Archive:2011-03-06/Log

[20:55:44] Meeting in 5 [20:58:57] -*- jeremyb waves [20:59:18] -*- jeremyb didn't have a chance to work on the commit hook extension yet [20:59:19] is there a convenient way to prepend to a topic? [20:59:47] /t usually fills in the current topic and then just edit it. ? [20:59:47] -*- pyrak reporting for duty [20:59:55] paulproteus: pingping [21:00:01] jeremyb: not working on irssi [21:00:02] i'm gunna grab something to munch on [21:00:07] astory: try harder [21:00:15] * jeremyb has changed topic for #freeculture to: "Students for Free Culture || http://freeculture.org || Website suggestions? - Report a bug at https://launchpad.net/web/ | SFC NYC conference is over http://conf11.freeculture.org/" [21:00:42] * astory has changed topic for #freeculture to: "Students for Free Culture || Webteam Meeting NOW! || http://freeculture.org || Website suggestions? - Report a bug at https://launchpad.net/web/ | SFC NYC conference is over http://conf11.freeculture.org/" [21:00:47] jeremyb: I tried harder :D [21:00:52] had to hit tab after hitting space [21:00:54] astory: try actually doing /t with no params first and then /t again [21:00:55] hi all [21:00:58] anyway, hey guys [21:01:05] so, the agenda's up at http://wiki.freeculture.org/Webteam/Upcoming [21:01:18] whatever we cover I'll move into the minutes [21:01:32] and I'm going to move the current state over to the pirate pad [21:01:43] http://piratepad.net/Zr1gYgnTGM [21:01:59] paulproteus: ping [21:02:40] where's meetbot? :-) [21:03:27] let's start with introductions? [21:03:38] should we wait for paulproteus ? [21:03:53] I'm Parker Phinney. I'm serving on the board of SFC. [21:04:01] And I've been doing webteam stuff for ~4 years [21:04:14] astory: i say no, because he can read scrollback [21:04:16] I'm Alec Story, I'm president of SFC Cornell, I just got recruited to help with management, and am currently a n00b. [21:04:19] pyrak: k [21:05:07] skyfaller, jeremyb? [21:05:34] I'm jeremyb, i'm new to national SFC but was at the recent conf and have attended NYU chapter mtgs on and off for a while. I'm a VP of Wikimedia NYC and a sys admin by day. [21:05:39] Hi! [21:05:42] I'm late. [21:05:42] hi, I'm Nelson Pavlosky, I co-founded SFC and I've been messing with the website since 2004 [21:06:09] (and attended fordham law's inaguaral event!) [21:06:12] Thanks for starting on time without me. [21:06:17] Great to see so many people here. [21:06:40] jeremyb: that's right :) [21:06:40] paulproteus: was that good or not? anyway, introduce yourself [21:07:03] skyfaller: i was referring to myself, but it's true for you too [21:07:11] :-) [21:07:23] astory: It's excellent that you started on time without me. [21:07:27] Hi! I'm Asheesh. [21:07:49] paulproteus: be here: http://piratepad.net/Zr1gYgnTGM [21:07:52] I've been on the web team since 2005. I've been on the periphery of freeculture.org since 2004. [21:07:55] pyrak: thumbs up [21:08:18] cool. So I'd like to talk about what exactly you want me to do for management [21:08:25] astory: Heck yeah. [21:08:34] things I know about: organizing meetings, making sure that emailed requests get done [21:09:20] ok, so apparently I'm setting goals, and wrangle volunteers to get tasks done [21:09:29] and recruiting new people [21:09:34] er, could we make the answers be in irc? [21:09:38] this is a little weird [21:09:43] astory: Sounds good to me [21:09:57] i'll just copypasta: [21:10:02] righto [21:10:04] Yeah, astory -- I'm thinking, you should understand the web site team and tech well enough to push it all around. [21:10:06] ** run meetings (this rocks) [21:10:06] ** Set the goals for the team [21:10:06] ** Work with volunteers for us to achieve it [21:10:06] *** That includes pinging people as needed, and adjusting other people's expectations if we need to decide that we can't [21:10:06] ** make sure that emailed requests get done [21:10:08] ** recruit new members [21:10:20] cool, that sounds good [21:10:21] re: nagginess: I think you should do something like what TCP does, if that makes sense. [21:10:33] transmission control protocol? [21:10:35] Ya [21:10:37] ok [21:10:46] slow start, then? [21:11:03] And multiplicative decrease. Maybe additive decrease is okay, really (-: [21:11:08] heh [21:11:17] And what do you need to learn about? [21:11:21] right, so just be aware that I might need feedback if I 'm acting suboptimally [21:11:26] paulproteus: that's what Im' asking you :P [21:11:27] Okay, I will do my best. [21:11:35] astory: I will try to answer right now [21:11:56] So I think that for the goal of you pushing us all around (myself being the person who most needs being pushed around), I think that you should have a high-level understanding of everything the web team does. [21:12:14] You also are completely welcome to a low level understanding and to memorize our private SSH keys, for example! [21:12:26] ok, so what I can think of right now is: blog, mailing list, wiki, other website contents [21:12:38] Knowing e.g. which web server we use, who to ping if e.g. jeremyb wants access to the Apache config files, etc. [21:12:54] --> Channel6 (~blah@adsl-75-36-250-100.