10June27

Sunday, June 27th, 2010, 7:00pm (1900) PDT

Summary

  1. Discussion of website options

    1. Elizabeth covered the reasons for having a website
    2. Hosting options: ubuntu-us.org's Linode has space, Canonical hosting
    3. Domain name: entitled to california.ubuntu-us.org,
    4. Considerations: give trusted member(s) access to hosting account, multiple people access to domain registration account, Canonical hosting has been problematic for others
    5. Elizabeth will gather together options and put them on the wiki page
  2. Announcements
    1. LoCo Council started a LoCo Health Check forum the first Tuesday of the month 1000 to 1200 PDT in #ubuntu-locoteams

    2. Ubuntu User Day is July 10th, 2:30 AM to 8pm; logs will be posted for anyone who can't attend

    3. New100 Users Project by dinda that some might find interesting

  3. CaliforniaTeam/LaunchpadMembership review

    1. Discussion of membership expiration, clarification that administrators can readd people easily.
    2. Potential issues: one week renewal period is too short, people might accidentally be dropped
    3. Actions: Robert to edit page to make it more people that people can contact the team admins for help; Robert to file bug against Launchpad asking for one week renewal deadline to be flexible

Original Agenda

  1. Announcements
    1. Monthly Forum for LoCo Teams Members

    2. Ubuntu User Days - July 10th

  2. Review first revision of Launchpad process page

  3. Proposal: A team planet for aggregation of blogs of team members -- lyz 2010-06-26 02:59:12

Log

19:02:10 < Flannel> Alright, welcome everyone to tonight's meeting.
19:02:31 < Flannel> Our agenda can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam/Meetings/10June27
19:03:05 < Flannel> and currently consists of: Announcements, A team planet proposal, and lastly our LP approval process page
19:03:54 < Flannel> pleia2: If you'd like, we could shuffle you to before announcements too
19:04:07 < pleia2> thanks Flannel :)
19:04:39 < pleia2> so we used to have a Members page which was replaced by our launchpad members page, but one of the great things about that page was it linked to team blogs
19:04:41 < Flannel> pleia2: Alright, so let me restate that, our agenda currently is a team planet proposal, Announcements, and then the LP approval process page
19:05:21 < pleia2> but something that I think might be better than a list of blogs anyway, would be a team planet like: http://planet.ubuntupennsylvania.org/
19:05:55 < pleia2> a lot of teams have them, I like how it builds relationships in the team since it brings our blogs together in a central place and we can see what each other is up to
19:06:28 < pleia2> could decide whether we want it to be tech only or anything goes (I tend to prefer anything goes)
19:07:08 < pleia2> as far as hosting goes, I have a linode which was donated to ubuntu pennsylvania team and also hosts ubuntu-us.org, it's fine to run another planet instance if we're interested
19:07:38 < pleia2> as I told rww I could also give a team member access to this server, so I'm not a single point of failure
19:08:04 < pleia2> so, thoughts?
19:08:28 < rww> Sounds like a good idea to me. I find Planet Ubuntu incredibly useful, and having a planet for our team would be awesome.
19:08:42 < nhaines> Sort of an interesting idea.  It could be very useful.
19:08:48 < Flannel> pleia2: We've been interested in setting up a full-blown website too, as we have a few things which could be better served with one, a planet California would be one of them.
19:09:12 < pleia2> url-wise, we're entitled to california.ubuntu-us.org, but we could also buy a domain if we wanted planet.something gallery.something ...
19:09:50 < pleia2> if we went the buy our own domain route, I'd like to see it bought with a domain registration account that has login info shared with multiple team members
19:09:59 < Flannel> pleia2: I agree
19:11:06 < Flannel> We should do some research and see what our options are, both for hosting and domains.  I'd like to stay away from Canonical hosting, since that's problematic, but I imagine we have a wealth of other options
19:11:36 < pleia2> I can easily host wordpress, gallery2 and planet all on the ubuntu-us server from linode
19:11:46 < pleia2> I tend to agree about canonical hosting
19:11:59 < nhaines> What about storage considerations?
19:12:29 < pleia2> unless we're thinking about hosting mirrors and isos, it turns out loco sites don't tend to be huge
19:12:39 < eps> what about images?
