Meeting:Board meeting 2010-06-11

Refer to http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-board-meeting/2010-06-11/ for the full logs and summary.

Log

stickster	#startmeeting Fedora Board	18:00
zodbot	Meeting started Fri Jun 11 18:00:18 2010 UTC. The chair is stickster. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.	18:00
zodbot	Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.	18:00
stickster	#meetingname Fedora Board	18:00
zodbot	The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board'	18:00
stickster	#topic Roll call!	18:00
* stickster		18:00
* jds2001		18:00
* rdieter here		18:00
* ctyler here		18:00
* poelcat here		18:00
smooge	here	18:01
* spot burps		18:01
jds2001	excuse you! :)	18:02
* stickster saw mizmo, mdomsch, and a couple other folks earlier		18:02
stickster	Maybe I should 'pingall' before we start from now on :-)	18:02
mizmo	hey	18:02
* stickster notes that caillon, walters may be coming in late from another meeting		18:03
smooge	ok	18:03
* mdomsch is here		18:04
stickster	Let's go ahead and get started.	18:04
stickster	#topic Thank you and handoff	18:04
mdomsch	the passing of the "nuclear football" ? :-)	18:05
stickster	First I wanted to join the whole Board in saying a big "Thank you" to our departing members, jwb, mmcgrath, dgilmore, and poelcat.	18:05
* jds2001 claps		18:05
ctyler	hear hear!	18:05
rdieter	yay	18:05
spot	don't let the door hitcha on the... i mean, thanks. ;)	18:06
stickster	All of these people put substantial time and effort into Board matters last year	18:06
smooge	thank you fellows	18:06
stickster	The Board is not always a glamorous way to serve the community	18:06
mdomsch	danke - I hope you've had as much fun as I this year	18:06
stickster	So as one fellow contributor to another, thanks guys	18:07
* mmcgrath waves goodbye		18:07
mmcgrath	You won't have Mike McGrath to kickaround anymore.	18:08
mmcgrath	:)	18:08
stickster	haha	18:08
jds2001	oh, yes we will :D	18:08
stickster	One of the benefits of being a former Board member is being able to lend perspective back to the group through the FAB list and everywhere else	18:08
stickster	So in that sense "you never leave" :-)	18:08
mdomsch	quick - let's find something to censor now! :-)	18:08
* spot hums Hotel California		18:08
smooge	once a part of the familia, always a member.	18:08
rdieter	mdomsch: hush you! there. :)	18:09
mmcgrath	<Censored>	18:09
stickster	lulz	18:09
stickster	OK, let's move on	18:09
stickster	Nothing to see here! ;-P	18:09
stickster	#topic Agenda	18:09
stickster	We're light on agenda today (as in weightless), for a few reasons	18:10
stickster	One of those was just resolving the Board composition	18:10
stickster	Which we did by bringing in Stephen Smoogen as our final appointment	18:10
stickster	(smooge)	18:10
smooge	hi	18:11
stickster	He joins jds2001, mizmo, and rdieter as new members -- and spot returns this term as well	18:11
stickster	The second reason is that I had to spend a larger amount of time this past week preparing for a few talks I'm giving down here at Southeast LinuxFest	18:12
* spot is like a barnacle		18:12
stickster	spot: Yarr!	18:12
stickster	We really only have one item on the list that is ready for discussion today	18:12
stickster	Which is a request for a vn.fedoracommunity.org domain name to point to a site offering forums and news for the Vietnamese community	18:13
stickster	So far I've had a few +1s, so we can make this really quick:	18:13
spot	1	18:13
jds2001	1	18:13
ctyler	1	18:13
rdieter	1	18:14
mdomsch	1	18:14
mizmo	1	18:14
smooge	1	18:14
stickster	OK, with 2 people absent, that's otherwise unanimous	18:15
stickster	#agreed Board approves vn.fedoracommunity.org site	18:15
stickster	#action stickster to file ticket with infrastructure to set up DNS record	18:15
stickster	And that means we can move on to community Q&A	18:15
stickster	Thanks to the Board members for bearing with our relatively content-light agenda today :-)	18:16
stickster	#topic Q&A	18:16
* stickster awaits questions in the #fedora-board-questions channel		18:17
smooge	I have a question. If there is an issue I would like looked at some point, it is to be opened in the trac interface still correct?	18:17
spot	smooge: yep	18:18
mdomsch	yep	18:18