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net) has joined #freeculture [21:12:55] <-- Channel6 (~blah@adsl-75-36-250-100.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net) has quit (Changing host) [21:12:55] --> Channel6 (~blah@unaffiliated/yourkicks) has joined #freeculture [21:13:00] I think that if you're the primary person that people complain to when they need access to something, you should have a good idea of how to help them join in. [21:13:11] of course [21:13:46] ok, cool, so that seems fine [21:14:02] Okay, so, I think that is totally awesome because I am overcommitted and this will totally rock. [21:14:05] (-: [21:14:11] oh, we run noteshub? (you just got me digging in apache config :P) [21:14:12] I'm glad I can be of service :D [21:14:16] oh, right [21:14:20] jeremyb: yeah! [21:14:27] that's more rich jones' baby, but yeah [21:14:28] We've tried this before; we've had someone else try to manage me, and eventually that person vanished, so at least if you want to vanish, do say so (-: [21:14:41] paulproteus: I usually feel bad about that, so yeah [21:14:45] (Bless cwilkin's heart) [21:14:47] RTV? :P [21:15:12] "RTV"? [21:15:28] right to vanich [21:15:31] vanish* [21:15:31] (-: [21:15:37] an enwp thing [21:15:42] Okay, so does that cover the "Management" section to your satisfaction, astory? [21:15:54] yes [21:15:58] Also, astory, something huge is that the sensation of activity reliably generates more activity on the web team's behalf. [21:15:59] moving on, to bugs [21:16:04] heh, yes [21:16:07] Just something to keep in mind. I'm happy to move on, too. [21:16:21] Bugs... I guess this means I should go to Launchpad and see the list. [21:16:32] so I haven't dug into the bug tracker, and I haven't made a launchpad account, so I should do that [21:16:36] yes! [21:16:38] (maybe one take-away from that is that it's nice to keep threads on the webteam list, and mail webteam when you do something) [21:16:44] right [21:16:44] (heck yeah) [21:16:44] (and ask for help once in a while) [21:17:22] hm, so I should have e-mailed webteam when I was trying to fix the admin bar bug and make our HTML validate? [21:17:36] skyfaller: At least at some point, to check in on that. [21:17:39] skyfaller: yeah [21:17:42] At the start, or at the end. [21:17:52] At "least" astory should email the web team e.g. weekly to say what people have done. [21:17:54] I guess I imagined that the SVN changelog with my comments would give people some idea of what I was working on [21:18:08] but maybe that is not a system that is desirable or currently in use [21:18:16] paulproteus: that may be more than I can reliably do [21:18:18] but I'll try [21:18:40] it'd be cooler if you would just email webteam with a log, or maybe we should have the version control system post changes to webteam [21:18:44] another option is something like http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log [21:18:46] astory: Oh, okay, cool. (In that case, feel free to delegate, and/or write a script to make a Launchpad weekly activity thing (?)) [21:18:51] -*- paulproteus reads the wikitech link [21:18:58] how do real FOSS projects keep track of what people are working on? [21:19:02] they have an IRC bot that stalks a keyword and relays to the wiki log [21:19:17] skyfaller: It varies widely (and wildly)... [21:19:47] jeremyb: How is http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log generated; do you know? [21:19:54] 07 02:19:01 they have an IRC bot that stalks a keyword and relays to the wiki log [21:20:06] e.g.: [21:20:07] (Thanks for repeating yourself) [21:20:16] !log fixed blah, disabled x [21:20:22] That's pretty cool. [21:20:40] ok, so that's something we should lok in to [21:20:43] I kind of want to delay the details of this to a separate discussion and agenda topic; for now