19:12:58 < Flannel> pleia2: We've been interested in hosting our photos there, since we've had issues with image hosting sites in the past
19:13:06 < pleia2> we just limit the size of images we can upload, 1200x1600 aren't big enough to take up tons of space but are fine resolution
19:13:07 < Flannel> but, even then, I can't imagine it'd be gigantic
19:13:29  * pleia2 checks how big gallery.ubuntupennsylvania.org is
19:14:09 < rww> I note that the smallest Linode plan has 16GB of RAM. The only way I can see us using even a tenth of that on images is if someone needs to learn to resize.
19:14:16 < rww> s/RAM/disk space/
19:14:20 < pleia2> 48M for all of gallery.ubuntupennsylvania.org
19:14:49 < pleia2> so yeah, it's not used up nearly as fast as you might think
19:15:45 < pleia2> gallery2 has automatic limiting of image sizes, so no complicated things to do there
19:16:25 < Flannel> I don't think deciding on a host/etc setup right now is prudent anyway.  So, lets collect some info, weigh our options, and come back to it from a technical perspective.
19:16:42 < pleia2> sounds good, I'll put together what I can offer and some of the considerations
19:17:28 < rww> might be best to collect our options together and wikipage it at w.u.c/CaliforniaTeam/Projects/Website or something
19:17:41 < pleia2> rww: will do
19:17:44 < jledbetter> Good idea
19:17:49 < rww> since we'll need somewhere to jot down who has access to what once we have a website anyway
19:17:55 < rww> (and other such things)
19:18:11  * pleia2 nods
19:18:30 < Flannel> Anyone else have anything on that topic?
19:19:07 < Flannel> Alright.  Thanks pleia2.
19:19:28 < rww> I also have plenty of Linode bandwidth available if we need it for something. It sounds like pleia2 has plenty, but just fyi.
19:19:52 < pleia2> splitting subdomains would even allow us to host it on multiple servers
19:20:04 < pleia2> I just want to make sure we have multiple members with access
19:21:20 < rww> makes sense
19:21:25 < rww> Flannel: I think that about covers it
19:22:17 < nhaines> I like the idea.
19:22:34 < Flannel> Alright, now we'll move on to announcements.
19:24:48 < Flannel> There's a new monthly forum setup by the LoCo council for LoCo members to get together and share ideas and stuff like that.
19:26:17 < Flannel> They'll be on the first Tuesday of the month, from 1700-1900UTC, more information can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoHealthCheck
19:26:47 < rww> (that's 1000 to 1200 PDT, and they're in #ubuntu-locoteams)
19:26:52 < Flannel> Apparently theres an agenda, but in the past these open forum type things don't follow agendas, so it should be interesting to see how this one shapes up.
19:28:07 < Flannel> Anyone have questions?
19:29:17 < Flannel> Alright, our next announcement is Ubuntu User Days that are coming up on the 10th of July
19:29:45 < Flannel> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
19:30:46 < Flannel> Ubuntu User Days are a series of sessions for users of Ubuntu to learn stuff pertinent to users.  There's some howtos, some general knowledge type sessions, I encourage everyone to check out the line-up to see what might pique their interests
19:31:34 < Flannel> They are in #ubuntu-classroom, and go from... 2:30AM on Saturday until 8pm (if my math is right)
19:31:46 < pleia2> should be fun, even if you just hang out in #ubuntu-classroom-chat and help out with questions other attendees have
19:32:03 < Flannel> (That's Sat July 10th, not this upcoming Saturday)
19:32:33 < rww> (the math is right)
19:32:50 < nhaines> And Lernid will be a great way to access these sessions as well, for anyone recommending it to friends who are not familiar or comfortable with IRC.
19:33:09 < Flannel> Oh, and as always, if you can't attend in-person, logs will be available so you can read them afterwards
19:33:43 < rww> hah. I like how the Desktop Environment session is being run by KDE and Xubuntu users ;P
19:33:47 < rww> XFCE **
19:33:52 < pleia2> :)
19:33:52 < rww> (from this channel, no less ;)
19:34:00  * pleia2 hugs DarkwingDuck 
19:34:13 < pleia2> we figure the gnome stuff will be mostly covered in other intro sessions
19:34:52 < pleia2> but DWD is doing some gnome stuff too
19:35:57 < Flannel> Anyone have questions about User Days?
19:36:05 < Flannel> Or any other announcements?
19:36:07 < rww> o/
19:36:32 < Flannel> rww: go :)
19:36:53 < rww> dinda mentioned on the ubuntu-women list the other day < https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2010-June/002886.html > that she's starting an advocacy project called "100 Users". Figured I should mention it in case someone here finds it interesting: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/100UsersProject
