekim: the current plan is to see if strategy can be used as a place to self-organize around volunteer opportunities

[1:04pm] eekim: check out the new main page: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/

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

[1:05pm] eekim: you can see we added a new dashboard to try and encourage more action around proposals

[1:05pm] eekim: hi ShakataGaNai

[1:05pm] ShakataGaNai: yo

[1:05pm] Philippe: many props to werdna for building the gizmo dashboard at the bottom

[1:05pm] eekim: and TimStarling

[1:05pm] Philippe: and Tim

[1:05pm] Tempodivalse: hmm, ok ...

[1:05pm] Tempodivalse: I've heard suggestions that it be rolled back into meta

[1:05pm] Tempodivalse: is that anything more than a rumour?

[1:06pm] eekim: nope, that suggestion is still on the table

[1:06pm] eekim: at the end of the day, it's really up to all of you

[1:06pm] eekim: this project is done, but if this space can be a valuable community space, then i hope it will stay up

[1:07pm] eekim: but we shouldn't keep it up for the sake of keeping it up

[1:07pm] eekim: if it makes more sense to merge it into meta, we should do that

[1:07pm] FT2: We will have a number of "specific project" wikis over time

[1:07pm] FT2: a central repository or index of them would be sensible

[1:07pm] eekim: more specific than wikimedia.org?

[1:07pm] FT2: they are as much part of the history of the project as any page revisions

[1:08pm] Amgine: Query: What is the "final product" of the strategy project?

[1:08pm] • bawolff was wondering that too

[1:08pm] eekim: five year strategic plan for the movement

[1:08pm] eekim: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan

[1:08pm] FT2: well, create a policy on "retired wikis" - rename them to strategy.retired.wikimedia.org or whatever if they are not in ongoing use, ratheer than delete them.

[1:08pm] eekim: not quite done yet

[1:09pm] Philippe: FT2 - there is NO discussion about deleting the wiki. There's great content there that should not be lost.

[1:09pm] eekim: would encourage you all to go and check it out, especially the Movement Priorities page

[1:09pm] FT2: ok

[1:09pm] Tempodivalse: might be better for us on Meta, considering we'd get more admin help and the like, could also get more attention. But, would all of this be in Meta's scope?

[1:09pm] eekim: i think it would be in Meta's scope

[1:10pm] eekim: one of the advantages of having our own space was that we could innovate faster

[1:10pm] eekim: we were the first project to use Vector, LiquidThreads, etc.

[1:10pm] eekim: we have the Proposal and Task Force generator (which we copied), and now we have the Proposal Dashboard

[1:10pm] DG|away left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 252 seconds)

[1:10pm] eekim: we tried using ReaderFeedback, although that experiment didn't go well

[1:10pm] Philippe: we mildly copied the task force generator. it was mostly new code

[1:11pm] eekim: not sure if we would have been able to innovate as fast as we did on Meta. could be wrong, though.

[1:11pm] eekim: and frankly, not sure how Meta would feel about a merger. For example, would there be issues around LiquidThreads?

[1:12pm] Amgine: Query: Most strategy plans include measurement towards goals. Is measurement an element of the 5 year plan?

[1:13pm] eekim: yes. see http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities

[1:15pm] Diego_Grez joined the chat room.

[1:15pm] bawolff: I see a lot of goals like "have 99.9% uptime", but not saying what we're currently at

[1:16pm] eekim: we don't know that yet, bawolff

[1:16pm] bawolff: I'm just kind of curious as to how much of an improvement that would be

[1:16pm] bawolff: Thats a good reason not to have them

[1:16pm] eekim: that speaks to how important it is for us to beef our infrastructural support now -- we don't even have these numbers

[1:16pm] eekim:

[1:17pm] FT2: reading ..

[1:17pm] eekim: one of the positive things that will emerge from this process is that we'll actually start measuring things

[1:17pm] eekim: it's incredible the things we don't know but should

[1:17pm] eekim: things like our current uptime

[1:18pm] dami_hun joined the chat room.

[1:18pm] eekim: welcome, dami_hun

[1:18pm] lyzzy: to find fitting measurement criterias is not easy

[1:18pm] eekim: definitely not

[1:18pm] lyzzy: there are still sme missing in the tables

[1:18pm] Philippe: also impoortant to say that our definition of "uptime" is rigorous... it includes more than the website

[1:19pm] eekim: any ideas on how to fill them in, lyzzy?

