== Meeting information == * #ubuntu-meeting Meeting, 19 Feb at 17:02 — 18:08 UTC * Full logs at [[http://ubottu.com/meetingology/logs/ubuntu-meeting/2015/ubuntu-meeting.2015-02-19-17.02.log.html]] == Meeting summary == === CC Catchup with the Doc Team === The discussion about "CC Catchup with the Doc Team" started at 17:04. * ''LINK:'' https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation * ''LINK:'' https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/UbuntuDesktopGuide === QA Team Catchup === The discussion about "QA Team Catchup" started at 17:39. == Vote results == == Done items == * (none) == People present (lines said) == * wxl (85) * dholbach (63) * elfy (62) * balloons (32) * dsmythies (29) * GunnarHj (21) * octoquad (19) * sak (17) * hannie (7) * meetingology (5) * dholbach_ (2) * YokoZar (1) * ubottu (1) == Full Log == 17:02 #startmeeting 17:02 Meeting started Thu Feb 19 17:02:40 2015 UTC. The chair is elfy. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology. 17:02 17:02 Available commands: action commands idea info link nick 17:03 hi elfy 17:03 #chair dholbach_ 17:03 Current chairs: dholbach_ elfy 17:03 hiya 17:04 #topic CC Catchup with the Doc Team 17:04 hello - how are you doing? 17:04 nice to see you all :) 17:04 how are things in the doc team? 17:05 Low activity, unfortunately. 17:05 O.K. I posted a pathetic litttle update on the agenda (albeit with less than 24 hours until now) 17:05 I was just reading the agenda update 17:05 Evening :) 17:06 GunnarHj, yes low activity. 17:07 seems rather a common comment for sure :) 17:07 there has been a spurt on xubuntu the last few days, and serverguide. 17:07 yea - I know about xubuntu :) 17:07 how do you organise most of your work? is it bug reports? or anything else? 17:08 I mainly work of infastructure and behind the scenes stuff. I just do it. 17:08 As for the desktop guide: Mostly bug reports indeed. 17:08 GunnarHj is usually aware of what I am up to. 17:08 Today is the string freeze? 17:08 The good news is that not much is happening with the Unity desktop right now. 17:08 feature freeze 17:09 so you have a list of bugs people could start working on, if they wanted? 17:09 Today is an arbitrary string freeze for point releases of the serverguide. both 12.04 and 14.04 17:09 ah ok 17:09 dholbach: The bug list isn't very short either... But basically yes. 17:10 s/short/long/ 17:10 bugs: yes, and Ian is picking away at some on the serverguide front. 17:10 so that's some good news already - it looks like you're organised, even if you could do with more hands on deck 17:11 cloud docs got added recently didn't it - iirc 17:11 In the end we are over dependant on myself and GunnarHj 17:11 you mentioned that you would need server experts - did you get some help from the server team? or are you in touch with them? 17:12 mmm - depending on people can be unfortunate - especially for those depended on 17:12 Subject matter experts: Yes, Peter Matulis sends help requests to the server team list every cycle. 17:12 Re desktop: I'd say we are on top of it right now. But I'm worrying about what's going to happen when the desktop changes significantly. This applies to both the official desktop guide and the Ubuntu manual. 17:13 Do we have a feeling for how steep the learning curve is for new contributors to the docs team? 17:14 Cloud: Yes, after almost a year they have been added. We are happy with the two license apprroach, where the main license didn't chnage but canonical has NC on their stuff. 17:14 yea, I read that 17:14 #chair YokoZar 17:14 #chair YokoZar 17:14 Current chairs: YokoZar dholbach_ elfy 17:14 leasnring curve: Yes, it is steep. I think some give up after becoming overwhlemed 17:14 ha :) 17:15 do you think it could help to have something like a training session to learn "how to fix your first docs bug" or something like that? or did you try that already? 17:15 However, we have completley overhauled all the wiki pages , so at least they help rather than hinder now. 17:15 Re learning curve: I'm not sure I agree with dsmythies on that. It's not rocket science. Anybody who really wants to contribute can do so. 17:15 What are contributor finding overwhelming with the Docs team? 17:16 The extrodinary amount of time it takes to get anything done. 17:16 GunnarHj: well I know that I for one end up scratching my head a lot when I'm editing wiki's :) 17:16 dsmythies: But it's a one time effort. 17:17 training: we did a big thing almost a year ago. Nobody came to it. I wouldn't do it again. 17:17 dsmythies, how long does it usually take to write a wiki manual? 