18:00:18 #startmeeting Fedora Board 18:00:18 Meeting started Fri Jun 11 18:00:18 2010 UTC. The chair is stickster. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 18:00:18 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 18:00:23 #meetingname Fedora Board 18:00:23 The meeting name has been set to 'fedora_board' 18:00:27 #topic Roll call! 18:00:28 * stickster 18:00:35 * jds2001 18:00:47 * rdieter here 18:00:48 * ctyler here 18:00:56 * poelcat here 18:01:27 here 18:01:43 * spot burps 18:02:05 excuse you! :) 18:02:23 * stickster saw mizmo, mdomsch, and a couple other folks earlier 18:02:31 Maybe I should 'pingall' before we start from now on :-) 18:02:41 hey 18:03:18 * stickster notes that caillon, walters may be coming in late from another meeting 18:03:30 ok 18:04:24 * mdomsch is here 18:04:36 Let's go ahead and get started. 18:04:40 #topic Thank you and handoff 18:05:11 the passing of the "nuclear football" ? :-) 18:05:33 First I wanted to join the whole Board in saying a big "Thank you" to our departing members, jwb, mmcgrath, dgilmore, and poelcat. 18:05:47 * jds2001 claps 18:05:50 hear hear! 18:05:57 yay 18:06:02 don't let the door hitcha on the... i mean, thanks. ;) 18:06:13 All of these people put substantial time and effort into Board matters last year 18:06:17 thank you fellows 18:06:43 The Board is not always a glamorous way to serve the community 18:06:53 danke - I hope you've had as much fun as I this year 18:07:06 So as one fellow contributor to another, thanks guys 18:07:36 * mmcgrath waves goodbye 18:08:03 You won't have Mike McGrath to kickaround anymore. 18:08:05 :) 18:08:07 haha 18:08:13 oh, yes we will :D 18:08:18 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 18:08:23 So in that sense "you never leave" :-) 18:08:33 quick - let's find something to censor now! :-) 18:08:35 * spot hums Hotel California 18:08:57 once a part of the familia, always a member. 18:09:00 mdomsch: hush you! there. :) 18:09:18 18:09:22 lulz 18:09:26 OK, let's move on 18:09:33 Nothing to see here! ;-P 18:09:57 #topic Agenda 18:10:23 We're light on agenda today (as in weightless), for a few reasons 18:10:37 One of those was just resolving the Board composition 18:10:46 Which we did by bringing in Stephen Smoogen as our final appointment 18:10:53 (smooge) 18:11:16 hi 18:11:18 He joins jds2001, mizmo, and rdieter as new members -- and spot returns this term as well 18:12:01 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 18:12:02 * spot is like a barnacle 18:12:13 spot: Yarr! 18:12:42 We really only have one item on the list that is ready for discussion today 18:13:27 Which is a request for a vn.fedoracommunity.org domain name to point to a site offering forums and news for the Vietnamese community 18:13:42 So far I've had a few +1s, so we can make this really quick: 18:13:47 +1 18:13:50 +1 18:13:58 +1 18:14:13 +1 18:14:16 +1 18:14:46 +1 18:14:52 +1 18:15:19 OK, with 2 people absent, that's otherwise unanimous 18:15:22 #agreed Board approves vn.fedoracommunity.org site 18:15:37 #action stickster to file ticket with infrastructure to set up DNS record 18:15:51 And that means we can move on to community Q&A 18:16:06 Thanks to the Board members for bearing with our relatively content-light agenda today :-) 18:16:24 #topic Q&A 18:17:04 * stickster awaits questions in the #fedora-board-questions channel 18:17:11 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? 18:18:00 smooge: yep 18:18:00 yep 18:18:01 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 18:18:22 trac is handy for keeping track of items to discuss, it's our "TODO" list 18:18:56 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 18:18:57 but +1 to stickster's note about sending to FAB too (assuming it can be discussed publically) 18:19:07 it can 18:19:23 * stickster notes that advisory-board@ list is where we try to conduct as much business as possible 18:19:53 ok I wanted to make sure I had procedure first. {trac first then list OR list first then trac} 18:20:04 While the board-private@ list is appropriate for the few sensitive legal or personal issues 18:20:45 like the request that we all have strawberry panda tattoos (oops sorry that was meant to remain private) 18:20:59 lol 18:21:01 #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 18:21:23 * stickster uses zodbot goodness :-) 18:22:02 Do any of the new/returning folks -- mizmo, smooge, rdieter -- have any other questions about how the Board works? 