[1:19pm] Jamesofur: Philippe: what does it include?

[1:19pm] Philippe: it also includes things like wikimail, our internal wikis, etc.

[1:19pm] lyzzy: perhaps we can try to figure it out in the discussion page

[1:19pm] lyzzy: i worked on a single table a few days ago

[1:20pm] Jamesofur: and so if 1 project/system is down we count it as "down" or counting each uptime separately?

[1:20pm] eekim: let's do that, lyzzy

[1:20pm] lyzzy: and thought about bringing mre people together to fill the missing pieces

[1:20pm] eekim: if anything goes down, it counts as part of our total uptime

[1:20pm] eekim: but it's a reasonable question whether that's how we should measure

[1:20pm] eekim: project uptime is clearly more important than, say, wikimail

[1:20pm] FT2: I can think of a few key downtimes

[1:21pm] Amgine: Depends on your weighting model, eekim.

[1:21pm] FT2: but a major one is downtime as in "would a reader notice". For example how often does a squid go down or a page can't be cached from the db, in a way that a reader would notice

[1:21pm] FT2: second is how often is editing impacted

[1:22pm] Diego_Grez left the chat room. (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

[1:22pm] eekim: good points, FT2

[1:23pm] geniice joined the chat room.

[1:23pm] eekim: welcome, geniice

[1:24pm] FT2: If there are 100 squids but internal rerouting/failover means that most times when one stalls, it's immediately handled by another squid, then internally it matters, but externally its a "No fail"

[1:24pm] eekim: as people continue to mull the movement priorities, i also want to point folks to the Call for Actions

[1:24pm] eekim: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_action

[1:24pm] eekim: we're planning on doing a CentralNotice starting tonight that points to this page

[1:25pm] lyzzy: how is this planned to be spread?

[1:25pm] eekim: would love thoughts on that

[1:25pm] eekim: CentralNotice + email

[1:25pm] lyzzy: ok - i am too slow

[1:25pm] eekim:

[1:26pm] Amgine: According to a suggestion in #wikimedia-tech, uptime measurement could be qa polled from an external server.

[1:26pm] geniice: CentralNotice=Do not touch

[1:26pm] Jamesofur: aye, exactly FT2, I would generally say that we should do uptime on a per system basis (or at least per project/system) people are generally going to want the data for a project (en for example or commons) not for everything as a whole (which they won't really care about) my guess is that we would have to have some idea of "what" counts as uptime (do 90% of the audience need to be able to reach the servers, 99%?, 100%?) I know we hav

[1:26pm] Jamesofur: e had times when certain countries only couldn't because of certain servers going down

[1:26pm] Jamesofur: email = mailing lists I assume?

[1:26pm] bawolff: stupid question, maybe i misunderstand its point, but i thought http://nagios.wikimedia.org/ recorded downtime somehow

[1:27pm] FT2: too narrow a focus for the last meeting. If there is a place where it's discussed what mettrics apply to "uptime" maybe let me know?

[1:27pm] • Jamesofur checks the central notice

[1:27pm] Philippe: Jamesofur, it's a previous centralnotice... it's strategy3, i believe

[1:27pm] Philippe: we're reusing it since it was translated

[1:28pm] Jamesofur: kk, was about to ask if there was a new one cause I didn't see one lol

[1:28pm] eekim: there's an analytics task force. that would be a good place to continue discussing uptime. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Analytics

[1:28pm] Jamesofur: lazy bastards

[1:28pm] Philippe: yes.

[1:28pm] Jamesofur: out of my own heart <3

[1:28pm] Philippe:

[1:28pm] eekim: why create when you can reuse

[1:28pm] geniice: FT2 uptime is something companies like to advertise. The result is the BS about it piles up so fast you need wings to stay above it

[1:30pm] eekim: thx for fixing the German translation, lyzzy

[1:30pm] lyzzy: np

[1:31pm] lyzzy: is there a link to the central notice text?

[1:31pm] Philippe: Sure, holdon, lemme grab it

[1:31pm] lyzzy: i can't find it on meta

[1:32pm] lyzzy: ok

[1:33pm] lyzzy: what i wanted to say and forgot it each time:

[1:33pm] lyzzy: i really like the look of the startegy wiki

[1:33pm] Philippe: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&template=strategicplan2&wpUserLanguage=all

[1:33pm] lyzzy: with the boxes and the different font-sizes

[1:33pm] eekim: thanks, lyzzy

[1:33pm] lyzzy: it makes it easy to find the important things

[1:33pm] Philippe: Thanks, lyzzy

[1:34pm] eekim: that's really great to here. Philippe really did a great job with that page.

[1:34pm] eekim: plus all the folks who contributed to it before.

[1:35pm] eekim: here = hear

[1:35pm] • Philippe did very little of that, actually, but i'm very fond of my icons

[1:36pm] dami_hun: is it just me or http://volunteer.wikimedia.org/ really does lead to a winamp playlist?

[1:36pm] eekim: wow, dami_hun. good catch. that's bizarre.

[1:36pm] • werdna is propped

[1:37pm] eekim: hey werdna

[1:37pm] werdna: hello hello

[1:37pm] lyzzy: i showed it to some wikipedians as an example for using more font-based design

[1:37pm] lyzzy: hi werdna

[1:37pm] Philippe: werdna, uhm... can you check out what dami_hun just noted?

[1:37pm] Philippe: why is the subdomain volunteer. leading to a winamp list?

[1:37pm] werdna: ...

[1:37pm] werdna: lol.

[1:37pm] FT2: winamp.wikimedia.org

[1:37pm] FT2: grins

[1:38pm] Philippe: not even great songs

[1:38pm] Philippe: i mean, 'cmon.

[1:38pm] eekim: we should at least be able to edit the playlist

[1:38pm] bawolff: lol

[1:38pm] lyzzy: we could work on a strategy play list when celebrating

[1:38pm] Philippe: "needs moar AC/DC"

[1:39pm] Jamesofur: wow... that is bad

[1:39pm] • Jamesofur never noticed that though, yay easter eggs!

[1:40pm] Jamesofur: and all the click me's are 404's!

[1:40pm] Jamesofur: booo

[1:40pm] Philippe: listfail

[1:41pm] Philippe: So actually, this would be a good time to do one last beg for translations for the call for action....

[1:41pm] Philippe: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_action

[1:41pm] Jamesofur: translation mailing list?

[1:41pm] Jamesofur: (which I think is members only so find someone already on it)

[1:41pm] Philippe: Jamesofur: they've seen it once before, but wouldn't hurt anything...

[1:41pm] Philippe: i'm on it

[1:42pm] Jamesofur: aye, but once they've seen it and moved on they rarely move back, so if it has been more then a couple weeks certainly worth a nother one

[1:42pm] Jamesofur: *another

[1:42pm] Jamesofur: I find they tend to respond either quickly or not at all

[1:42pm] Philippe: fair point that

[1:42pm] geniice: I find it somewhat suprising that no one has mass recorded all those folk songs Cecil Sharp collected

[1:42pm] werdna: Philippe: fred's response: "What the fuck?"

[1:42pm] werdna: Philippe: where is it supposed to point?

[1:43pm] Philippe: lol@Fred

[1:43pm] Philippe: werdna, should be a dead domain at this point.

[1:43pm] eekim: it used to point to a volunteer app we had set up

[1:43pm] eekim: back in september

[1:43pm] eekim: ah, i know what happened

[1:43pm] werdna: oh?

[1:43pm] eekim: werdna, i'm coming into the office after this. i'll tell you and fred directly.

[1:43pm] eekim: unless others want to hear the explanation.

[1:44pm] werdna: ok

[1:44pm] dami_hun: yes, we'd like to

[1:44pm] werdna: well he's dropping the domain

[1:44pm] eekim: that's the right solution

[1:44pm] werdna: ok

[1:44pm] Philippe: oh wait, someone else hosted the app, didn't they?

[1:44pm] eekim: we wrote a custom app to solicit volunteers for task forces last october

[1:44pm] eekim: exactly, philippe

[1:44pm] Philippe: ding ding ding.... and he's reusing that IP

[1:45pm] Philippe: and we never killed the pointer.

[1:45pm] Philippe: note to self

[1:45pm] eekim: exactly

[1:45pm] eekim: he's not reusing that IP. we canceled our VPS. someone else got that IP.

[1:45pm] Philippe: ahhhh

[1:45pm] eekim: wouldn't have happened if we could have hosted it off the wikimedia servers. *grumble*

[1:45pm] Philippe: heh, funny

[1:46pm] Philippe: there's humor there. The real question is, "how many people have accidentally clicked through"

[1:47pm] eekim: that is an excellent question

[1:47pm] eekim: wish we had better analytics

[1:47pm] eekim: okay, folks

[1:47pm] eekim: about ten more minutes until our final office hours are over

[1:47pm] eekim: as i said, we'll do some kind of virtual celebration next week at Wikimania

[1:48pm] eekim: would love to get people's ideas on how to celebrate

[1:48pm] eekim: video is one

[1:48pm] eekim: i'd also love to just do an hour on IRC where people reflect on the process and the outcome

[1:49pm] eekim: and where we can appreciate each other. so many people contributed to this process.

[1:49pm] bawolff left the chat room. (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

[1:50pm] bawolff joined the chat room.

[1:51pm] Philippe: eekim: what's the latest number for contributors?

[1:52pm] eekim: good question!

[1:52pm] eekim: and it looks like we got new dumps today!

[1:52pm] eekim: i'll process those this afternoon and let folks know

[1:52pm] eekim: i'm hoping we passed the 1,000 contributor mark

[1:52pm] Philippe: if we're sitting at 999 or something, i'm creating a sock, I'm just sayin.

[1:53pm] • eekim laughs

[1:53pm] eekim: okay folks, so a few things I hope people will help with over the next few days

[1:54pm] eekim: 1. review / edit / discuss movement priorities http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities

[1:54pm] eekim: 2. spread the word / monitor the wiki for our call for action + sign up for things http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_action

[1:55pm] eekim: 3. come celebrate with us next week! more news to come.

[1:55pm] eekim: many, many thanks to all of you for making this such a fun process

[1:55pm] Philippe: On that note, it's worth saying that Eekim has not had the easiest job in the world. I'm kinda stubborn. So thanks for the year.

[1:55pm] eekim: and for contributing in such substantial ways

[1:56pm] GerardM-: sorry to be late

[1:56pm] eekim: welcome, GerardM-

[1:56pm] eekim: don't worry, we'll celebrate next week

[1:56pm] eekim: thanks, Philippe. nothing worthwhile is easy.

[1:57pm] eekim: still got a week and a half to go, but the project has been a blast

[1:57pm] eekim: i am humbled by all the work all of you put into this

[1:57pm] eekim: we had great attendance at all of our office hours, which we did once a week for a year

[1:57pm] eekim: so many substantial discussions and good work

[1:57pm] eekim: amazing

[1:58pm] Philippe: There are nearly 500 total pages of office hours, by the way... if you should print it... which I didn't

[1:58pm] eekim: save the trees!

[1:59pm] eekim: maybe we'll hit 500 after this one

[1:59pm] Philippe: it's a file

[1:59pm] Jamesofur: you, stubborn? never would have imagined it. What time is the CN planning on going out?

[1:59pm] Philippe: about two hours from now

[1:59pm] eekim: later today

[1:59pm] Jamesofur: ah

[2:00pm] • Jamesofur isn't sure why he asked the question given that the control page was in front of him...

[2:00pm] dami_hun: on all wikis? what percentage of readership?

[2:00pm] Jamesofur: no one saw that

[2:00pm] eekim: saw what, Jamesofur?

[2:00pm] Jamesofur: oh look a bunny!

[2:00pm] eekim: dami_hun, what are you asking about?

[2:01pm] Philippe: dami_hun: it will be to logged in users only

[2:01pm] Jamesofur: right now it is only set up for en... which probably isn't what we want

[2:01pm] eekim: ah

[2:01pm] eekim: for now, yes, Jamesofur

[2:01pm] Jamesofur: oh k

[2:01pm] eekim: we didn't feel like we had enough translations yet

[2:01pm] Jamesofur: fair enough

[2:01pm] • Jamesofur takes out the whip on Philippe

[2:01pm] Philippe: hey, i set it correctly!

[2:02pm] eekim: okay, everybody

[2:02pm] Jamesofur: that was to get more translations

[2:02pm] eekim: appropriate that the whip was pulled out as a final act for these office hours

[2:02pm] eekim: thank you everyone

[2:02pm] dami_hun: would have noted that it might clash with the vector deployment sitenotices, but if En.wiki only than there is no problem

[2:02pm] Philippe: Jamesofur: ever tried to wrangle translators? Herding cats

[2:02pm] eekim: see you on strategy wiki!

[2:02pm] Philippe: dami_hun: the vector schedule was taken into account on it

[2:02pm] eekim: and looking forward to celebrating with all of you next week!

[2:02pm] Philippe: See you all on the wiki