17:00 <dholbach> #startmeeting
17:00 <meetingology> Meeting started Thu Sep  3 17:00:47 2015 UTC.  The chair is dholbach. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/meetingology.
17:00 <meetingology> 
17:00 <meetingology> Available commands: action commands idea info link nick
17:00 <dholbach> #chair czajkowski mhall119 pleia2
17:00 <meetingology> Current chairs: czajkowski dholbach mhall119 pleia2
17:00 <pleia2> o/
17:01 <dholbach> Do we have folks from the IRC Council and Canonical Community team here?
17:01 <pleia2> #link https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncilAgenda
17:02 <pleia2> ^^ agenda
17:02 <balloons> o/
17:03 <pleia2> I don't think anyone sent a reminder to the IRC Council
17:03 <dholbach> ok, let's start with the community team then and I'll try to ping the IRC Council folks
17:04 <hggdh> pleia2: a reminder was sent
17:04 <pleia2> hggdh: oh good :)
17:04 <czajkowski> dholbach: balloons mhall119 so life on the community team
17:04 <czajkowski> is dpm around
17:04 <dholbach> thanks hggdh!
17:05 <hggdh> btw, hi all, long time and all that
17:05 <pleia2> hggdh: welcome :)
17:05 <popey> o/
17:05 <czajkowski> popey: howdy
17:05 <dholbach> #topic Catching up with the Canonical Community team
17:05 <popey> I have some opinions :)
17:06 <balloons> so, there's some things I wanted to bring up, but they are mostly based on popey's thoughts. I'll let him speak first if he wishes
17:06 <popey> nah, knock yourself out
17:06 <czajkowski> balloons: do tell, but please don't injure you're self
17:06 <czajkowski> :)
17:06 <dholbach> haha
17:07 <balloons> :-) Ok, my first thought was bringing up how we deal with contributions. It's the second half of the lifecycle for contributing. We spend time and effort encouraging folks to contribute, but once they do, we sometimes falter
17:08 * dholbach has opinions on that subject too :)
17:08 <balloons> There are both good examples and bad examples of this. For instance, we do wonderfully on the core apps projects, while we have patches sitting waiting in other places
17:09 <dholbach> yeah... I just raised the subject with the engineering managers for Ubuntu again - sponsoring and patch review for stuff going into the distro sort of went a bit on the backburner for many and patches had been piling up again
17:09 <balloons> I would be curious how we might be able to close this gap a bit better. Is there something collectively we could do and/or encourage the community to do to insure we are good stewards of people's contributions?
17:09 <popey> yeah
17:10 <dholbach> I haven't checked other queues (NEW, SRU, +1 maintenance, MIR, etc.), but I can imagine that these might require more attention too
17:10 <popey> I had a ranty email from a community contributor recently who was annoyed that his merge proposals took a long time to be reviewed
17:10 <dholbach> me too
17:10 <balloons> is it something we can empower the community collectively to do? AKA, are there not enough people to review the work?
17:10 <czajkowski> popey: how long was long?
17:11 <popey> could be days to weeks
17:11 <czajkowski> and is there way we can get more eyeballs on stuff in a more fun way to do it, as I know folks are busy but it's also a necessity
17:11 <popey> One issue is many canonical people work closely on irc, and are happy to ping eachother
17:11 <dholbach> the patch pilot programme was supposed to guarantee that everyone within the distro team with upload rights had 4h/month (or one hour per week) to help out
17:11 <popey> Joe: "Hey, bob, can you review that merge on your project?"
17:11 <popey> Bob: "Sure, I'll get to it in a bit"
17:11 <popey> job done
17:11 <dpm> o/
17:11 <popey> community person contributes and it looks like it disappears into a black hole
17:12 <popey> I am guilty of this too, not pointing fingers at others.