stickster	smooge: Actually, best is to send email to the advisory-board list -- or if you feel that's inappropriate, you can mail the board-private list or yes, open trac ticket	18:18
mdomsch	trac is handy for keeping track of items to discuss, it's our "TODO" list	18:18
smooge	ok will send an email to the list first and if it is something we will approach will then open a trac ticket to document	18:18
mdomsch	but +1 to stickster's note about sending to FAB too (assuming it can be discussed publically)	18:18
smooge	it can	18:19
* stickster notes that advisory-board@ list is where we try to conduct as much business as possible		18:19
smooge	ok I wanted to make sure I had procedure first. {trac first then list OR list first then trac}	18:19
stickster	While the board-private@ list is appropriate for the few sensitive legal or personal issues	18:20
smooge	like the request that we all have strawberry panda tattoos (oops sorry that was meant to remain private)	18:20
jds2001	lol	18:20
stickster	#info New items for Board consideration can go to advisory-board list first, to be discussed and then entered into the Board trac as needed	18:21
* stickster uses zodbot goodness :-)		18:21
stickster	Do any of the new/returning folks -- mizmo, smooge, rdieter -- have any other questions about how the Board works?	18:22
stickster	Not a bad time to ask, because community members might find it helpful too	18:22
smooge	I will probably have some when I run into something... but nothing at the moment	18:22
jds2001	nothing right at the moment	18:22
stickster	Okey doke	18:22
mizmo	how do we work on large long-standing projects	18:22
rdieter	none here yet, I figured when we get into the nitty/gritty, we'll learn as we go (gobby, etc...)	18:22
jds2001	and what ones do we have in front of us now?	18:22
stickster	mizmo: Often we try to collaborate on the wiki for those, especially if they mean that we're formulating a position for the Fedora Project to take	18:23
jds2001	i.e. what mess is this board inheriting :)	18:23
mizmo	one thing i was wanting to do for my term on the board is a board blog	18:24
mizmo	so when we're working on longer term projects there are regular updates on em	18:24
mizmo	but maybe its a silly idea	18:24
rdieter	not silly at all	18:24
poelcat	mizmo: great idea	18:24
* jds2001 doesnt think it's silly		18:24
rdieter	or maybe just silly awesome	18:25
stickster	mizmo: Not at all. I'd like to see Board members routinely letting the community know what we're working on, beyond the publishing of our meeting minutes	18:25
stickster	and these IRC meeting logs and notes	18:25
mizmo	we could do a shared one on blogs.fpo	18:25
mizmo	maybe do rotating duty like with the other duties	18:25
smooge	I think it is a good idea. would it be a seperate BLOG entry or seperate blogs	18:25
stickster	There are at least two long term projects that we currently have on our collective plate	18:25
stickster	One is more operational, and the other is more policy related	18:25
stickster	The first is the web redesign project	18:25
stickster	Specifically, the next phase of (1) assessing the get-fedora page redesign, and (2) revising and implementing new main fp.o design	18:27
stickster	The second is a smaller issue that really leads to a larger issue	18:27
stickster	Deciding on revisions to the hall monitor policy	18:28
smooge	And how we deal with people who make it a habit of being not excellent to each other	18:28
stickster	which is somewhat of a smaller piece of work that leads to the much larger question	18:28
stickster	of how we can get at the root causes of toxicity in the project, and treat those causes	18:29
mizmo	heh and they are both related given the get.fpo feedback on fedora-users >:(	18:29
mdomsch	mizmo, clearly the solution is to either a) create more lists, and/or b) cross-post everything to every list	18:30
jds2001	i think that a very small amount of that feedback was valuable	18:30
jds2001	but that might be like two messages out of 200 :(	18:30
mizmo	it got very personal very quickly	18:30
jds2001	very much so.	18:30
mizmo	the tensions were:	18:31
mizmo	1) not liking change / feeling uninformed	18:31
mizmo	2) is a user a contributor? is helping answer questions on a mailing list enough? if so how do you get your say	18:31