18:22:11 Not a bad time to ask, because community members might find it helpful too 18:22:21 I will probably have some when I run into something... but nothing at the moment 18:22:29 nothing right at the moment 18:22:33 Okey doke 18:22:36 how do we work on large long-standing projects 18:22:47 none here yet, I figured when we get into the nitty/gritty, we'll learn as we go (gobby, etc...) 18:22:49 and what ones do we have in front of us now? 18:23:16 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 18:23:22 i.e. what mess is this board inheriting :) 18:24:05 one thing i was wanting to do for my term on the board is a board blog 18:24:14 so when we're working on longer term projects there are regular updates on em 18:24:18 but maybe its a silly idea 18:24:35 not silly at all 18:24:40 mizmo: great idea 18:24:51 * jds2001 doesnt think it's silly 18:25:00 or maybe just silly awesome 18:25:01 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 18:25:07 and these IRC meeting logs and notes 18:25:12 we could do a shared one on blogs.fpo 18:25:17 maybe do rotating duty like with the other duties 18:25:18 I think it is a good idea. would it be a seperate BLOG entry or seperate blogs 18:25:25 There are at least two long term projects that we currently have on our collective plate 18:25:43 One is more operational, and the other is more policy related 18:25:49 The first is the web redesign project 18:27:25 Specifically, the next phase of (1) assessing the get-fedora page redesign, and (2) revising and implementing new main fp.o design 18:27:45 The second is a smaller issue that really leads to a larger issue 18:28:15 Deciding on revisions to the hall monitor policy 18:28:46 And how we deal with people who make it a habit of being not excellent to each other 18:28:57 which is somewhat of a smaller piece of work that leads to the much larger question 18:29:26 of how we can get at the root causes of toxicity in the project, and treat those causes 18:29:29 heh and they are both related given the get.fpo feedback on fedora-users >:( 18:30:14 mizmo, clearly the solution is to either a) create more lists, and/or b) cross-post everything to every list 18:30:20 i think that a very small amount of that feedback was valuable 18:30:38 but that might be like two messages out of 200 :( 18:30:47 it got very personal very quickly 18:30:56 very much so. 18:31:00 the tensions were: 18:31:06 1) not liking change / feeling uninformed 18:31:29 2) is a user a contributor? is helping answer questions on a mailing list enough? if so how do you get your say 18:31:39 there seems to be a lot of mistrust of actual contributors / developers / etc on that list 18:32:20 mistrust? 18:32:23 yeh 18:32:29 let me see if i can find the quote really quick 18:33:09 I can make a commitment to be more active there and/or in 18:33:15 #fedora 18:33:40 jds2001: we all can (and should, where able) 18:33:54 I am never sure how much mistrust and how much paranoia there is 18:33:54 which should help alleviate that? I'm just a person, after all :) 18:33:57 ""Ordinary Users" are not supposed to 18:33:57 offer *any* opinions on changes that affect them unless they are fully 18:33:57 engaged in formulating those changes. Just take what you are given, you 18:33:58 peons. :-)" 18:34:16 * jds2001 couldnt disagree more with that 18:34:29 people gave scathing critiques of the work i did 18:34:40 of course, "this sucks!" is not valuable either. 18:34:42 and when i gave the reasons for the decisions made, they complained that i was being 'disdainful' of them 18:34:54 i show a survey, and they argue about the merits of surveys in general 18:35:04 with no specific room for improvement 18:36:14 Having so many passionate people in FOSS is a recipe for great things, and sometimes... not so great. 18:36:48 i mean 18:36:58 just stopping the thread when it seemed to head downhill would have helped a lot 18:36:59 at the same time 18:37:25 i dont like feeling like contributors can't talk to the users without fear of flaming bags of poo being hurtled towards them 18:37:54 It tends to exacerbate the problem 18:37:58 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?' 18:37:59 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. 18:38:25 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! 18:38:35 its an embarassment 18:38:38 okay i'm off my soapbox now :( 18:38:49 (sorry) 18:39:02 having started reading the various blogs for the many other groups. It seems quite common 18:39:09 oh it's horrible in GNOME 18:39:15 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? 18:39:24 fedora folks tend to be a lot more respectful in blogs than GNOME users 18:39:33 (maybe its cuz fedora users don't read our blogs :() 18:39:43 We attract passionate people BUT have no defense against when a poisonous person just says "Hey I am just being passionate here." 18:39:44 or do we need YAL for "newbies"? I don't know that that would help... 18:39:44 stickster, the problem is some of the people who are the owners were part of the problem 18:39:54 mdomsch, what is YAL? 18:39:59 yet another list 18:40:10 i dont think lists are a good thing for newbs 18:40:16 i think a nice forum would be more appropriate 18:40:26 depends on the newb 18:40:41 mizmo: Really? (re: owners being part of the problem) 18:40:53 stickster, apparently the folks i was having the most trouble with are 'regulars' 18:41:01 regular != owner 18:41:18 mizmo: Ah, but that's different than actual owners of the list, which is what I meant. 18:41:22 true but also very tough for an owner to do anything about without a lot of fallout 18:41:30 i think one of them did say he was an owner though 18:41:47 * mizmo is going through the thread now but it's long and hard to navigate 18:41:53 OK, leaving aside the question of who said what for now 18:42:23 "To clarify, this not meant to be a "beginner's list". Beginners are welcome, but they are not the only intended audience." 