17:12 <dholbach> I hope that we can get more energy into this again
17:12 * dpm and mhall119 I were having a really interesting call with the Mycroft folks
17:12 <czajkowski> popey: aye I think at times the IRC ping often doesnt help folks not on irc
17:12 <czajkowski> who may be working
17:12 <dholbach> and some of the engineering managers are discussing the subject right now
17:12 <czajkowski> and taking things to a public mailing list to show how easy it is to get feedback ina constructive manner
17:13 <popey> czajkowski: indeed, and not knowing that people are approachable
17:13 <popey> czajkowski: and some people actually _not_ being approachable
17:13 <czajkowski> popey: exactly
17:13 <dholbach> yeah, you can't say on a wiki page "ping popey to get your patch reviewed and included" :)
17:13 <czajkowski> nail on the head :)
17:13 <popey> (e.g. berating someone for pinging them which disturbs them, contributors should ask in public so as not to disturb individuals)
17:13 <dholbach> that's why we had current patch pilots in the topic in #u-devel
17:13 <popey> exactly!
17:14 <czajkowski> It may be better to encoureage people when they see people being pinged on irc, to suggest can we move this to the ML so others can see how it's done
17:15 <czajkowski> popey: balloons dholbach which ml would this go to ?
17:15 <dholbach> a request for a review of a patch?
17:15 <czajkowski> devel- devel-discuss, elsewhere?
17:15 <czajkowski> dholbach: aye
17:15 <dholbach> both should work
17:15 <popey> not sure
17:15 <dholbach> I hope that with support from management we can at least have Canonical engineers help out more regularly again
17:16 <czajkowski> could we try for the next few weeks to push to -devel-discuss - I know moderation can be an issue ?
17:16 <dholbach> I'd leave the mailing list as last resort for the urgent cases
17:16 <popey> yeah
17:16 <dholbach> we shouldn't ask people to mail the mailing list for everything
17:16 <popey> irc is way easier / faster
17:16 <popey> but we shouldn't have to go round poking people
17:16 <balloons> I would also like to think about a way to monitor this and be proactive on our end a bit. Especially since things are backlogged now
17:17 <popey> people who are upstream for a project should act like one
17:17 <czajkowski> popey: hmm but what about the people who want to contribute that aren't on IRC
17:17 <balloons> I would rather see us gently nudging upstreams to be more receptive. An MP should be enough to get the contact going
17:17 <dholbach> http://reqorts.qa.ubuntu.com/reports/1glance-sponsoring/
17:17 <dholbach> if you click on "year"
17:18 <dholbach> you can see that the last call for help seems to have done something
17:18 <balloons> yea, you can see when you issue the calls :-)
17:18 <popey> czajkowski: why arent they on irc? everyone is on irc.
17:18 <czajkowski> popey: that whole work thing :)
17:18 <czajkowski> dholbach: nods
17:19 <dholbach> popey, there are upstream developers and debian folks and others who just want to do a drive by contribiution
17:19 * hggdh respectully disagrees from popey
17:19 <popey> it was somewhat tongue in cheek
17:19 * hggdh removes disagreement
17:19 <popey> dholbach: i agree, and we should pick those up and not let them languish
17:19 <dholbach> yep, agreed
17:19 <czajkowski> ok
17:19 <czajkowski> so you mentioned other issues?
17:19 <czajkowski> what are they ?
17:20 <dholbach> maybe we can review in a couple of weeks again and see if the recent discussions helped change something
17:20 <dholbach> balloons, popey: was your point mostly just about sponsoring?
17:20 <popey> mine wasnt
17:20 <dholbach> ok, then I'll get out of the way now :)
17:20 <popey> mine was a cultural change, more of an observation
17:20 <dpm> I think it's about MPs and upstreams too
17:21 <czajkowski> popey: do tell
17:21 <popey> Are we done with the other topic though?
17:21 <balloons> my point was about us collectively encouraging a better culture in our upstreams as well. But the boots on the ground work from dholbach is part of it
17:21 <czajkowski> balloons: cool can we try encouraging more people to review over the next few weeks
17:21 <dholbach> I wonder if most developers in an upstream project are signed up for mails about new MPs...
17:22 <czajkowski> see if it makes a difference and if not lets come back and see if we need to take to ML or what we need to do
17:22 <balloons> yes, and given the changes to LP, we should encourage people to review filtering. I'm guiltly of this. I filtered out those mails
17:22 <balloons> because it was hard to get the right mix without getting overwhelemd
17:23 <balloons> the lp team just redid this (I for instance often miss important mails, like renewing in a team)
17:23 <dholbach> maybe it'd be good to write up best-practices "how to be a good upstream" with a few paragraphs on "how to set up your project in LP"?