mizmo	there seems to be a lot of mistrust of actual contributors / developers / etc on that list	18:31
jds2001	mistrust?	18:32
mizmo	yeh	18:32
mizmo	let me see if i can find the quote really quick	18:32
jds2001	I can make a commitment to be more active there and/or in	18:33
jds2001	#fedora	18:33
rdieter	jds2001: we all can (and should, where able)	18:33
smooge	I am never sure how much mistrust and how much paranoia there is	18:33
jds2001	which should help alleviate that? I'm just a person, after all :)	18:33
mizmo	""Ordinary Users" are not supposed to	18:33
mizmo	offer *any* opinions on changes that affect them unless they are fully	18:33
mizmo	engaged in formulating those changes. Just take what you are given, you	18:33
mizmo	peons.  :-)"	18:33
* jds2001 couldnt disagree more with that		18:34
mizmo	people gave scathing critiques of the work i did	18:34
jds2001	of course, "this sucks!" is not valuable either.	18:34
mizmo	and when i gave the reasons for the decisions made, they complained that i was being 'disdainful' of them	18:34
mizmo	i show a survey, and they argue about the merits of surveys in general	18:34
jds2001	with no specific room for improvement	18:35
stickster	Having so many passionate people in FOSS is a recipe for great things, and sometimes... not so great.	18:36
mizmo	i mean	18:36
mizmo	just stopping the thread when it seemed to head downhill would have helped a lot	18:36
mizmo	at the same time	18:36
mizmo	i dont like feeling like contributors can't talk to the users without fear of flaming bags of poo being hurtled towards them	18:37
stickster	It tends to exacerbate the problem	18:37
mizmo	the users list seems aware of it too, there were quite a few comment along the lines of, 'stop being mean, do you see why the devels never ask our opinions?'	18:37
rdieter	it's healthy to agree to disagree from time to time , but it must be done respectfully, or folks simlply need to be shut down.	18:37
mizmo	but can you imagine, the users list is one of the #1 destinations we send newbies to for help. new user, first week of fedora, they'd witness that!	18:38
mizmo	its an embarassment	18:38
mizmo	okay i'm off my soapbox now :(	18:38
mizmo	(sorry)	18:38
smooge	having started reading the various blogs for the many other groups. It seems quite common	18:39
mizmo	oh it's horrible in GNOME	18:39
stickster	mizmo: Do you believe the owners of the list itself bear a burden of watching for those problems and taking ownership of them? Is that more or less effective than having some central group doing it?	18:39
mizmo	fedora folks tend to be a lot more respectful in blogs than GNOME users	18:39
mizmo	(maybe its cuz fedora users don't read our blogs :()	18:39
smooge	We attract passionate people BUT have no defense against when a poisonous person just says "Hey I am just being passionate here."	18:39
mdomsch	or do we need YAL for "newbies"? I don't know that that would help...	18:39
mizmo	stickster, the problem is some of the people who are the owners were part of the problem	18:39
mizmo	mdomsch, what is YAL?	18:39
mdomsch	yet another list	18:39
mizmo	i dont think lists are a good thing for newbs	18:40
mizmo	i think a nice forum would be more appropriate	18:40
ctyler	depends on the newb	18:40
stickster	mizmo: Really? (re: owners being part of the problem)	18:40
mizmo	stickster, apparently the folks i was having the most trouble with are 'regulars'	18:40
ctyler	regular != owner	18:41
stickster	mizmo: Ah, but that's different than actual owners of the list, which is what I meant.	18:41
mizmo	true but also very tough for an owner to do anything about without a lot of fallout	18:41
mizmo	i think one of them did say he was an owner though	18:41
* mizmo is going through the thread now but it's long and hard to navigate		18:41
stickster	OK, leaving aside the question of who said what for now	18:41
mizmo	"To clarify, this not meant to be a "beginner's list". Beginners are welcome, but they are not the only intended audience."	18:42
ctyler	mizmo: owners are stickster, jon masters, tmz, and me	18:42
mizmo	okay thanks ctyler i must have misremembered who said, it looks like it was tmz who said he was	18:44
stickster	mizmo: I've seen some of your recent demos of ways to expose mailing lists in different formats	18:44
