Re: Contributor Summit planning

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 28, 2018, 19:06 UTC
Message-ID: <20180828190608.GA46388@aiede.svl.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <4f0e85ed-6402-65b2-442e-67a1a7a7486d@gmail.com>

Hi Derrick,

Derrick Stolee wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> A focused aside, since you brought up the online "standup": it seems the IRC
> channel has been less than ideal, with people trying to participate but
> having nickname issues or being muted. You also describe another issue: the
> timing. Having a real-time discussion has its benefits, but also it leaves
> many people out.

For me, the real-time element is the entire point. If timezones are a problem for some people, I'm happy to e.g. alternate with a different hour.

The current IRC experience might be a bit unrepresentative, due to https://freenode.net/news/spam-shake:

| As you may be aware there has been a prolonged spambot attack
| directed at freenode (and other IRC networks) in recent weeks,
| targeting a number of individuals involved with freenode and the
| wider IRC communities.

A kind person configured the channel to withstand this spam attack. This involved users having to authenticate to Freenode using https://freenode.net/kb/answer/registration#nickname-setup so that it knows whether you are a spammer. Sorry for the inconvenience.

My offer to +v anyone affected by the channel's current settings still stands (just /msg me). Zero people have taken me up on this offer so far.

> One idea to try next time is to create a mailing list thread asking for
> statuses, and each person can chime in asynchronously and spawn a new
> discussion based on that status. Perhaps we can try that next time.

I don't want to discourage a good idea. The logical extension of this (not one thread but a whole list) reminds me of the Kernel Newbies mailing list <https://kernelnewbies.org/>, which appears to work well in that context. Given my current time commitments, I wouldn't be able to participate, but I would be happy to see other volunteers set something like that up if interested.

The usual practice of sending email about current work on progress to git@vger to get feedback also still works, and that is something I can commit to continue to spend time on.

Thanks, Jonathan