Weekly Meeting Notes, 3 June 2013

Weekly Webplatform.org Meeting,  3 June 2013


Chair: Doug Schepers (shepazu)

Scribe: Amelia Bellamy-Royds (AmeliaBR)


Attending (On the teleconference and IRC):
Doug Schepers (shepazu),
Eliot Graf (eliot),
Jen Simmons (jensimmons),
Julee Burdekin (julee),
Renoir Boulanger (renoirb),
Vanessa Metonini (vanessametonini),
Amelia Bellamy-Royds (AmeliaBR)

TOPIC: New members

shepazu: new members on the mailing list, carryover from the DocSprint

jen: Yay!

shepazu: New members seem to be mostly female, which is cool if unexpected

<@renoirb> oh, telcon, joining

shepazu: to Julee, how should we engage new members?

julee: for QA, for content?

shepazu: for everything.

julee: well, we've got the SVG push for the summer

shepazu: we don't want to just say hi and then drop it

AmeliaBR: it would be nice to have an up-to-date list of things that new
users could do.  Is there anything left in the Web Platform Wednesdays?

julee: I think most of that is done, JS has been taken over by eliots team
we have the readiness to do list as well

AmeliaBR: and just encouraging people to start writing documentation

julee: One thing we could do is try to pair up new users with experienced
users as a pairing program

eliot: at the least, whomever makes initial contact should follow up after
a few weeks also for to-do list, we still need to go through HTML elements
and attributes

julee: Over the summer, I think the push should still be SVG, try to
establish webplatform as first stop for SVG, then focus on community
engagement in the fall

jen: but we don't want to plan for no new users over the summer and then
ignore users that show up

shepazu: and SVG is a little esoteric for some people, HTML is more basic

* renoirb joined a few minutes ago. I’m listening, and watching batch 39
379 users import.

julee: we need to split it up.  I will write something up.

AmeliaBR:  We could split it up by main topic area (HTML/CSS/SVG/etc) and
have a regular user for each, then ask new users where they would fit bet

shepazu: But right now, it might be more efficient to try to "on-board" a
lot of new users all at once with a coordinated effort; I can write an email

eliot: I'm happy to reach out to the two we heard from today

shepazu: I was just thinking to do it on the list

eliot: I like the idea of a personal touch

julee: people who seem to be most successful to integrate are the ones on
IRC

AmeliaBR: we could encourage people to join an orientation session on IRC,
but it's not something we can schedule once for everyone all over the world

julee: I don't think that it has to be everyone at once, just let people
know this is a place to hang out

<@renoirb> +1 on shepazu action item

shepazu: eliot, if you can reach out individually, I'll send a call-out
email for anyone else who might have signed up

ACTION on Eliot: personal contact

<@renoirb> wilmoore, yt?

ACTION on shepazu: email list posting

julee: I'll reach out as well

shepazu: and write up?

* renoirb waves at wilmoore: If you want to join and meet us, we are
currently having a meeting.

ACTION on julee: write up a description of how to "on board" new users



 NEW TOPIC: SVG

shepazu: lots going on with SVG, lots of feedback from my podcast on The
Web Ahead I definitely feel that is the right track for current focus.  I
have started on a few tutorials, and I think that's something to focus on
as well as the reference pages. The last few sprints we've done have been
around reference pages, what do people think about Sprints around tutorials?

* renoirb thinks maybe we could do shepazu idea with a weekly Q&A using
apear.in

shepazu: The structure I was thinking would involve some sort of Q&A,
people asking what they want tutorials about e.g. tutorials I'm working on
now are simple questions a lot of people have questions about

AmeliaBR:  I like the idea, I think a group collaboration for writing
tutorials, with newbies and experts collaborating, could result in
well-written explanations

eliot: I agree, but it is also a very different style of writing, more
linear rather than just piecewise

<@renoirb> q+

<@renoirb> shepazu q+

shepazu: we could have a sort of sidebar, where people ask questions, and
then we follow up with tutorials

jensimmons:  I think the real core feature of webplatform is the reference
docs, tutorials are good, but that's taking attention while the
documentation is still not up-to-date making the official documentation be
THE resource for W3 documentation

julee: I agree as well, we should focus on the reference first, but we
would serve the community well by having a good introductory
experience.  We could have occasional focus on tutorials, trying to gather
feedback on what to write trying to be inclusive in a methodical way

shepazu: it was an idea, maybe something to save for when we've already got
the reference stuff

jensimmons: It's a good idea, but right now lots of blogs are writing about
SVG, and it would be great to have those blogs link to the reference docs
at WebPlatform because *nobody* has docs like webplatform.org. just general
education is too broad.

shepazu: That's valuable feedback.  The reference docs have to be place.

AmeliaBR: There are lots of tutorials on the web, there aren't lots of
reference docs.

AGREED: Focus on reference docs, think of tutorials later

* renoirb does q-

<@renoirb> too late.



 NEW TOPIC: Infrastructure / SSO update

renoirb: I've been working on the single sign on for a while, it's a
complex topic; write now I'm importing the >40 000 user acounts that were
in the database

Won't support yet any of the other applications, but it's coming

One change is that we won't log in with a username, but with an email
address I've been trying to see if we can also use usernames, that might
come later you can test right now on the test wiki.  There are still
problems

AmeliaBR:  I tried yesterday, I did the password reset but it wasn't
actually signing me into the wiki

renoirb: I know, I'm still working on it.  I'm flushing out the user lists
and re-importing it

AmeliaBR: just wanted to make sure you knew

shepazu: We should send an email out warning that the test wiki is being
tested for this and let people know what the end result will be to eliot:
the annotation system is working on fixing problems with IE. I don't think
we should roll out until that is ready.

eliot: what's the timeline?  Because that effects the strategy

shepazu: I hope it's weeks, not months. are there people at MS that we can
reach out to for these issues

eliot: yes, but it should probably go through me or you; they know about
the project

jensimmons: related to annotations, I think that might be the problem with
stylesheet bloat; currently there are 57 separate stylesheets for each page

renoirb: I agree, I have had people from Google encouraging us to fix that,
but haven't had time one problem is the annotator, but another problem is
mediawiki and the memcache clogging things up. there's a lot I want to
clean up

shepazu: where are all these stylesheets coming from?

jensimmons:  It's Javascript mostly, 57 scripts, 8 stylesheets. people
adding extra features and not thinking of performance. many of the scripts
are being loaded in the head, when they aren't needed until the end. we
can't discuss it all here, but needed to bring it up

shepazu: yes, we need to follow up on this

<vanessametonini> AmeliaBR: q+

renoirb: there are a lot of things

<AmeliaBR> vanessametonini: ??

vanessametonini: We are working on an annual programming conference in
Brazil, we'd love to create a docsprint

shepazu: that sounds great.  Can you send an email to the public list?

vanessametonini: Sure.  I really don't know where to start, but I can start
the discussion in the mail.

shepazu: We have the DocSprint-in-a-box guidelines.  I'd love to go to
Brazil if I could!

renoirb: to clarify, the DocSprint-in-a-box is to help organize, lots of
documentation

<@renoirb> vanessametonini have a look at
http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/WPD:Doc_Sprint

<vanessametonini> thanks renoirb



 NEW TOPIC: Readiness markers

<@shepazu> http://webplatform.jensimmons.com/readiness-markers/

jensimmons: any comments on the sample sent out?

AmeliaBR: one concern is that on wide screens it moves far away from the
body content

eliot: Also, the link text is not obviously a link

jensimmons, I would also like things to partially scroll with the text, but
there's a lot else going on in the page so it's hard to finesse

renoirb: I might be able to help with adjusting the php, create a separate
module

<@renoirb> AmeliaBR, i just need to be able to spend time. I have other
priorities that takes all my time.

jensimmons: It might be a whole rat's nest, I don't know.  I kind of made
the best of what I had.

shepazu: A few things: the "rivet" circle isn't quite in the right place;
If I noticed that, I'm sure designers would really notice. Also, on mobile,
the bar is very dominant.  Can we make it smaller? Third, I find my eye
being drawn away from the content to the bar.  It may be too bright, or it
may just be new.

eliot: I don't find that. Maybe too much real estate on a phone, not sure
if that's a major use case.

jensimmons: there are lots of layout issues currently on phone.  I think
ship it, and fix everything later.

shepazu: on eliot's comment re link, maybe add a link icon instead of a
vertical underline

eliot: the fixed bar is also somewhat distracting when scrolling on mobile,
it initially moves with the page then jumps back

shepazu: is it possible to make the rounded top separate from the bar, so
that the round top scrolls away but the bar stays fixed?

jensimmons:  Maybe.  It would be super-hacky, but I could test it out. or
we could get rid of the rivet altogether. I also still want to work on the
color set.  I've written up a list of what needs to change that I can send
to renoirb so he can fix up the main wiki.

renoirb: I can work with you (jensimmons) to figure things out.



 NEW TOPIC: QA and other open items

shepazu: For QA I think we should all just schedule time on IRC
together.  I'll send a proper email reply

shepazu: for tables, can we just do this manually

AmeliaBR: I think manually would be more work, for now we can at least make
the lists readable with CSS

<AmeliaBR> PS. To  renoirb or jensimmons, can you make that happen?  I'm
not set up on github and won't have time in the near future

shepazu: meeting for next week, I won't be available, can someone else
chair?

eliot: I'll try to organize things.

<AmeliaBR> meeting adjourned

<@renoirb> Thanks AmeliaBR