* jds2001 sorry, I got disconnected for a bit, caught up now.		18:44
mizmo	actually this morning someone posted a reply to one of those mockups saying they had implemented something similar	18:44
mdomsch	well, this segways nicely into our hall monitors topic I think...	18:45
mdomsch	spot?	18:45
mizmo	http://groupserver.org/	18:45
mizmo	i also set these up for the design team	18:45
mizmo	http://linuxgrrl.com/drupal/	18:45
mizmo	http://linuxgrrl.com/drupal/forum/1	18:45
jds2001	i didnt think that the users list was in scope	18:45
mdomsch	right now, users@ isn't within scope of monitoring	18:45
spot	i suppose i could start monitoring users if we needed to	18:46
spot	although, i'm about to go on vacation for a week	18:46
jds2001	spot: wouldnt that be adding a bit much work?	18:46
stickster	We already know that hall monitors is a solution that is aimed at fixing a symptom	18:46
stickster	i.e. People act really negatively toward each other, and the monitors try to put things on hold so everyone can take a breather.	18:47
mizmo	i think the root problem is that mailing lists are old tech that hasn't changed in 20 years that help incite the symptoms	18:47
spot	jds2001: eh. if it needs doing, it needs doing.	18:47
stickster	mizmo: Don't forums also have the same problems though?	18:47
jds2001	s oa real question i have is what a forum does that a mailing list does not	18:47
smooge	mizmo, I am not sure.. I have had so many problems on forums having to police things that it seems more of a culture issue	18:48
mizmo	stickster, i dont think they are bad. for example, you can freeze a topic and have sticky topics on forums, and users can have visible ranks	18:48
rdieter	or make it easier/faster for folks to get help from being attacked.	18:48
mizmo	it's obviously not a panacea, but it does address some of the issues	18:48
jds2001	at the root, it's just a different method of text based communications	18:48
ctyler	and one you have to poll	18:48
stickster	rdieter: mizmo: good points	18:48
mizmo	more metadata on whats going on can help guide people's behavior	18:49
jds2001	so there is fedoraforum.org that I've not really been on	18:49
mdomsch	jds2001, I was going to mention that. It's not under the fp.o umbrella, it's a third party trademark licensed site	18:49
jds2001	right	18:49
* jds2001 wonders if they have similar issuesz		18:50
jds2001	er, issues	18:50
* rdieter has been on fedoraforum, it's good, but yet-another medium. and it's hard to follow everything everywhere		18:50
smooge	from what I understood they have had similar issues due to people sock-puppeting and such	18:50
rdieter	jds2001: they do have problems too, but topics get closed promptly when needed	18:50
mizmo	we need more of a culture in these places of 'critique the work, not the person'	18:51
smooge	yes that requires a culture of doing so whether it is a list, forum, bbs, or facebook page	18:52
rdieter	I'm just worried about having any real or perceived teired communications (be it for developers, users, newbies, whatever). it seems to make it harder for folks to do any cross-group discussing (which may or may not be a bad thing)	18:52
ctyler	And I'm concerned about drawing lines between users and contributors, when many people are both (in various contexts) or one becoming the other	18:53
smooge	the issue comes up that humans brains are built to tier things to cut down noise. We segregate to make social orders that we feel we can handle whether they are good ones or bad.	18:53
rdieter	smooge: so it's inevitable? :)	18:54
stickster	Not only that, but we have to segregate subject matter or risk overwhelming everyone	18:54
smooge	it is inevitable as our social/mental context switching can only stretch so far.	18:54
* mdomsch doesn't read all of LKML for exactly that reason		18:54
smooge	after which we fall back on more poop-throwing skills	18:54
jds2001	there is a logistics@fp.o list that handles a lot of cross project communications.	18:54
mizmo	thats the very excuse the users list used for 'not knowing' about the get.fpo redesign even though it was on planet, get.fpo, websites list, design list, etc etc etc	18:55
* ctyler will have to bow out in the next few minutes, my apologies		18:55
stickster	jds2001: Yes, that list is really for specific projects that involve multiple teams of Fedora contributors.	18:55
mizmo	this kind of fallout has happened from desktop changes too	18:55
mizmo	like something happened upstream in gnome	18:55
mizmo	and we pulled it in	18:55
mdomsch	I'd say FAB is a good cross-pollination list, but it's both very low volume, and low membership compared to other lists	18:55
mizmo	and even though its been well-documented and talked about for months to a year, it's this big shock when it lands in fedora and people complain	18:56
smooge	mizmo, I would reword that sentance as "that's the very excuse that some vocal people on the users list".	18:56
mizmo	smooge, fair enoughj	18:56
stickster	mizmo: Not everyone using Fedora dives into reading RSS/Planets, signing up on mailing lists, and so forth	18:56
jds2001	was even on logistics iirc	18:56
jds2001	right, but it;s low-volume enough that folks can lurk there.	18:56
mizmo	at the same time though, if i want to change a high-visibility icon, what do i have to do in order to avoid that fallout? it seems impossible	18:56
jds2001	and not be overwhelmed with teh volume	18:56
smooge	because even if you had sent it to every list some of those people would still say they were not adequetely informed	18:57
jds2001	sorry, sprint card being high-latency :(	18:57
mizmo	99% paperwork, 1% icon design	18:57
* mdomsch still misses a mailman -> RSS feed capability		18:57
rdieter	mizmo: maybe -ENOTYOURPROBLEM , maybe let fesco/board shoulder the burden of informing the masses?	18:57
mizmo	mdomsch, that drupal plugin provides that - theres a few other apps that plug into mailman that'll do it too	18:58
* ctyler slips out, leaves logging on		18:58
smooge	actually I would have to say that the person who made the original opening sentance was partially correct. A person who does not involve themselves in things does get what is handed to them. The cost of making changes is constructive engagement.	18:58
mizmo	rdieter, that works if it's even realized ahead of time it's a controversial change, probably only 10% or less of the design stuff i do ends up being controversial and sometimes it's really not clear why one thing upsets people and another nobody cares about	18:58
jds2001	i dont think that's the culture that we'd like to condone, eihter	18:59
smooge	jds2001, which culture	18:59
* stickster notes we're coming up on an hour at this point		18:59
mizmo	the emotional reaction zomg you moved my cheese culture? hehe	18:59
jds2001	grr, the 99% design 1% papererwork	18:59
jds2001	high .latency wwan	18:59
smooge	np	18:59
jds2001	strikes again :)	18:59
jds2001	er, high latency brain got those numbers reversed :)	19:00
stickster	So there are several things I'm hearing from Board members that we can do to improve Fedora culture	19:00
stickster	1. Improve information flow to users	19:01
smooge	my view is that "constructive engagement is the currency of the realm."	19:01
smooge	sorry hit return too soon	19:01
stickster	because surprise is the opposite of engagement	19:01
mizmo	(but if they aren't reading the info how does that help?)	19:01
stickster	2. Give anyone a set of expectations for how to provide critique or feedback that helps us avoid the poop-throwing spiral	19:01
jds2001	well, surpirse is the direct result of lack of engagement	19:02
mizmo	lack of engagement on the part of the contributor or the user?	19:02
jds2001	the user	19:02
* stickster was speaking from the standpoint of the contributor		19:02
mizmo	=> () <=	19:02
smooge	lets wait til stickster has finished typing out his ideas	19:02
stickster	If I'm actively surprising you, I'm not actively engaging you	19:02
smooge	stickster, if what you are saying was order specific. I would like to reverse that. If we give proper expectations of how, where, what is needed for critique and feedback... then people who wish to be excellent to each other contributors will be able to give back better infromation and we can deliver it better to them	19:04
stickster	3. Have a way to deal directly with repeat poop-throwing problems that's not a band-aid approach	19:04
stickster	smooge: Not order specific	19:04
smooge	ok np	19:04
stickster	I note that in some other communities, this is solved by raising barriers to participation	19:05
stickster	Like having a separate -devel and -discuss list	19:06