17:17 Beats me, I don't work on the wiki. 17:17 elfy: Ok.. Contributing to the official docs is slightly more complicated..ö 17:17 :) 17:18 Is the official docs and the wiki the same of different? Just so I am clear on the two. 17:18 or different 17:18 ... other than I was heavily involved in the docs team pages overhaul 17:18 anyone thought of running a session at UOS? 17:19 what is UOS 17:19 Could it help to try to separate the task of writing the content from bringing it into the right form/format? 17:19 dsmythies, Ubuntu Online Summit 17:19 dsmythies: the online summit 17:19 elfy: for docs? 17:20 sak: They are to separate beasts. Any Ubuntu user can add stuff to the wiki, while only the dedicated team can commit to the official docs. 17:20 s/to/two/ 17:20 why not - run a community track 17:20 wxl: ^^ 17:20 Thank you gunnarhj 17:21 dholbach: you mean a wyswig editor? :-) 17:21 elfy: We should always have a community track! 17:21 I do not understand "community track" 17:22 dsmythies: track would be a session the doc team ran in UOS - talk about what you do, try and drum up some new blood 17:22 wxl, I just thought a bit longer about the steep learning curve now and wondered if it would help to break up a task like "document how to do X" would be easier or had a better chance of getting done, if the task of writing up the content, ie detailing the instructions, etc. was separated from bringing it in the right form (Mallard or Docbook or moin format or whatever) 17:23 that way the learning curve was probably a bit less steep, because writing up the content AND bringing it into the right form AND using a merge proposal might be a bit hard for some 17:23 dholbach: well, then you need a parser or something to make it reasonable, or a wyswig editor 17:24 dholbach: Something worth considering, maybe. Simply encourage people to contribute content in some raw format... 17:24 wxl, ok, I was thinking more of a more experienced member of the team who could help with massaging content into the right format :) 17:24 Any plans for markdown, rst or textile support? 17:24 dholbach: i've done it before with training people but it's a PAIN 17:24 Perhaps and editor that converts the content into the right form? 17:24 octoquad: well, moin supports rst, but you add the rst IN the moin, which is stupid because people that don't know rst can't properly maintain it 17:24 We did some summit sessions over a few cycles, particulary when pleia2 was more involved. 17:25 wxl, I see, I suppose better UI editing tools might help to structure the text for someone who doesn't know the raw markup 17:25 dsmythies: ok - did it help at that time? 17:25 We tried to let contributors write in raw format, but it was too much work for others to get it right, so we decided to stop it. 17:25 plans for rst or whatever changes: thsi always comes up. It would be a ton of work and what people want to change to changes every quarter. I want not part of it. 17:26 hannie: Ok.. 17:26 I mean at The Ubuntu Manual 17:26 octoquad: true, true, personally i LOOOOOOATHE moin, but that's another storry 17:26 i *REALLY* think we need to support markdown. it's largely becoming the de facto standard for lightweight markup 17:26 maybe it could be tried in a smaller scale 17:26 perhaps, wiki content should be structured per cycle and cloned on a new cycle, with some type of inherentice of previous cycle text? 17:27 just to see if somebody would be willing to help with formatting 17:27 content stays relevant per cycle 17:27 rst makes sense because it's the canonical python markup, but that doesn't mean anything. i mean, jeez, moin moin is in py and they don't support it :/ 17:27 and better UI tools to manage markdown. 17:27 s/markdown/markup 17:28 i have strong feelings about markup languages. i MAY be interested in helping develop a ui tool 17:28 converting to a new system and build system is a very big investment 17:28 or at least the parser if soneone is more handy with front end 17:28 wxl, what is rst? 17:28 wxl, I'm keen as well 17:28 sak: reStucturedText 17:28 sak, restructured text 17:28 elfy: Summit: Such things always create a stir, but then fades back to normal. 17:28 I see, and its benefits? 17:28 sak: another lightweight markup language like moin moin, markdown, textile, etc. etc. etc. 17:28 sak: oh god, don't get started on the markup wars :) 17:29 The low activity problem tends to end up in endless discussions on markup languages. ;) The principal issue is the low interest in contributing, I'm afraid. 