19:37:09 < nhaines> o/
19:37:42 < rww> basically, the goal is to introduce Ubuntu to 100 new users per cycle
19:37:50 < rww> and there is a prize. so yay :)
19:39:31 < nhaines> Just thought I'd mention that Lernid is an automatic online classroom interface for these kinds of events and is available from Ubuntu Software Center or else from wiki.ubuntu.com/Lernid if not there for some reason.  :)
19:41:39 < Flannel> Alright, is that it for announcements? does anyone else have other comments or questions about the announcements that were... announced?
19:44:08 < Flannel> Alright, our next topic is a revisiting of the wikipage describing our Launchpad process.
19:45:36 < rww> Alrighty. The page in question is https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam/LaunchpadMembership ,
19:46:01 < rww> it's adjusted a little from last meeting to make some of the wording a little more clear, but is basically the same
19:47:21 < rww> Basically, for anyone who wasn't around last meeting and who autodeletes my emails ( ;P ) we're tweaking the process for Launchpad team approvals and writing it down. We're also adding a renewal setting.
19:47:38 < rww> If anyone has questions or suggestions for improvements, now would be the time to say them :)
19:47:50 < Flannel> (or at some point in the future)
19:48:01 < rww> indeed
19:48:11 < eps> What happens if a renewal notice goes out while you're away on vacation and you don't respond within one week?
19:48:25 < rww> eps: you're dropped from the team, and let one of us know when you get back so we can add you again
19:48:40 < nhaines> Then your membership expires but you just join again when you get back.
19:48:41 < eps> rww: that seems a little ... extreme
19:49:06 < rww> eps: not really. poking one of the LP team admins isn't hard at all
19:49:10 < Flannel> eps: Expiration dates are known well in advance, so if you'd like, you could let a LP admin know and they can renew you too.
19:49:20 < Flannel> eps: there's plenty of social ways around that technical problem
19:49:22 < pleia2> unfortunately launchpad doesn't have a way to give you more than a week notice for expirations
19:49:26 < akk> One week seems very fast.
19:49:31 < mrandrzejak> for example i have no expiry date
19:49:45 < Flannel> mrandrzejak: Most people don't currently
19:49:58 < Flannel> akk: That's all we've got to work with, due to LP
19:50:13 < eps> Maybe we should file a bug against LP, then.
19:50:29 < rww> mrandrzejak: once this gets set up, everyone will have one, regardless of whether they currently do
19:50:43 < mrandrzejak> ahh thx
19:51:17 < rww> thankfully, launchpadlib exists, so making that happen won't involve an hour or three of tedium for me ;P
19:52:44 < rww> eps: I can look into doing that. Launchpad bugfixes tend to take a while, though, so it's not something we'd want to require before doing this.
19:53:24 < eps> rww: Let us know, so we can all tick "this affects me too"
19:54:21 < pleia2> fwiw, setting expirations like this is something that's pretty common for teams, it reminds people that they're on the team (maybe they will say "oh yeah, that, let me see what they're up to now!) and sort of helps administratively keep the team down to members who can bother to click and renew
19:55:09 < eps> It seems redundant for active participants.
19:55:12 < jbermudes> well, if we set everyone's expiration to a year from now, then we have a year to work on a technical solution to fix this problem  and find a better solution ;-)
19:55:13 < nhaines> And it *is* literall "click and renew".
19:55:23 < nhaines> So it's a low barrier.
19:55:34 < nhaines> eps: it is a way to judge active participation.
19:55:56 < rww> The only potential problem here is someone accidentally not renewing. As I've said, if that happens, it's easy to fix.
19:56:40 < eps> I would like to see a mechanism that counts posting to the mailing list or participating in a meeting count as activity *without* having to jump through any additional hoops.
19:56:45 < Flannel> nhaines: It's a way to judge the active/interested members of the team, it's not a judge "of participation" as far as the way a "judge of participation" sounds
19:57:18 < nhaines> Flannel: yes, I meant in terms of interest.
19:57:24  * nhaines is sleepy.
19:57:35 < rww> clicking a link that gets emailed to you once a year is also not difficult :\
19:58:10 < pleia2> eps: there isn't currently a technical solution for that, this proposal is not really a hoop, it's very simple
19:58:16 < pleia2> it's also used for ubuntu membership