* jds2001 not a fan of another list or set of lists.		19:06
stickster	That approach doesn't map well to the Fedora community	19:06
stickster	We have always built our community on lowering barriers and encouraging trust	19:06
smooge	well in some way we are talking about barriers. If I can't be excellent to others, then at some point I need to be barred until such point as I can be excellent	19:07
mizmo	but what do you do when you leave your screendoor open for the neighbors to come in and the snakes and racoons come in too	19:07
stickster	mizmo: smooge: Right. That's why this subject is so troubling to us and to lots of other people in the Fedora community	19:08
mizmo	hall monitors are the guard dog approach	19:08
smooge	well reading through some of the diaries of various Utopia communities of the 1800's (Longfellow and Thoreua inspired ones).. this seems to have come up even then	19:08
mizmo	debian has the debian developer program	19:09
mizmo	where you get official recognized	19:09
mizmo	after doing some particular wor	19:09
mizmo	as being an official developer	19:09
mizmo	we kind of follow that model on the fedora design team too	19:09
mizmo	we dont give you fas access to the design group until you've completed at least one task to our client's satisfaction	19:09
jds2001	yeah, i dont think that maps to Fedora entirely well.	19:09
jds2001	well, we dont give access to the packager group til somethings done, as well.	19:10
jds2001	i.e. reviews, package submissions, etc.	19:10
mizmo	maybe you need membership in a non-cla group to have voice on a mailing list	19:10
mizmo	(just a crazy idea)	19:10
stickster	Ambassadors works the same. Docs is heading that way too.	19:10
mizmo	if you can't put up...	19:10
jds2001	but i dont get how that maps to mailing lists.	19:10
stickster	A users list in particular	19:10
mizmo	i think it would help with mailng lists except for user-focused ones	19:11
mizmo	although on the users list it would also be good to know who is a regular who actually helps people vs the town drunk	19:11
mizmo	since it was somewhat obvious those roles exist there	19:12
stickster	mizmo: And that's where a forum type interface does much better, as you pointed out before.	19:12
stickster	mizmo: So are you suggesting raising the barrier to entry for mailing lists then?	19:13
mizmo	stickster, nah just throwing out a wild idea in hopes it sparks a better one :)	19:13
* spot needs to go...		19:14
spot	feel free to keep going without me	19:14
* stickster is out of time as well		19:14
mizmo	there is a big barrier to entry for mailng lists right now, but it's a technical prowess barrier, not good citizenship barrier	19:14
* mizmo too		19:14
stickster	I think this is a thorny issue (many of them actually) that we are still trying to scope properly.	19:14
smooge	speaking of which I think we should move this to the list.	19:14
stickster	Yes.	19:14
stickster	We need to use the list to figure out whether there is one (or more) changes that could be made to help the community improve S/N ratio, that are going to be authentic to the Fedora spirit, and acceptable to the community.	19:16
* stickster would like to invite the people on Red Hat's Community Architecture team, who are building a corpus of information on these kinds of issues, to help the community explore the possible changes.		19:17
stickster	This is an area that will benefit their work too, in terms of gathering information and maybe even success/failure metrics.	19:17
* stickster thanks the Board for being here overtime		19:18
stickster	#action Whole Board -- move discussion to list	19:18
jds2001	/me takes the action of sending an email to users@ introducing the concept of advisory-board@, and inviting them to join t ?he conversation.	19:18
jds2001	I think that wou.ld be valuable.	19:18
* jds2001 will draft the email to the list first, if folks think that's valuable.		19:19
stickster	jds2001: It would be	19:19
stickster	#action jds2001 to draft an email to users@ list so we can encourage thoughtful contribution to advisory-board	19:19
* stickster will end meeting in 30 if there's nothing more		19:20
jds2001	nothing here	19:20
* mizmo sorry to be so chatty		19:20
stickster	#endmeeting	19:20

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