17:29 lol, we are having one now 17:29 sak: the one obvious benefit is that it's a python tool, so python supports it well 17:29 GunnarHj, perhaps that's where the problem arises from? 17:29 I agree with GunnarHj 17:29 octoquad: I doubt it. 17:29 GunnarHj, if things were a lot easier you might get a bit more contributions 17:29 GunnarHj: we have a very enthusiastic new head of docs/wiki in lubuntu. he may be willing to help, but having clear details about what needs to be done would be helpful 17:30 wxl, nice, something I am becoming familiar with 17:30 I just wonder if running a session would help - even if it only results in a couple of new contributors 17:30 a session will always help 17:30 at worst you'll have some sort of presentation you can show to noobs 17:30 especially if it's going to be recorded, people can watch it later on again 17:30 and they are 17:31 that for sure dholbach 17:31 Please note: I am not very IRC savy, and am having trouble keeping up. 17:31 at least given current technology 17:31 dsmythies: that's ok :) 17:31 I think there was a pretty good session for about a year ago which might be resued. 17:31 cool 17:31 if no one in docs has experience with it, i'd be happy to help 17:32 wxl: Thanks, noted. ;) 17:32 training session I have always found helpful. Takes out the guess work 17:32 would it help to help review the current "get involved" docs again to see how understandable they are for a newcomer? or is there anything else the CC could help with? 17:32 dholbach: not a bad idea. i could find some fresh eyes to show them to 17:32 I'd happily run through those get involved docs 17:33 same here 17:33 and probably others in ubuntu-community-team@lists.ubuntu.com :) 17:33 hehehe 17:33 yep 17:33 Sounds great. Looking forward to your feedback. 17:33 :-) 17:33 GunnarHj dsmythies - anything else we could help you with? 17:34 The lubuntu QA getting stared wiki was well written. I can help overview the getting started docs page 17:34 YokoZar, pleia2, mhall119, elfy, czajkowski: any more questions from you? 17:34 Think it's ok for today. Thanks all! 17:34 not from me dholbach 17:34 thanks a lot for your tireless work - I really appreciate it 17:34 Yes, O.K. 17:35 thanks everyone :) 17:35 actually 17:35 I take the meeting is over? 17:35 GunnarHj dsmythies could one of you link me to the instructions on dealing with the manual formatting? 17:35 maybe we should start a discussion on the community team list too, just to see if we can come up with some more ideas to improve the situation 17:35 GunnarHj dsmythies - if one of you wants to point me at the 'start helping' page I'll start looking 17:35 (or bring it up on the community team list) 17:36 just a sec 17:36 ((which might be better)) 17:36 We'll get back on the list. 17:36 sounds good thanks 17:36 thanks a lot 17:36 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation 17:37 Oh, or on list , per Gunnr 17:37 elfy, are we meeting up with anyone else today? 17:37 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/SystemDocumentation/UbuntuDesktopGuide 17:38 dholbach: QA team 17:38 ah cool 17:38 horray for QA team 17:38 do we have anyone here from our QA overlords? 17:39 thanks dsmythies GunnarHj hannie 17:39 Yes, and thank you 17:39 well, i'm not one of the overlords 17:39 and many thanks from me for what you all do :) 17:39 np; thank you! 17:39 #topic QA Team Catchup 17:40 and I can be here with Xubuntu QA hat on too :) 17:40 bye 17:40 thanks again 17:40 Thank you 17:40 ← lubuntu qa dewd 17:41 where's balloons ?? 17:41 who else? balloons maybe? 17:41 <- Ubuntu Gnome QA 17:41 nice 17:41 hi octoquad :) 17:41 howdy elfy :) 17:41 oh wow octoquad you're like, what, one of three? XD 17:41 balloons should be here representing :D 17:41 it's time already? 17:41 wxl, huh? lol 17:41 yes yes, it is 17:41 hey balloons - welcome :) 17:42 octoquad: nevermind :) 17:42 how are things in QA land? how are you all doing? 17:42 * balloons screws head on for UTC time 17:42 wxl, soz, you mean in the QA team 17:42 i'm whooped after 14.04.2 17:42 if infinity wasn't in my time zone, i would have killed myself by now XD 17:43 qa land is doing well. We're anticipating unity8 on the desktop, and more phones in the wild on the touch side of the fence 17:43 dholbach: well ... it's been tough getting people involved for us - but we got 94 testing reports for the trusty release today 17:43 so we're mostly talking about release testing here? 17:44 i just got a nexus 4, so i've started working on finding my way through the labryinth that is touch testing ;) 17:44 i'm working on some t-shirts to encourage more involvement in lubuntu qa testing 17:44 elfy's correct on release testing. Trying to ensure it gets tested is getting harder 17:44 i'm going to have a contest of some sort 17:44 so when we're talking about QA efforts here, are we focusing mostly on release/image testing? 