19:58:26 < pleia2> and a zillion other ubuntu teams
19:58:35 < eps> That's no excuse.
19:59:27 < Flannel> eps: Just to understand where you're coming from, you take exception to this because you feel like you shouldn't need to respond to an email every year?  Or because you feel that the one-week issue is prone to false-negatives? or what?
19:59:44 < eps> Flannel: both
19:59:58 < Flannel> eps: Any other issues?
20:00:28 < eps> It should be respond to e-mail *if and only if* there has been no other recent contact/activity, *and* one week isn't long enough.
20:00:42 < Flannel> eps: Right, those are both of those issues.  Is there anything else?
20:00:53 < eps> Flannel: not at this time
20:01:26 < Flannel> eps: Alright.  Well, like rww said, he'll look into filing a bug about the latter
20:01:36 < eps> Flannel: thank you
20:01:41 < pleia2> I worry that creates a bit of a clique that confines users to requiring to use the tracked metrics
20:02:16 < nhaines> pleia2: well, that's assuming that an annual email is a significant barrier, too.
20:02:24 < pleia2> nhaines: yeah
20:02:52 < akk> Is there a way to renew early? Like if you know you're going to be away from the internet during renewal?
20:02:58 < Flannel> eps: We don't have a unified way of collecting activity, so I'm not sure that the former would be really feasible, and pleia2 has voiced some other concerns, yeah.
20:03:25 < rww> akk: I don't know if you can do it yourself, but I know team admins can do it for you.
20:03:26 < eps> Flannel: consider this a "statement of direction"
20:03:27 < Flannel> akk: If you talk to LP administrators, they can help you out.  We can certainly publicize that fact.
20:04:57 < jbermudes> perhaps we can set up an automated team admin that can POST to the form to renew a membership up to a week before the previously agreed upon expiration date?
20:04:58 < Flannel> akk: I don't foresee anything like that being difficult.  These policies aren't set in stone, and they can always be worked around.
20:04:58 < akk> Too bad it can't be somewhere near the expiration date on the LP page. Oh well, comments for that hypothetical bug ...
20:05:13 < eps> Given that meetings and the mailing list are archived, I would think a simple cron job would suffice.
20:05:21 < akk> I can just see getting ready for a trip, remembering to check and suddenly realizing that I have to chase around looking for someone who can renew me.
20:05:33 < rww> akk: or just let it expire and poke someone after the trip
20:06:02 < nhaines> eps: it would require a database that mapped a user's identity with his LP page.
20:06:10 < akk> Yeah, true enough. It's not like being in the LP group actually makes a difference.
20:06:45 < jbermudes> there's no repercussions to letting membership lapse, so then it seems trivial if one accidentally forgets
20:06:47 < rww> eps: except that a rather large subset of users don't have their email addresses exposed in Launchpad, some of those who do have different ones exposed from the ones they use on the mailing list, etc. It ends up being much more complicated than the situation warrants.
20:07:30 < nhaines> jbermudes: the best cure for that is education, so people know that lapsed membership is not terribly significant.
20:07:47 < eps> Perhaps we should document this on the Wiki.
20:09:34 < nhaines> eps: do you have an issue with how it is currently documented?
20:10:12 < eps> I would deem this "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing." We should probably move on.
20:10:36 < rww> the second to last paragraph on the page could be a little clearer that you can just poke a team admin if you forget to renew. I'll rephrase it later.
20:11:01 < Flannel> rww: Yeah, we can always work around situations
20:11:15 < Flannel> Anyone have any other questions or concerns?  If you do in the future, be sure to speak up.
20:12:11 < Flannel> Alright.  That does it for our agenda, is there anything else for tonight's meeting?
20:13:11 < rww> Flannel: what's the status on that page now, then? Are we implementing it, or do we have additional stuff to figure out?
20:14:04 < Flannel> rww: I think we're ready to implement it
20:14:47 < rww> alright. I'll go write the relevant scripts and run it past staging
20:15:16 < Flannel> rww: well, there's some documentation updates involved before the big go-button is pushed, but yeah.
20:15:26  * rww nods
20:16:05 < Flannel> That does it for tonight's meeting.  Thank you all for coming.  Our next meeting will be on the 11th of July, at 7pm.

CaliforniaTeam/Meetings/10June27 (last edited 2010-08-03 20:48:47 by c-67-169-130-5)