17:23 <popey> yeah, me too
17:23 <popey> my gmail has thousands of mails, this is why i rely on web pages with lists of things to do
17:23 <balloons> +1, dholbach. That's the action I'd like to see, and I think we could do
17:23 <popey> rather than email
17:24 <czajkowski> dholbach: brilliant idea
17:24 <dholbach> I'm not sure if that'd solve all problems - you still need to do your reviews
17:24 <czajkowski> dholbach: I see a to do AI for you then :)
17:24 <dholbach> but it could be a first good step
17:24 <dholbach> czajkowski, erm....... I'm convinced :)
17:25 <dholbach> but yeah, I can have a look around and see what the current LP docs offer
17:25 <dholbach> and bring that up for renewed discussion
17:25 <czajkowski> nods
17:25 <dholbach> happy to do that
17:25 <czajkowski> lovely jubbly thanks
17:25 <czajkowski> popey: so back over to you.
17:25 <popey> okay
17:26 <popey> this is an observation about our team, and not an opinion or conclusion
17:26 <popey> Since jono left things have been a bit different.
17:26 <popey> So when things went "wrong" outside canonical jono would typically swoop in wearing a cape and write a blog post
17:26 <czajkowski> nod
17:26 <czajkowski> s
17:27 <popey> we tend not to do that now
17:27 <popey> we don't have as quite a public figure as jono
17:27 <popey> the role changed
17:28 <czajkowski> It did
17:28 <popey> the result of this (IMO) is that sometimes a long time goes between adverse things happening and us responding
17:28 <popey> some would say thats actually a good thing
17:28 <popey> because we're not knee-jerk responding
17:28 <popey> but taking more time and considering things rather than jumping on the PR train and writing rapid replies
17:29 <czajkowski> popey: I think the other thing that has happened, in that some on the team are a lot more vocal online and then get picked up as the "canonical community manager said X" but dont add the name to the role and that adds confusion, at least imo
17:29 <popey> my observation is that this means we (more) often go "silent" on the community about particular topics
17:29 <popey> I don't know how I feel about this, whether it's good or bad, whether it's seen as good or bad from outside.
17:29 <czajkowski> so I think taking a step back
17:29 <balloons> I would agree folks are a bit more gunshy on joining a topic, which leads to the banter being set for the community by others
17:29 <popey> I just see it more often now than in the past
17:29 <czajkowski> taking time to respond is a good thing
17:30 <czajkowski> I'm just worried that being too slow to reply leads to too much fud and not enough clearning things up in a manner I guess we're used to
17:30 <czajkowski> it can feel cut off and not knowing what's going on  - unless you pop on irc and ask :)
17:31 <czajkowski> so for me and I've said this , not having one focal main manager had been confusing especially on topics like you've just raised popey .
17:31 <dholbach> mh, I'm not sure
17:31 <czajkowski> popey: part of me feels others are waiting for someone else to step in and reply and that leave it down to one or not at all.
17:31 <balloons> I think it's good in the sense, we are mindful about what we say. However, we are ending up being reactionary in conversations and being dragged into side conversations
17:31 <dholbach> I mean many of us have been around for ages in the project and their voice should have relevance too
17:32 <czajkowski> balloons: +1
17:32 <dholbach> whatever their job title is
17:32 <hggdh> +1
17:32 <dholbach> and by that I don't just mean members of our team in Canonical
17:33 <dholbach> and I don't think that relying on a single person to respond to all online discussions via blog will scale - but I have to admit that I often feel "too busy" to write a long blog post responding to whatever the discussion of the day is
17:33 <dholbach> and I know I could blog more
17:33 <balloons> yes, the downside of having a single mouthpiece is all other voices have a tendency to be silent
17:34 <dpm> I think the takeaway is also that we should all blog more, not only in reaction to a particular topic, and I am to blame on that too
17:35 <hggdh> jono is one of a kind. But he is not here anymore. You cannot expect to keep on with his style, pretty much only he could. But you can keep on as a group
17:35 <czajkowski> hggdh: true
17:35 <czajkowski> and we all have to find our own voice
17:35 <czajkowski> and our own way of doing things
17:35 <dholbach> just a quick note: the CC also is meeting the IRC Council today ... can we maybe make a list of subjects we still want to talk about?
