SDW IG Telco on Telcos
17 April 2018
Jeremy: SSN stuff seems to be happening without teleconferences already.
Linda: That seems to be the case indeed. Some activity on GitHub
<jtandy> @brinkwoman says that SSN is working without regular teleconferences
<jtandy> ... perhaps we can learn from how they are operating?
<jtandy> Two topics: (1) how to operate effectively without regular teleconferences
<jtandy> (2) F2F planning ... Fort Collins OGC TC meeting & TPAC 2018
<jtandy> TPAC 2018 is in Lyon in France...
Jeremy: Linda and I are struggling to find a convenient time for SDW IG following switch to summer time. No time works for US, EU and Australia.
… If we select a time that is friendly for US, and EU, we may lose our Australian friends.
… If we select a time that is friendly for Australia, we may lose others.
… Throwing some ideas around. Is it plausible to work without regular teleconferences?
… We can always schedule a telco for a specific issue, such as this one.
… Is it possible to do regular work without telcos?
Bill: I think that's possible. Stats call haven't been well attended either. No specific reason, clash with Dataset Exchange Working Group is responsible for some of that.
… We would need to have some effective management activity to meet deadlines. The calls are often used a reminders that you have actions to perform.
… Talking to each other from time to time is important. If we have fewer phone calls, then F2F become more important.
… We can have fewer calls as long as we compensate that through organization.
Michael: Overall, I agree.
… We probably don't need regular teleconferences.
… For a range of things, we may be able to handle them through GitHub issues, using milestones to track progress, and pull requests.
… We could draft something for the group to review.
… If we have reviewers for pull requests we issue, then that's good.
… If that works out, we can have only occasional telcos.
Linda: Does GitHub do milestones?
Jeremy: Yes, it does. You can bundle issues together into a milestone. GitHub tells you how many issues still need to be addressed for a given milestone.
Michael: Yes, I've been using that in other projects. We don't have a vast amount of issues, but that should be good for us.
Linda: Michael and I talked about it last week. One thing is that we have one GitHub repo for the whole group, and it might get crowded if all the activity happens in the same place.
Jeremy: Do you think that tagging things would help us?
Linda: Yes, probably that would work.
Jeremy: Everytime you do an update on GitHub, it sends an email to the mailing-list, so that people subscribed to the mailing-list see some notification even if they don't follow GitHub.
Linda: But you cannot easily see labels and milestones in these emails though.
Jeremy: Right.
Michael: Most of the existing issues are tagged. Don't know if we feel that's not enough, but they are.
Jeremy: As leaders of your activities, can you find what you need?
Michael: I can filter down issues related to Best Practices. If we end up doing more Pull Requests and issues, the question might become whether that's going to be too much, with too much noise for people interested in a particular topic.
… We can continue for now, until we find it's problematic!
Jeremy: I agree with that.
Bill: Just to agree with that. Not too many issues for now. Should be easy to track down.
Francois: We can probably improve the notification tool to report labels and milestones (provided the GitHub API reports them). Weekly digests can replace individual emails if we have too many emails.
Jeremy: [going through Francois' email]
… Bill says that deadlines help. I agree. I wonder if it's worth having 2-3 days scheduled in a month where we try to resolve some issues as a collective.
Linda: That's a good idea.
Jeremy: It doesn't have to be always the same day.
… Activity leaders should do a monthly report.
… Are calls fortnightly or monthly for now?
Michael: Monthly for the Best Practices
Bill: Same for Stats
Jeremy: So we could do a monthly editorial, published on the Wiki somewhere, and share with the mailing-list.
<billroberts> +1
[General agreement to proceed with suggested idea to write monthly editorials down]
Jeremy: It doesn't require everyone to be around, but if people can focus on the group for a couple of days every month, that would be excellent
… I think that we have consensus that we will try and operate without regular telcos. On monthly basis, activity leads and group chairs will try to do some editorial writing up and focus on issues that need attending to.
<MichaelGordon> +1
<brinkwoman> +1
Jeremy: And we'll use GitHub to track things down.
… If we need an issue specific telcon, we will call one.
… First of all, one of us needs to write to the group. I don't mind taking that action.
[discussion about who gets to play with that process first, probably Stats on the Web]
Linda: The few days each month, would that be the same days for all of us, or different days for different sub-groups?
Jeremy: Good question, I was sort of imagining that there would be a week for plenary, a week for Best Practices, etc.
… I'm thinking we should try to stick to the same days each month.
Linda: I was thinking that the same days for everyone might be useful too, so that we can ping people more easily.
… Can we chat on GitHub?
Jeremy: I believe gitter.im could be used
Linda: OK. I guess there's nothing wrong with IRC.
Jeremy: do people use other platforms?
Linda: Slack is one we use.
Jeremy: OK, we'll look at IM to supplement GitHub. The reason I'm looking at a plug-in for GitHub is that it should be easier to link discussions with GitHub issues.
Action: Jeremy to send an email to the SDW IG about new process
<trackbot> Created ACTION-388 - Send an email to the sdw ig about new process [on Jeremy Tandy - due 2018-04-24].
Action: Linda to review IM tools to supplement GitHub discussions
<trackbot> Created ACTION-389 - Review im tools to supplement github discussions [on Linda van den Brink - due 2018-04-24].
Bill: I would agree with Linda that we should start with everyone in the group having the same "SDW days". I think that would be more valuable.
<MichaelGordon> +1
Jeremy: Fort Collins' OGC meeting is in June. Do we think that 2 half-days would be good? Or do you think we need more?
<jtandy> Topics for F2F: stats, BP, SSN, funnel, roadmap ...
Linda: Peter Rusthforth already asked me for time slots to discuss MapML
Jeremy: Good. In the Netherlands, we had 1.5 days, and that seemed like the right amount of time.
… There will be a bunch of programs running in parallel. A minimum would be 2 half-days slots. And we'll grab the next half-day if we can.
Linda: Would be worth asking Scott for a room for 1.5 days. I think they're using the university.
Jeremy: Do we want consecutive blocks?
Linda: Either way works for me.
Jeremy: I'd like to travel on the Monday. It would be pleasant for me if we can push for the Tuesday.
<jtandy> Jeremy would like the F2F to be Tuesday or later
[Discussions on best day and times]
<jtandy> Suggest Tuesday PM, Wednesday AM, Wednesday PM ... perhaps with gap to accommodate open OAB session??
<jtandy> +1
<brinkwoman> +1
<MichaelGordon> +1
<billroberts> 0 - I don't think I will be able to come to Fort Collins unfortunately
<jtandy> Try to schedule 1-day of time ... across 1.5 days
<jtandy> Accommodate overlaps??
<jtandy> Minimum one day!!
Bill: I should be able to attend remotely, but not in person.
Linda: OK, so we can schedule a session on Stats.
Jeremy: What about TPAC?
Linda: We are supposed to already tell W3C organization which days we want to meet at TPAC.
https://www.w3.org/2018/10/TPAC/Overview.html
Linda: TPAC is in Lyon, 22-26 October 2018.
Francois: Best way would be to choose days and tell that we want to avoid overlap with the Dataset Exchange Working Group
Action: Francois to talk with Dave about F2F days of the Dataset Exchange Working Group at TPAC
<trackbot> Created ACTION-390 - Talk with dave about f2f days of the dataset exchange working group at tpac [on François Daoust - due 2018-04-24].
Jeremy: back to "SDW days". First week of each month seems good.