18:42:46 mizmo: owners are stickster, jon masters, tmz, and me 18:44:00 okay thanks ctyler i must have misremembered who said, it looks like it was tmz who said he was 18:44:01 mizmo: I've seen some of your recent demos of ways to expose mailing lists in different formats 18:44:33 * jds2001 sorry, I got disconnected for a bit, caught up now. 18:44:51 actually this morning someone posted a reply to one of those mockups saying they had implemented something similar 18:45:04 well, this segways nicely into our hall monitors topic I think... 18:45:11 spot? 18:45:18 http://groupserver.org/ 18:45:37 i also set these up for the design team 18:45:38 http://linuxgrrl.com/drupal/ 18:45:43 http://linuxgrrl.com/drupal/forum/1 18:45:44 i didnt think that the users list was in scope 18:45:54 right now, users@ isn't within scope of monitoring 18:46:15 i suppose i could start monitoring users if we needed to 18:46:23 although, i'm about to go on vacation for a week 18:46:39 spot: wouldnt that be adding a bit much work? 18:46:45 We already know that hall monitors is a solution that is aimed at fixing a symptom 18:47:12 i.e. People act really negatively toward each other, and the monitors try to put things on hold so everyone can take a breather. 18:47:15 i think the root problem is that mailing lists are old tech that hasn't changed in 20 years that help incite the symptoms 18:47:29 jds2001: eh. if it needs doing, it needs doing. 18:47:44 mizmo: Don't forums also have the same problems though? 18:47:48 s oa real question i have is what a forum does that a mailing list does not 18:48:10 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 18:48:20 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 18:48:27 or make it easier/faster for folks to get help from being attacked. 18:48:32 it's obviously not a panacea, but it does address some of the issues 18:48:33 at the root, it's just a different method of text based communications 18:48:42 and one you have to poll 18:48:47 rdieter: mizmo: good points 18:49:03 more metadata on whats going on can help guide people's behavior 18:49:23 so there is fedoraforum.org that I've not really been on 18:49:45 jds2001, I was going to mention that. It's not under the fp.o umbrella, it's a third party trademark licensed site 18:49:53 right 18:50:02 * jds2001 wonders if they have similar issuesz 18:50:07 er, issues 18:50:08 * rdieter has been on fedoraforum, it's good, but yet-another medium. and it's hard to follow everything everywhere 18:50:31 from what I understood they have had similar issues due to people sock-puppeting and such 18:50:44 jds2001: they do have problems too, but topics get closed promptly when needed 18:51:26 we need more of a culture in these places of 'critique the work, not the person' 18:52:38 yes that requires a culture of doing so whether it is a list, forum, bbs, or facebook page 18:52:43 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) 18:53:32 And I'm concerned about drawing lines between users and contributors, when many people are both (in various contexts) or one becoming the other 18:53:55 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. 18:54:15 smooge: so it's inevitable? :) 18:54:17 Not only that, but we have to segregate subject matter or risk overwhelming everyone 18:54:42 it is inevitable as our social/mental context switching can only stretch so far. 18:54:48 * mdomsch doesn't read all of LKML for exactly that reason 18:54:54 after which we fall back on more poop-throwing skills 18:54:58 there is a logistics@fp.o list that handles a lot of cross project communications. 18:55:06 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 18:55:06 * ctyler will have to bow out in the next few minutes, my apologies 18:55:21 jds2001: Yes, that list is really for specific projects that involve multiple teams of Fedora contributors. 18:55:41 this kind of fallout has happened from desktop changes too 18:55:45 like something happened upstream in gnome 18:55:47 and we pulled it in 18:55:59 I'd say FAB is a good cross-pollination list, but it's both very low volume, and low membership compared to other lists 18:56:00 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 18:56:02 mizmo, I would reword that sentance as "that's the very excuse that some vocal people on the users list". 18:56:09 smooge, fair enoughj 18:56:34 mizmo: Not everyone using Fedora dives into reading RSS/Planets, signing up on mailing lists, and so forth 18:56:39 was even on logistics iirc 18:56:41 right, but it;s low-volume enough that folks can lurk there. 18:56:53 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 18:56:53 and not be overwhelmed with teh volume 18:57:00 because even if you had sent it to every list some of those people would still say they were not adequetely informed 18:57:02 sorry, sprint card being high-latency :( 18:57:04 99% paperwork, 1% icon design 18:57:49 * mdomsch still misses a mailman -> RSS feed capability 18:57:50 mizmo: maybe -ENOTYOURPROBLEM , maybe let fesco/board shoulder the burden of informing the masses? 18:58:16 mdomsch, that drupal plugin provides that - theres a few other apps that plug into mailman that'll do it too 18:58:37 * ctyler slips out, leaves logging on 18:58:44 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. 