17:36 <dholbach> it looks like we need way more time to get through all of this, or am I wrong?
17:36 <czajkowski> but as popey pointed out culture changes means what we're used to is not what's happening so it was more of a discussion
17:36 <hggdh> yes. And be vocal on it. And try to present a coherent, consistent view
17:36 <czajkowski> I will say that having dpm post the community team updates is brilliant!
17:36 <czajkowski> please do keep that up :D  I love to read it
17:36 <dpm> thanks
17:36 <czajkowski> I would also love to see more blogging of what the Community team is doing as I know I personally idle in the irc channel and can see you guys are busy
17:36 <dpm> I've not been keeping up after travels and holidays too
17:36 <hggdh> dpm: BTW, never said it -- thank you for the updates.
17:37 <czajkowski> but I'm sure others would love to see a day in the life a community team member
17:37 <balloons> summertime has taken a bit of a toll on things
17:37 <dpm> so when the next sprint is over expect a new update
17:37 <dholbach> if we have more to talk about, we could have a hangout on air and take more time to get through the issues together
17:37 <dholbach> kind of a pre-UOS u-community-team get-together :)
17:37 <czajkowski> dholbach: blog perhaps ?
17:37 <dholbach> czajkowski, sorry I meant subjects popey and others wanted to bring up now
17:37 <czajkowski> dholbach: ahh gotcha
17:38 <dpm> btw, so we've got ~20 mins left?
17:38 <czajkowski> dpm: aye
17:38 * hggdh warms hands
17:38 <czajkowski> I know dpm had a topic to bring up
17:38 <dpm> indeed
17:38 <dholbach> czajkowski, dpm: right, but we're also still meeting up with the IRC Council
17:39 <dholbach> but sure... bring it up - it looks like the meeting will run over today anyway
17:39 <dpm> I think I don't need the whole 20 mins
17:39 <dpm> I want to introduce the topic and follow up in the next few days anyway
17:39 <dpm> in any case...
17:40 <dpm> ... this is a follow-up of a discussion we had at the Community Leadership Summit
17:40 * balloons feels anticipation building
17:40 <dpm> lol
17:40 <czajkowski> dpm: no pressure
17:40 <dholbach> the suspense is killing me :)
17:40 <dpm> ...
17:40 <dpm> ...
17:40 <dpm> j/k
17:41 <dpm> so, we talked about more effective ways for teams/locos/individuals to meet up and get visibility and more attendees to their physical meetings
17:41 <dpm> While we have the LoCo portal for event organization
17:42 <dpm> it seems not all teams use it and also that it's a very Ubuntu-specific thing
17:42 <dpm> so we don't get all the discoverability we could get
17:42 <czajkowski> nods, it's a nice home for all the info on teams when you're searching about a loco.
17:42 <czajkowski> dpm: that's also true
17:43 <dpm> indeed, and to be clear, this is not about changing the LoCo portal
17:43 <dpm> however, since we created the LP, things have changed
17:43 <dpm> One of the nice things about CLS was to get feedback from other open source communities
17:44 <balloons> so really this is about engaging folks where they already are?
17:44 <dpm> on the infrastructure/tools they use
17:44 <dpm> for events
17:44 <dpm> one of the ones that came up was meetup.com
17:44 <dpm> I know for example czajkowski uses it over at CouchBase
17:44 <czajkowski> nods this is true I do.
17:45 <czajkowski> and that was someting that came up at CLS, was more and more groups using meet up.
17:45 <czajkowski> and how best we could tie it into LTP
17:45 <dpm> and I got convinced it could be a good thing to try
17:45 * dpm nods
17:46 <czajkowski> so I think it's a good idea, and I'd love to see loco teams embrace it
17:46 <czajkowski> and if they don't want to also, that's equally fine,
17:46 <czajkowski> I think opt in would be good, looping in the LC into the discussion and dpm the funds for this will come via the community fund or canonical ?
17:46 <dpm> The thing that I particularly attracts me to it is that it opens the door to other open source communities that are using it to more easily see the Ubuntu events, so that we'd be no longer in our Ubuntu bubble
17:46 <dpm> By all means
17:47 <dpm> I think this is a discussion that needs to happen with the CC
17:47 <dpm> err LC
17:47 <czajkowski> nods i think it would open more doors for other groups to learn about ubuntu
17:47 * mhall119 is here now
17:47 <czajkowski> and I think it's a postive step in understanding how our community is changing and adapting to it
17:48 <czajkowski> dpm: so we do have a lmited CC here :)
17:48 <dholbach> :)
17:48 <dpm> :-)
17:48 <dholbach> I haven't used meetup much yet, but I think it's worth a try
17:48 <czajkowski> I think the best thing as a stepping stone would be meet with the LC and involve them in this discussion if not done so already
17:48 <czajkowski> meet wtih meet up and then trial it with some teams
17:49 <dpm> yeah
17:49 <czajkowski> and I'd love to see this plan being blogged so others can see how you guys are working with the community and loco teams
17:49 <balloons> I think opening ourselves up a bit more is a good thing. Things have changed and are changing. It would be best if we could empower those using other platforms to take ownership of them also. In other words, I don't want us to try and be all things to all people
17:49 <czajkowski> :)
17:49 <czajkowski> and I think you can play with the API and intergrate it into the LTP
17:49 <czajkowski> so you could still have visibilty under one location
17:49 <czajkowski> but that's a dev issue :)
17:50 <dpm> I will take an action to put together a doc to drive the discussion with the LC
17:50 <czajkowski> brilliant
17:51 <dholbach> nice
17:51 <czajkowski> dpm: will the community team be at CLS  Europe in case folks at ubuntu want to meet up with the team ?
17:52 <dpm> We're not planning to atm
17:52 <dpm> But will look into it
17:52 <czajkowski> dpm: another action item :)
17:52 <balloons> http://clsxeurope.com/ looks like it's the end of October
17:52 <dpm> :)
17:52 <dpm> ah, it's a CLSx event
17:52 <czajkowski> would be great to see the team at CLS and maybe this is something we could get some of the Ubuntu loco teams to come to and take part in ?
17:53 * dholbach is at UbuConDE at the time
17:53 <dpm> yeah, it's right on that date
17:53 <balloons> ^^ indeed, that would be the focus
17:53 <dpm> I'm at UbuConDE as well
17:53 * mhall119 will be sitting around here in Florida
17:53 <dpm> But perhaps we can send others who didn't make it to the last CLS
17:54 <czajkowski> dpm: guess you need to get the team to Texas next year :)
17:54 <dpm> :)
17:54 <czajkowski> right are there any other topics before we wrap up
17:54 <dholbach> hum........
17:54 <dholbach> the IRC Council?
17:54 <czajkowski> popey: dholbach balloons dpm any other issues?
17:54 <hggdh> yes?
17:54 <mhall119> yes, sponsoring community leaders to go to CLS Europe would be ieal
17:54 <Pici> \o
17:54 <czajkowski> dholbach: you can run that bit of the meeting I need to run for a train :)
17:54 <dpm> I'm good for today
17:55 <balloons> same, we've taken enough time for now
17:55 <dholbach> thanks a lot everyone
17:55 <dholbach> let's move on then :)
17:55 <dpm> o/
17:55 <dholbach> #topic Catching up with the IRC Council
17:55 <dholbach> sorry for keeping you waiting for so long
17:55 <dholbach> how are things?
17:56 <dholbach> how are you doing?
17:56 <Pici> quiet.
17:56 <dholbach> oh?
17:56 <hggdh> too quiet, methinks
17:56 <dholbach> I wouldn't have expected that answer from the fast-world-of-IRC :)
17:56 <mhall119> bad quiet or good quiet?
17:57 <hggdh> since the election we have not had much done. We will be holding a IRC meeting next week, off the schedule to try to catch up
17:57 <dholbach> but the irc world is as busy as always, right?
17:58 <Pici> Well, we had some issues with the server that ubottu and co was hosted on, so that was a bit frantic, but we've gotten things back together now.
17:58 <mhall119> Pici: are there any outstanding issues now that the CC might help with?
17:58 <Pici> mhall119: I don't think so.
17:58 <hggdh> I do not think so
17:58 <dholbach> who is mostly taking care of the bots these days?
17:59 <hggdh> pici
17:59 <Pici> I am.
17:59 <dholbach> just you?
17:59 <hggdh> he is the only one, I think with the necessary access. Which is good, otherwise we would have lost the bots for a bit longer
17:59 <mhall119> is there a way to share that access, so it's not all on Pici?
18:00 <dholbach> oh yeah... I have full trust in Pici - I was just asking if anyone else was helping out :)
18:00 <hggdh> so do I :-)
18:01 <mhall119> it's not a question of trust, I trust Pici too, but he should have a backup who can take over for him when he needs it
18:01 <Pici> No one else is helping at the moment, but I'd need to get something setup so that others could easily admin that part of the server in case I'm away.
18:01 <Pici> Just a weekend project I should put in my to-do list.
18:01 <mhall119> Pici: is this server yours or something Canonical-hosted?
18:01 <dholbach> nice :)
18:01 <Pici> mhall119: its a small Linode instance I'm running.
18:02 <dholbach> and speaking of helping out... are there enough folks helping out generally as ops and helpers?
18:02 <mhall119> Pici: the community donations fund could be used to reimburse you for the cost of running it, just a reminder
18:03 * Pici notes
18:03 <hggdh> the meeting next week should take care of most of the pending applications. -ops, though, probably needs a bit more of coverage
18:04 <Pici> I think we had one or two applications for that, if not we can just hand it out to folks.
18:04 <dholbach> brilliant
18:04 <dholbach> thanks a lot for taking care of that
18:04 <dholbach> how is morale generally among helpers and ops?
18:04 <dholbach> I know that was a concern in the past
18:05 <hggdh> haven't heard of many complaints lately; I would venture it is better than it was before
18:05 <Pici> *I* think that our operators are a lot better now. Things in general have calmed down a lot, not as many serial-trolls pushing their buttons lately.
18:06 <hggdh> Pici: good explanation. +1
18:06 <mhall119> that's good tohear
18:06 <dholbach> phew
18:06 <dholbach> I'm super happy to hear that :)
18:06 <hggdh> so are we :-)
18:06 <dholbach> it's not just the trolls, but also always a matter of how the atmosphere in the team is
18:07 <dholbach> so it looks like you're doing something right :)
18:07 * hggdh wonders about that...
18:07 <dholbach> mh?
18:08 <hggdh> I think the atmosphere got less polluted, not really what we did (for the most part I, for example, did not really do much)
18:08 <dholbach> oh... I meant you as a whole team
18:08 <mhall119> hggdh: leadership can do a lot to clean up the atmosphere without doing anything directly, just by setting the example
18:08 <dholbach> atmosphere is something everyone contributes to :)
18:09 <hggdh> indeed
18:09 <mhall119> alright, we've used up our allotted time in this channel
18:09 <hggdh> but, apart from that things look good.
18:09 <mhall119> anything else you guys want to bring up?
18:09 <hggdh> nope, we are good.
18:09 <dholbach> sorry again for keeping you waiting earlier :)
18:09 * dholbach hugs you all
18:10 <mhall119> thanks hggdh and Pici
18:10 * hggdh hugs all
18:10 <dholbach> thanks a lot for keeping #ubuntu-* so well organised!
18:10 <mhall119> yes, +1 what dholbach said
18:10 <mhall119> any other topics for the CC?
18:10 <mhall119> from anybody
18:10 * dholbach doesn't
18:11 * mhall119 either
18:11 <dholbach> have a great rest of your day everyone - dinner is waiting for me :)
18:11 <mhall119> thanks everyone
18:11 <dholbach> thanks!
18:11 <dholbach> #endmeeting