we're supposed to be talking about bugs. [21:20:48] -*- paulproteus nods [21:20:52] yes [21:20:57] so are there any really nasty ones? [21:20:58] re: wikislowness: I think it was an artifact of a failure to move the configuration over properly. [21:21:12] yeah, it looks like we got that worked out [21:21:13] I think that's Totally Behind Us Now. [21:21:22] did you document that stuff though? so it doesn't happen next time? [21:21:24] (with huge thanks to jeremyb for pinging me) [21:21:35] sure [21:21:36] astory: I can add some notes to LocalSettings.php in the wiki; that's probably the best place for thsoe docs. [21:21:44] paulproteus: please do [21:21:50] astory: Let that be an action item for me post-meeting then [21:21:59] As for bugs, I would really like to have the chapter aggregator on the front page work correctly, and for the link to go somewhere [21:22:05] https://bugs.launchpad.net/web/+bug/722262 [21:22:11] is there a nagios? maybe we could just have a check for memcached [21:22:15] I think things that are on the front page should work :P [21:22:16] any of you good to take that one up ? [21:22:35] what does aggregator mean? planet? [21:22:45] pyrak said that he thought he had some idea as to why the chapters aggregator is broken? [21:22:47] jeremyb: yes [21:22:57] astory: Something I do at the OpenHatch weekly meetings is have people lay claim to what they hope to work in the next week (since our meetings are weekly). [21:23:25] I mention that 'cause if someone wants to work on https://bugs.launchpad.net/web/+bug/722262 that's a reasonable thing to say: "I hope to do that in the coming week" [21:23:30] paulproteus: it may take me a bit to get up to speed on that [21:23:49] astory: Get up to speed on what? Pardon me; I lost the context [21:23:50] so yeah, it'd be really nice if we could get that fixed. do any of you have the bandwidth for it? [21:24:01] i can take that one [21:24:02] paulproteus: on enough context to get people to commit to things [21:24:06] cool, thanks pyrak [21:24:07] i'll put ~1 hour into it tonight [21:24:10] pyrak++ [21:24:19] did we get the weird wiki editing problem fixed? [21:24:28] I think jeremyb removed my extension, right? [21:24:30] Not sure totally [21:24:37] ... I miss jibot keeping track of our karma [21:24:42] just commented [21:24:46] not removed [21:24:51] Close enough (-: [21:25:05] so that's another really important one [21:25:40] we can keep that on the queue, of course [21:25:42] jeremyb: seems like you're saying you fixed it? (URL?) [21:26:01] URL? [21:26:11] To the bug, if there is one, filed on Launchpad. [21:26:31] For the wiki edit breakage. [21:26:37] oh, i'll dig it up [21:26:50] pyrak: assigned you to that bug from before [21:26:54] <3 astory [21:27:01] astory: got it [21:27:25] Does that cover bugs we think are urgent to tackle this week? [21:27:59] https://bugs.launchpad.net/web/+bug/726969 [21:28:10] what about https://bugs.launchpad.net/web/+bug/697486 ? it claims to be importance "high" [21:28:16] paulproteus: I think so, also our bug fixing bandwidth may start to get filled. [21:28:17] the chapter db backups not working [21:28:23] oh, that looks bad [21:28:24] I've been working on a bunch of stuff to power the chapter database. i should do a better job of keeping webteam updated on that [21:28:38] pyrak: You've definitely been doing a reasonable job -- thanks for that! [21:29:07] pyrak: I can look into the DB backups problem tonight. [21:29:12] It's a stretch, but I can do it. [21:29:18] Immediately post-meeting [21:29:20] who were we handing the broken wiki to? [21:29:24] also, guys, skyfaller, back me up when i say that my saving the wordpress install after that update was epic [21:29:36] :) definitely! [21:29:45] i had to move database tables around so that the id of the main blog was now 1, not 201 [21:29:52] astory: is something broken now? [21:30:03] jeremyb: I thought it was, maybe it got fixed and I didn't notice [21:30:05] pyrak: That worked? Jesus, that is epic. [21:30:23] i was terrified. but everything seems to be fine. [21:30:44] i was reminded because i ran mysqldump before, and i recklessly used --no-lock (or whatever) [21:30:45] jeremyb: I'm going to assign it to you, if it's fixed, close it [21:31:00] or maybe that's not how they work >.