18:58:53 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 18:59:06 i dont think that's the culture that we'd like to condone, eihter 18:59:29 jds2001, which culture 18:59:37 * stickster notes we're coming up on an hour at this point 18:59:41 the emotional reaction zomg you moved my cheese culture? hehe 18:59:51 grr, the 99% design 1% papererwork 18:59:51 high .latency wwan 18:59:55 np 18:59:57 strikes again :) 19:00:37 er, high latency brain got those numbers reversed :) 19:00:55 So there are several things I'm hearing from Board members that we can do to improve Fedora culture 19:01:03 1. Improve information flow to users 19:01:09 my view is that "constructive engagement is the currency of the realm." 19:01:18 sorry hit return too soon 19:01:22 because surprise is the opposite of engagement 19:01:52 (but if they aren't reading the info how does that help?) 19:01:55 2. Give anyone a set of expectations for how to provide critique or feedback that helps us avoid the poop-throwing spiral 19:02:03 well, surpirse is the direct result of lack of engagement 19:02:21 lack of engagement on the part of the contributor or the user? 19:02:30 the user 19:02:33 * stickster was speaking from the standpoint of the contributor 19:02:33 => () <= 19:02:35 lets wait til stickster has finished typing out his ideas 19:02:51 If I'm actively surprising you, I'm not actively engaging you 19:04:10 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 19:04:10 3. Have a way to deal directly with repeat poop-throwing problems that's not a band-aid approach 19:04:32 smooge: Not order specific 19:04:48 ok np 19:05:55 I note that in some other communities, this is solved by raising barriers to participation 19:06:03 Like having a separate -devel and -discuss list 19:06:37 * jds2001 not a fan of another list or set of lists. 19:06:44 That approach doesn't map well to the Fedora community 19:06:58 We have always built our community on lowering barriers and encouraging trust 19:07:42 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 19:07:43 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 19:08:03 mizmo: smooge: Right. That's why this subject is so troubling to us and to lots of other people in the Fedora community 19:08:26 hall monitors are the guard dog approach 19:08:55 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 19:09:20 debian has the debian developer program 19:09:25 where you get official recognized 19:09:31 after doing some particular wor 19:09:35 as being an official developer 19:09:41 we kind of follow that model on the fedora design team too 19:09:53 we dont give you fas access to the design group until you've completed at least one task to our client's satisfaction 19:09:55 yeah, i dont think that maps to Fedora entirely well. 19:10:16 well, we dont give access to the packager group til somethings done, as well. 19:10:30 i.e. reviews, package submissions, etc. 19:10:35 maybe you need membership in a non-cla group to have voice on a mailing list 19:10:42 (just a crazy idea) 19:10:45 Ambassadors works the same. Docs is heading that way too. 19:10:46 if you can't put up... 19:10:48 but i dont get how that maps to mailing lists. 19:10:59 A users list in particular 19:11:27 i think it would help with mailng lists except for user-focused ones 19:11:59 although on the users list it would also be good to know who is a regular who actually helps people vs the town drunk 19:12:10 since it was somewhat obvious those roles exist there 19:12:37 mizmo: And that's where a forum type interface does much better, as you pointed out before. 19:13:34 mizmo: So are you suggesting raising the barrier to entry for mailing lists then? 19:13:59 stickster, nah just throwing out a wild idea in hopes it sparks a better one :) 19:14:11 * spot needs to go... 19:14:17 feel free to keep going without me 19:14:19 * stickster is out of time as well 19:14:21 there is a big barrier to entry for mailng lists right now, but it's a technical prowess barrier, not good citizenship barrier 19:14:24 * mizmo too 19:14:42 I think this is a thorny issue (many of them actually) that we are still trying to scope properly. 19:14:46 speaking of which I think we should move this to the list. 19:14:58 Yes. 19:16:01 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. 19:17:22 * 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. 19:17:53 This is an area that will benefit their work too, in terms of gathering information and maybe even success/failure metrics. 19:18:15 * stickster thanks the Board for being here overtime 19:18:28 #action Whole Board -- move discussion to list 19:18:32 /me takes the action of sending an email to users@ introducing the concept of advisory-board@, and inviting them to join t he conversation. 19:18:35 I think that wou.ld be valuable. 19:19:21 * jds2001 will draft the email to the list first, if folks think that's valuable. 19:19:28 jds2001: It would be 19:19:43 #action jds2001 to draft an email to users@ list so we can encourage thoughtful contribution to advisory-board 19:20:14 * stickster will end meeting in 30 if there's nothing more 19:20:46 nothing here 19:20:55 * mizmo sorry to be so chatty 19:20:56 #endmeeting