17:45 mostly from my pov 17:45 dholbach: well, that does tend to be a large amount of our focus, and is certainly of greatest importance 17:45 generally all other testing is "preventative" 17:45 it is super important, of course 17:46 elfy, you said that it was harder to get people involved - was that across the board across image/release testing? 17:46 14.04.2 testing was pretty good compared to vivid for Ubuntu Gnome 17:47 there were a PLETHORA of rebuilds in 14.04.2 17:47 so while the final numbers may not show it, there certainly was a fair amount of testing 17:47 dholbach: it has been, Xubuntu are running a bit if a drive with stickers and things :) http://xubuntu.org/news/help-the-community-with-testing-and-win-xubuntu-stickers/ 17:47 incidentially xubuntu is who lubuntu is copying 17:47 but we have t-shirts XD 17:47 kubuntu got no testing done 17:47 we will too - but not just yet 17:48 and books 17:48 netboot got barely touched 17:48 I think netboot was always harder to cover 17:48 server got barely touched 17:48 upgrade got barely touched 17:48 other than that, most everyone got full testing done 17:49 lubuntu in particular had a problem with alternates that will leave us without those images 17:49 Lots of images got barley touched it seems 17:49 release team will try to fix that after release 17:49 the altenate and ppc / netboot images are difficult 17:49 we discussed getting rid of alternates but really can't justify netboot as a viable solution for several reasons 17:49 we had no upgrade path for 14.04.2 so nothing was tested 17:50 so there has been some discussion of making a text-only low resource front end to ubiquity 17:50 what's wrong with the debian installer? 17:50 maybe we should have another chat on the community team list about this too to see where we can get more folks signed up for testing 17:50 or just wanting it to be the same? 17:50 balloons: sameness is a big goal in my mind, but the issue with this point releases seems to affect d-i in a way it doesn't affect ubiquity 17:51 dholbach, that sounds like a a good idea 17:51 i mean the attitude on the release team is that they don't want to support the red haired child, you know? :) 17:51 one of the issues is that flavors and ubuntu are disconnected now on testing times. Ubuntu only does final beta image testing, while flavors do other milestones. But not all flavors do every milestone 17:51 We've definitely seen an overall drop in folks testing since we switched to this 17:51 balloons: yeah, i would say that the change to having the community handle release for early milestones was kind of a shock 17:52 In theory, rounding up folks do testing on the final beta image should be easier, but I think we've lost folks who would have done testing throughout the cycle and enjoyed it 17:52 agree 17:53 balloons: the forum team are still doing their thing - but hard to get them involved in trackers 17:53 maybe we can think of a good way together to round up folks again and get them involved in more regular testing activities 17:53 yeah if i have to see another mailing list message with a long story about testing that doesn't get reported on the trackers.. argh 17:53 dholbach: not sure if you know, but there's an area on forum which is just for dev releases 17:54 yep, I haven't been there for a while, but I know it exists :) 17:54 maybe it'd also make sense to try to find out where people read most of our announcements 17:54 maybe we should get rid of early milestones altogether? i don't know. 17:55 i might want to talk to our dev team about that 17:55 wxl mmm 17:55 we're more likely to alpha for LTS 17:55 I would be in favor of not testing images early.. I liked the switch to final beta only 17:56 the difficulty then is coordinating work and getting people using the release before then. As elfy said, the forums are one place people congregate to do this stuff. I'm sure there's more 17:56 balloons: but is there automated testing going on otherwise? 