< [21:31:32] ok, can we discuss version control for the website? [21:31:47] sounds good to me... [21:31:57] astory: Sounds good to me [21:31:59] so skyfaller, can you describe the problems you had with making changes? [21:32:09] sure [21:32:32] ... how can I see bugs that have been closed? [21:32:51] Somewhere in https://bugs.launchpad.net/web/+bugs?advanced=1 [21:33:29] well, you can see a bit of my problems in http://wiki.freeculture.org/Website_documentation#here_is_a_step-by-step_description_of_how_to_make_changes_to_our_live_Wordpress_theme,_by_Nelson [21:33:37] ... that's a long title [21:34:13] but basically in order to modify our website you need to get access as both freecult@ and chapterhosting@ [21:34:15] I like this section so far. [21:34:19] which is a bit clunky [21:34:33] yeah [21:34:42] it's not so bad now that I know how everything works [21:34:46] Changes to the theme are very similar to other group free software web app projects' deployment situations. [21:34:50] but this process I've outlined here took a few hours to figure out [21:35:01] so that's because svn lives under freecult and wordpress has a copy that lives under chapters? [21:35:07] For me, I'm okay with this excellent documentation being The Answer, rather than changing it. [21:35:10] one thing that's true is now that i've fixed the wordpress install, you can edit those files from the wordpress admin [21:35:35] pyrak: but that's not advisable b/c then it won't be in SVN [21:35:38] pyrak: (but that will create un-committed changes in the server's svn checkout, which terrifies the deployment cleanliness extremist in me) [21:35:40] which is actually something I want to discuss [21:35:43] What skyfaller said (-: [21:35:55] We could have a cron job that, nightly, runs "svn diff" and mails the output to webteam@ though [21:36:04] the files in the wordpress theme directory right now do not correspond to what is in an SVN checkout [21:36:12] yeah. i mean, we could also program a webpage with a button that runs "svn commit -m 'autcomit from web'" [21:36:38] but what if there's a commit conflict? [21:36:42] >.< [21:36:49] which I had! [21:36:52] right [21:36:55] and still have... [21:36:56] because svn sucks at merging [21:36:58] I like the "svn diff" -> webteam list strategy. [21:37:04] paulproteus: ++ [21:37:10] paulproteus: that's a good one, let's do that for now at least [21:37:25] would switching to git really solve any of these problems? [21:37:26] I think that we should have a strategy that a) works for people who don't want to use svn and the like, but b) lets us sanely put all those changes into svn behind that person's back [21:37:43] i would love to be able to tell people like ben moskowitz and adi kamdar that they can make css tweaks right from their web browsers [21:37:44] skyfaller: One thing we *could* do is auto-commit and push the live repo, and then we could use "merge" on our own machines to merge that with the main repo. [21:37:53] pyrak: Bingo -- that's why I like my process. [21:38:00] skyfaller: it would solve one, thinking of how to articulate [21:38:19] note: this is svn, so far [21:38:40] I think a switch to git is a big time investment that doesn't buy us all that much over the email-the-svn-diff strategy. [21:38:42] open to moving to git, though [21:38:48] paulproteus: ++ [21:38:54] so if we used git or mercurial we could have the live repo have its own branch, and then we could commit those changes up to the master or pull them down from the master as a branch more cleanly [21:38:59] paulproteus: if we move to git, I will handle it [21:39:03] Therefore I'm not personally interested in investing the time in it. If someone else does I'll be happy, fwiw. [21:39:17] I don't think we should do it without thinking about it, but I wanted to put it on the table [21:39:37] The worst thing about our svn repo is access control, I think. [21:39:49] paulproteus: how so? [21:39:58] The htpasswd setup is highly non-transparent, imho. [21:40:08] It's hard to figure out if you're in its access control list. [21:40:09] yes [21:40:12] For example. [21:40:16] (just a check-in: we're at 40 minutes now.) [21:40:23] cool [21:40:25] If we e.g. hosted our git repositories on Gitorious, and it was easy to add people to our Gitorious project, then that would be way more enjoyable for people I think. [21:40:32] yeah [21:40:36] that could be fun [21:40:38] I think that some web account-based thing would be widely preferred by people for a sort of self-administration. [21:40:40] and then the server would just have a local copy [21:40:48] Plus they can always fork it and make their own branch and submit patches. [21:40:56] to update, you just need to have permission to pull from the public repo [21:41:19] is there any reason it would be bad to have our web server code really public? [21:41:20] the downside to this is that we need to be sure to purge anything sensative from the version control system [21:41:24] astory: I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I propose that if you want to gitify things, you make a proposal with details to the webteam list. [21:41:26] astory++ [21:41:30] paulproteus: I will do that [21:41:41] I think it will be thrilling. [21:41:44] rockin. [21:41:47] you have the best adjective [21:41:48] s [21:42:09] i actually suspect that gitorious and git user who owns git on the machine (so that you just need to add your key to her) are equally easy [21:42:15] so ultimately, I'd like to see a setup like diaspora has, where your pulled copy can run the entire website locally [21:42:21] but w/e. and hosting the origins off-site kinda rocks. [21:42:33] pyrak: but gitorious doesn't require our interaction to upload keys [21:42:37] i've seen google hits for freeculture svn so i think we've already crossed that bridge [21:43:00] jeremyb: then we should be double sure that it's not a problem [21:43:05] astory: I agree, that would rock. OpenHatch does that too, though not for everything (e.g. wiki): https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fopenhatch.org%2Fwiki%2FGetting_started_with_the_OpenHatch_code&ei=IUZ0TYrpGsP-8AbwsdSODw&usg=AFQjCNH2SKXmO8o8SJDMH-FUeu63rbpjnA [21:43:09] can one of you make sure nothing sensitive is in there? [21:43:10] er, that wasn't the link I wanted. [21:43:23] astory: File a bug, and if you assign it to me, I can handle it, hopefully within the week. [21:43:35] paulproteus: cool, will do [21:43:52] OK, so it is plausible that moving to Gitorious gives us better access control ... am I hearing consensus that we're going to gradually move toward Gitorious? [21:44:09] skyfaller: yes, I'll try to get a proposal out soon and we can discuss that. [21:44:11] The consensus is that astory will make a proposal and we will argue about it on-list over the coming week. (-: [21:44:15] hahaha ok [21:44:30] (I think) [21:44:36] and until then the Website Documentation will tell you about The Way Things Are [21:44:43] Right, exactly. [21:45:16] ok, so that was everything I wanted to talk about [21:45:22] Okay! Me, too. (-: [21:45:36] just squashed the chapter news bug [21:45:37] can I ask everybody something unimportant real quick? [21:45:37] do we want to record this log, or do we not care? [21:45:42] I think we should! [21:45:42] pyrak: yay! [21:45:50] is there a convenient way to do that? [21:45:53] skyfaller: go ahead [21:46:14] hahaha, I just noticed that the text in our footer says "We (try to) support Web standards: Valid XHTML, RSS, and CSS " [21:46:17] astory: I have a log in my client; I can paste it onto the wiki page that you create for emeting minutes. [21:46:23] (try to) (-: [21:46:35] paulproteus: please do once it's up [21:46:39] astory: Thumbs up [21:46:50] I was going to ask how much we care that HTML doesn't validate on most pages (I got it to validate on the front page at least) and CSS and RSS doesn't validate [21:47:02] i don't care [21:47:08] 4 years ago parker cared [21:47:08] I care more than not-at-all. [21:47:22] In part because random compatibility bugs often pop up that are a result of that nonsense. [21:47:30] ha [21:47:36] It's the kind of thing that's a wishlist item for me. [21:47:44] copying pyrate pad to wiki, please move editing to wiki [21:47:49] astory: Thumbs up [21:47:57] well, I guess I'll make some bugs and assign them to myself then, for validation [21:47:59] http://wiki.freeculture.org/2011-03-06 [21:48:39] we could use logvalidator... maybe only after the systemic issues are fixed [21:48:40] I see validation as a good way to get familiar with the code running the website and to practice making changes through svn etc. [21:48:44] astory: I'll put a log there when this is all over. [21:48:47] skyfaller: That'd be totally rocking. [21:49:56] As far as I can tell, jeremyb, http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/LogValidator/ is really cool. [21:50:18] i'm out gang [21:50:23] gangbusters [21:50:28] astory: you rock for running this [21:50:34] everyone else: you rock for coming to this [21:50:35] http://wiki.freeculture.org/Webteam/Upcoming for new things [21:50:40] thanks for coming guys! [21:50:42] Is the meeting officially over? [21:51:35] it's over!