17:05 <dholbach> #startmeeting
17:05 <meetingology> Meeting started Thu Mar 20 17:05:08 2014 UTC.  The chair is dholbach. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology.
17:05 <meetingology> 
17:05 <meetingology> Available commands: action commands idea info link nick
17:05 <dholbach> #chairs YokoZar mhall119
17:05 <dholbach> hum
17:05 <dholbach> #chair YokoZar mhall119
17:05 <meetingology> Current chairs: YokoZar dholbach mhall119
17:05 <elfy> hi
17:05 <dholbach> aha!
17:05 <dholbach> #chair elfy
17:05 <meetingology> Current chairs: YokoZar dholbach elfy mhall119
17:05 <jose> a wild elfy appeared!
17:05 <pleia2> o/
17:05 <dholbach> #topic Checking in with the Loco Council
17:05 <dholbach> #chair pleia2
17:05 <meetingology> Current chairs: YokoZar dholbach elfy mhall119 pleia2
17:06 <dholbach> PabloRubianes, jose: thanks a lot for joining us today
17:06 <dholbach> How are you doing? How is the LoCo Council doing right now?
17:06 <jose> hello hello :)
17:06 <PabloRubianes> hello
17:07 <czajkowski> aloha
17:07 <jose> I think PabloRubianes should go, he's been there before I joined :)
17:07 <PabloRubianes> well here I go
17:07 <dholbach> hey coolbhavi
17:07 <PabloRubianes> I think that with the addition of the new members we had a new energy in the team
17:07 <coolbhavi> hey dholbach
17:08 <pleia2> that's great
17:08 <elfy> always good to hear about new energy
17:08 <PabloRubianes> mainly in the this period we had a LoCo Check in
17:09 <PabloRubianes> we contact all the LoCos listed in the loco portal
17:09 <PabloRubianes> this is something we want to do every 6 months cicle
17:10 <PabloRubianes> is not part of the verified process just a "hello how are you? can we help in something?"
17:10 <YokoZar> It's a good idea ;)
17:10 <YokoZar> An inspired one, even
17:10 <elfy> yep
17:10 <elfy> is it doable though
17:10 <coolbhavi> yes and the response was also quite good except few teams who failed to respond
17:10 <elfy> it is then :)
17:11 <coolbhavi> even after say a week
17:11 <PabloRubianes> we got in the past some feedback of not been as present as LoCos expected so this can help with this
17:11 <jose> http://lococouncil.ubuntu.com/2014/02/16/interim-report-on-2014-census-effort/ has an interim report published a month ago
17:11 <dholbach> great... I could imagine that if you run something like this the first time, you get a few who don't respond
17:11 <czajkowski> coolbhavi: who did you contact was it the person listed on LP or LTP or how did you directly contact the team ?
17:11 <dholbach> did you mail the contacts of the loco or their mailing lists?
17:11 <dholbach> :)
17:11 <dholbach> #chair czajkowski
17:11 <meetingology> Current chairs: YokoZar czajkowski dholbach elfy mhall119 pleia2
17:11 <jose> the contacts directly, mostly we wanted to see if the contact was still active and how the team was doing
17:11 <PabloRubianes> czajkowski: team contact
17:12 <coolbhavi> czajkowski, we contacted the team contacts
17:12 <czajkowski> dholbach: great minds :)
17:12 <jose> I think that our main goal is to demonstrate teams and team contacts (who often have some questions) that there's people there to give a hand when needed, and we tried to achieve that with the check-ins
17:12 <dholbach> that's great
17:12 * coolbhavi remembers the d-a-t reachout feedback cycle here
17:13 <elfy> seems a lot of loco's didn't respond then
17:13 <jose> that was the main issue, yes
17:13 <dholbach> I could imagine that in some cases you hit LoCos whose contacts got too busy, or where it might make sense to explain the distinction between "a contact" (somebody who can be contacted) and a "team leader" :)
17:14 <PabloRubianes> dholbach: busy or not the contact anymore
17:14 <coolbhavi> yes again few who responded said our loco team is not so active
17:14 <PabloRubianes> sometimes LoCo info gets outdated
17:14 <dholbach> did you have follow-up conversations with some of the teams? like the ones who said "yeah, we actually do need help"
17:14 <czajkowski> jose: can I suggest mailing the teams directly as I know some contacts may not be the contact any more nad there could be others who running things
17:15 <jose> czajkowski: that's actually a good idea, which is what actually happens in ubuntu-de, maybe we can try that with the teams that didn't respond
17:15 <czajkowski> jose: +1
17:15 <coolbhavi> dholbach, yes basically and the questions that we got were mostly on loco resources
17:16 <PabloRubianes> and on LoCo activity
17:16 <PabloRubianes> the need of new members or members who want to organize is common
17:16 <jose> about that contact/team leader thing, we're trying to define it as usually the contact doesn't have contact with the team leader, and it's more useful to have team leaders as contact
17:16 <jose> s
17:17 <dholbach> jose, I think that it'd be super helpful to get that message across
17:17 <jose> would a blog post stating that sound good to you?
17:18 <dholbach> yeah, that might be a good start :)
17:18 <elfy> it would sound good to me too :)
17:18 <jose> added to our trello board :)
17:19 <pleia2> so I'm not so sure about that
17:19 <PabloRubianes> another stuff we were working in
17:19 <jose> pleia2: about what?
17:19 <pleia2> I like the contact is a delegated thing, if a leader doesn't want to do it they can tell someone else to be contact
17:19 <pleia2> requiring leaders to take on specific responsibilities seems a bit odd
17:19 <pleia2> making it more clear that contacts and leaders must communicate is good, but requiring leaders to handle that administrative thing... no so much
17:19 <elfy> pleia2: possibly so - but if the contact isn't contactable then I'd say that at the least a leader should be
17:20 <YokoZar> Does the loco council feel that the situation with Loco logistic support (CDs, etc) is better than in the past?
17:20 <coolbhavi> how about getting the mails on the mailing list if available so that if members see it they would be able to respond?
17:20 <pleia2> I'm happy to be a leader and contact, by my two co-leaders seem quite happy not to have to deal with that responsiblity
17:20 <elfy> pleia2: of the 156 teams contacted, the council only received responses from 53 teams would suggest that something needs to be looked at
17:20 <pleia2> elfy: oh of course, I just don't like top down mandates of roles ;)
17:20 <mhall119> ha, and now I'm late
17:21 <elfy> :)
17:21 <pleia2> contacts and leaders must work together, but I don't think they need to be the same people
17:21 <jose> pleia2: I think that what you're mentioning may work for some teams, but for others it doesn't, contacts are the ones that usually drop more quicker
17:21 <czajkowski> I think that you're right to try something new
17:22 <pleia2> jose: that's kind of my point :) teams organize how they organize, mandating that a leader must be a contact also won't work for everyone, so why not just say that contacts and leaders must work together?
17:22 <dholbach> pleia2, hum... that's at least how I understood the conversation earlier - that a team leader doesn't need to be the contact, but that we need somebody who's contactable
17:22 <jose> YokoZar: I think we're good with it, communication with Canonical in those terms is good since I joined, and Michelle/Cezzaine have been super responsive to all our enquiries
17:22 <czajkowski> and see if something needs to be tweeked/changed slightly in order to get more feedback from the teams
17:22 <dholbach> (or maybe I misunderstood the last parts of the conversation now)
17:23 <pleia2> my concern really is just that we don't want to enforce structure on teams
17:23 <dholbach> ok
17:23 <elfy> pleia2: I would agree with that - it should be up to the loco and council - but to have a loco uncontactable doesn't work for anyone
17:23 <dholbach> "have a contactable contact" sounds like a reasonable request to me ;-)
17:23 <pleia2> I'd be annoyed if my team were required to all of a sudden make our trio of leaders contacts too
17:24 <pleia2> dholbach: yeah
17:24 <mhall119> when you say you want leaders to be contactable, what does that mean? that they subscribe to loco-contacts? That you (the LC) can sent them email directly?
17:24 <pleia2> mhall119: they emailed all contacts directly, many didn't reply
17:24 <jose> I'd say that when us (LC) email them directly they respond
17:24 * pleia2 nods
17:25 <mhall119> it seems to me that it's a judgement call, whether a particular message should go to just team contacts, or contacts *and* leaders
17:25 <mhall119> for example, if it's to announce global jam, that's appropriate for just contacts, if it's for a team health check, that should be both contacts and leaders
17:26 <jose> in this case, which was about health, we tried to contact leaders without getting an answer from many of them
17:26 <jose> global jam-like things are usually announced via the loco-contacts ML, so it goes to the contacts
17:26 <mhall119> in that case, it sound like a separate issue from who is listed as a contact
17:27 <pleia2> I never did like the name of the loco-contacts mailing list ;)
17:27 <pleia2> should just be locoteams, everyone should subscribe
17:27 <pleia2> (indeed, I tell people to subscribe all the time)
17:27 * mhall119 isn't opposed to that, but sounds like it should be it's own topic
17:27 <pleia2> yeah
17:28 <jose> I think we need to further discuss how can we make team leaders contactable in case we need it, and still don't enforce structure on the teams
17:28 * pleia2 nods
17:28 <mhall119> yeah, leaders should always be responsive to direct emails from the LC
17:29 <mhall119> IMO, that is one of the responsibilities of being a leader
17:29 <pleia2> contact is the person who is the liason for 3rd party things (supplies from canonical, books from publishers)
17:29 <jose> one thing that I saw was that when the LC directly contacted a team leader in a certain team, he didn't respond, but when he got an email from another team member saying to contact us he did respond
17:29 <pleia2> and can reply to inqueries
17:30 <pleia2> requiring that person to be a leader is... a different skillset :)
17:30 <jose> pleia2: +1
17:30 <elfy> I don't understand why there is an issue with a 'leader' being contactable
17:31 <jose> elfy: it's just that some of them aren't, for unknown reasons
17:31 <pleia2> elfy: there is a difference between "contact" and "contactable"
17:31 <elfy> yea - I get that :)
17:31 <elfy> pleia2: agreed
17:31 <pleia2> leaders should respond, certainly
17:31 <pleia2> but "contact" is a specific role
17:32 <elfy> mmm
17:32 <jose> so we're going to further discuss that and we'll report the results to the CC
17:32 <elfy> thanks jose
17:32 <pleia2> thanks jose
17:32 <dholbach> great - thanks a lot
17:32 <dholbach> what has been keeping the LoCo Council busy in the last cycle?
17:32 <jose> :)
17:33 <jose> we've basically had some discussions about how things are moving
17:33 <jose> we discuss everything on a Trello board and have a voting system there
17:33 <pleia2> cool
17:33 <jose> any LC member can propose an item to be discussed, and once it has 4 votes it's moved for discussion
17:34 <jose> we've also set bug status definitions on the ubuntu-locoteams project (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/BugStatus)
17:34 <coolbhavi> dholbach, reverification rebranding and reachout  3R's basically and internal discussions.
17:35 <jose> about verification, we're using both the traditional meeting method, where the team leader attends the LC meeting set to be done on this channel and we check things, and our new bug/email method
17:35 <jose> a bug is created on the ubuntu-locoteams project for each (re-)verification to be done on the cycle, and with those bug statuses we've set we track the progress of the (re-)verification
17:36 <dholbach> and that's working well?
17:36 <jose> works better than I expected, most leaders prefer to do it via email
17:37 <jose> so how it works is, once they post the link to their verification application, we check it, and once the first vote is casted all LC members have 7 days to vote
17:37 <dholbach> nice :)
17:37 <jose> in case not all votes have been casted within the first 7 days, then it only needs only +4 votes, which would make it positive even if the other 2 missing people voted -1
17:38 <dholbach> it's interesting to see which forms of organisation work well for which teams :)
17:38 <elfy> :)
17:38 <jose> I think it's basically because timezones suck :)
17:38 <elfy> ha ha ha
17:39 <dholbach> that makes a lot of sense :)
17:39 * elfy likes the "votes have been casted within the first 7 day ..." thing and ponders
17:39 <jose> oh, and we're trying to encourage as many teams as possible to be verified so they can get their DVD pack from Canonical
17:39 <coolbhavi> dholbach, we call it a vote shot clock and as jose said  differing timezones are sometimes tough to handle
17:40 <dholbach> yeah, I remember a few other boards having similar issues - mailing list threads going on forever, people forgetting to vote, etc
17:40 <jose> the verification system allows this to be more efficient than approval as teams find it easier - we only check that the leader/contact have signed the CoC, that all resources are set up and follow the naming standards, and they're alive and have good health
17:40 <dholbach> so this is interesting to see :)
17:41 <cprofitt> yes, this is good to see
17:41 <jose> hey, cprofitt!
17:41 <cprofitt> hello jose
17:41 <dholbach> Did you get many direct enquiries from LoCos themselves? I think I recall this taking up the majority of time of the LC in the past.
17:41 <mhall119> jose: are the verification requirements listed somewhere?
17:42 <jose> dholbach: not that much, what consumes most of our time is discussion as well as verifications and guiding people for a successful verification
17:42 <PabloRubianes> Another topic that we are working is the subteam thing
17:42 <jose> mhall119: we have https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/TeamVerificationGuidelines
17:42 <PabloRubianes> czajkowski: might remember this
17:42 <mhall119> thanks jose
17:42 <jose> sure
17:43 <jose> oh, yep, the subteams issue
17:43 <PabloRubianes> we are trying to see which is the best solution for this
17:43 <PabloRubianes> as some teams want to divide but we dont have resources for all
17:43 <PabloRubianes> and some of the divisions could kill teams
17:44 <PabloRubianes> and we have the fact that USA for example is divided
17:44 <cprofitt> the issue of sub-teams is a complex one...
17:44 <PabloRubianes> cprofitt: yes it is
17:45 <PabloRubianes> but we want to have a conclusion to this topic soon to move forward this
17:45 <cprofitt> it becomes difficult to monitor teams as the number grows... but I do understand the desire to organize on a smaller geographic region
17:45 <PabloRubianes> cprofitt: I always believe the brazilian model is the best
17:46 <PabloRubianes> one main team and subteams within the team
17:46 <PabloRubianes> not separate locos
17:46 <jose> and it's only considered as one team, with a board, though
17:46 <cprofitt> PabloRubianes: just keep in mind there is no solution that everyone will be satisfied with ... you have to do what you feel is withing the capabilities of the community to handle and is healthy for the loco teams
17:46 <jose> cprofitt: +1
17:47 <PabloRubianes> cprofitt: yes
17:47 <cprofitt> What I have always been concerned with is the splintering of teams due to personalities and not other factors
17:47 <PabloRubianes> cprofitt: we also care about the resources as DVDs and conf packs too
17:47 <jose> that is something that should never happen, conflicts are to be resolved
17:48 <dholbach> jose, the podcast you're doing on Saturday(?) - how many of them did you do before?
17:48 <jose> dholbach: 0, it's the first edition ever
17:48 <PabloRubianes> dholbach: is a hangout
17:48 <dholbach> ah... yes, a hangout - right :)
17:48 <cprofitt> PabloRubianes: I think the resource issue can be dealt with regardless of how many teams / sub teams there are... but the question would be how much time would be necessary to manage it...
17:48 <dholbach> nice :-)
17:48 <dholbach> I'm looking forward to it
17:49 <jose> that takes us to the next point, in our efforts to engage with the community we'll be having a monthly ubuntuonair show, the LoCo Teams update (http://lococouncil.ubuntu.com/2014/02/28/loco-teams-update-on-air/)
17:49 <cprofitt> Nice, what do you plan on covering in these?
17:49 <jose> the show is to be community-focused, so it's a show made by LoCo Teams for LoCo Teams, anyone can submit news
17:50 <jose> basically what teams have been doing
17:50 <cprofitt> nice
17:50 <dholbach> jose, I added a few small things to your notes :)
17:50 <jose> we want to recognize the efforts of the loco community, and also use it to announce a couple things or give some advice in terms of event organizing
17:50 <jose> dholbach: cool, I'll check them in a while
17:51 <dholbach> I think it's great - especially if you showcase great work which has been happening elsewhere
17:52 <jose> we expect it to happen more frequently if needed (if teams send so many events we can't cover all of them doing a monthly 1h session)
17:52 <pleia2> yeah, I'm really looking forward to the results from this :)
17:52 <jose> we thought on a Saturday as most LoCo people are off-work that day
17:52 <elfy> that all sounds like good stuff
17:52 <PabloRubianes> yes having events in not working days is something we find important
17:53 <cprofitt> I think there are a lot of positive angles to it and look forward to seeing it in action
17:53 <dholbach> Is there anything the CC could help with?
17:54 <jose> well, if you guys can give us some input about the subteams thing that would be useful
17:54 <PabloRubianes> yeap
17:55 <cprofitt> input on sub-teams...
17:55 <dholbach> I could imagine that that could result in a loooooooooooooooong discussion. :-)
17:55 <pleia2> again
17:55 <cprofitt> I think you should look at both sides of that issue and determine the road blocks
17:55 <elfy> again for you pleia2 :p
17:55 <dholbach> shall we take that offline or discuss in a hangout on air maybe?
17:55 <cprofitt> once you have that list you could submit it to the CC for input
17:55 <pleia2> elfy: there have been many threads about pros and cons on loco-contacts
17:55 <elfy> I don't doubt it :)
17:56 <dholbach> I'm done with questions... pleia2, cprofitt, elfy, czajkowski, mhall119, YokoZar: anything else from you?
17:56 <pleia2> I'm good
17:56 <mhall119> nothing from me
17:56 <cprofitt> nothing ele from me
17:56 <coolbhavi> I recall the pains when czajkowski sergio chris n myself went through brainstorming on this when we started
17:56 <pleia2> thanks everyone :)
17:56 * mhall119 needs to get his team re-verified
17:56 <YokoZar> I'm good, thank you guys :)
17:56 <elfy> nothing from me thanks
17:57 <jose> well, if you have anything to say the team is completely open to suggestions, we want to make the loco experience better than ever :)
17:57 <dholbach> great, thanks so much for your hard work on the LC
17:57 <coolbhavi> yes thanks to all the CC members too :)
17:57 <dholbach> hugs! :)
17:57 <mhall119> thanks everyone
17:58 <dholbach> and thanks for making time
17:58 * jose hugs dholbach
17:58 <dholbach> #topic Any other business...
17:58 <PabloRubianes> no problem thanks for having us
17:58 <dholbach> :-)
17:58 <dholbach> Does anyone have anything else to discuss?
17:58 <dholbach> Looks like all's good.
17:59 <dholbach> Thanks everyone!
17:59 <dholbach> #endmeeting