17:56 jenkins looked stopped the other day, I think jibel said something about starting that up 17:56 wxl, sure there is (although it recently had issues, so nothing is happening with ubiquity testing atm. It is being fixed) 17:56 that ^^ 17:57 for vivid alpha 1 as an example it felt like it was an 14.10 image 17:57 I am trying to get them to make those tests more visible as well, but they need to be online again :-) 17:57 balloons: :) 17:57 maybe if flavors had guidance on dealing with automated testing, that might be a good transition 17:57 i mean, i've heard mention of them, but that's about it 17:57 I did use to look at the ubiquity jenkins - used the rss fail feed 17:57 octoquad: yeah, kind of what i was thinking. they're a waste in a way. 17:58 sounds like a good topic for a few sessions :) 17:58 +1 dholbach 17:58 wxl: auto testing for us at least was a nightmare as balloons will attest I'm sure 17:58 the tracker is also a point of contention, and we have seen some success in trying to fix long standing issues. But they are still there 17:58 balloons: i'm sure you don't have anything else on your plate right? XD 17:58 not sure that's ever going to happen 17:58 round up all QA experts and have a day of Ubuntu QA TV :) 17:58 elfy: why for? 17:58 automated testing of flavors is difficult indeed. The older toolkits just don't lend themselves to it 17:59 ah 17:59 bummer 17:59 is kubuntu doing automated testing? 17:59 balloons, autopkgtest? 17:59 (where applicable of course) 17:59 if/when xubuntu is gtk3 it will be better. lubuntu is moving to qt and could definitely get UI tests 17:59 kubuntu as well could have a nice story, and I do believe they have a small suite 18:00 dholbach, yes, autopkgtest for the older stuff is as far as you can go 18:00 it would certainly be awesome :) 18:00 balloons: if you can train me on doing the automated testing, i can work with our dev team as we continue to develop lxqt 18:00 balloons: oh - so different? 18:00 * wxl spits in the general direction of gtk+ 18:00 wxl, happy to. If you want to round up some folks from lubuntu who might be interested as well we can do some live hacking together on a lubuntu app 18:00 nice... shall we discuss the possibility of a training event or some such on the community list? or other measures of getting people involved? 18:01 autopkg and autopilot differences - possibly we could use the former? 18:01 balloons: that'd be cool. propose a time and i'll see what i can do with the cat herding :) 18:01 elfy, gtk2 vs gtk3? yes, as you know gtk2 apps with xubuntu don't like to be introspected :-) 18:01 indeed :D 18:01 balloons: and i cna talk to kubuntu folks, too 18:01 dholbach, we used to always attend the openweek sessions. Did those happen this time around? 18:01 * wxl uses kubuntu at work, so 18:02 wxl, awesome, I'll propose something on the list 18:02 balloons: sounds great 18:02 balloons, I don't know - we should talk about it on the list 18:02 * balloons hopes someone is taking notes, lol 18:02 hahah 18:02 I'll have a dinner at a friend's place to run to in a few - that's why I'm trying to push discussion to the list :) 18:02 which list would that be? 18:03 ubuntu-community-team@lists.ubuntu.com could generate a bunch of ideas on how to get people involved 18:03 ta, I'll sign up now 18:03 eeeeeexcellent 18:03 is there anything you feel the Community Council could help with? 18:03 would be useful I think - not much point in using qa m/l as that's a captive audience already imo 18:03 YokoZar, pleia2, mhall119, elfy, czajkowski: any more questions from you? 18:03 elfy, good point actually 18:04 dholbach: nope - I'm quite up together on where QA is thanks 18:04 dholbach, yes your ideas and input on the list discussions would be excellent 18:04 thanks 18:04 On the bright side: I totally forgot to bring up the new launchpad servers were rolled out a few days ago, and the so very very very very annoying translations timeout issue seems to be solved. Bug 736005 18:04 I'll thank those of you others who do for your teams though - you do good work :) 18:04 bug 736005 in Launchpad itself "POFile:+translate timeouts" [Critical,In progress] https://launchpad.net/bugs/736005 18:05 yes, thanks for coming out as well and sharing your thoughts! 18:05 yes! 18:05 dsmythies: thanks :) 18:05 :) 18:05 dholbach: ok - well I'm good 18:05 YokoZar: anything from you 18:05 thanks a lot everyone - thanks a lot for you hard work! over the last cycle's our QA has really come together - you've all made a tremendous difference 18:05 did sak make it? 18:06 ahh indeed 18:06 Make it to the meeting balloons? 18:06 sak, yes, wanted to make sure you found us :-) 18:06 thanks for coming 18:06 oops phone 18:06 i miss anythinbg else? 18:06 OH 18:06 It was a pleasure 18:06 i remembered i wanted to say sometthing 18:07 the switch to only having 2 days to officially test milestones was an interesting change, so i've been working hard to encourage more proactive testing 18:07 that's something i'd suggest to others if they haven't figured that one out XD 18:08 ok cool 18:08 thanks again everyone! 18:08 dholbach: anything else? 18:08 I have to run now! A dinner is waiting! :) 18:08 #endmeeting Generated by MeetBot 0.1.5 (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology)