On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 1:08 PM Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 5:41 AM YiFei Zhu zhuyifei1999@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Mar 27, 2023 at 2:39 PM Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:
After talking with both Arturo and Birgit about things we might present at Wikimania, I came up with this abstract for a talk:
Co-creating platforms and products: how the Wikimedia Cloud Services team works with the larger Wikimedia technical community to build and maintain Cloud VPS, Toolforge, Quarry, PAWS, and more
Did you know that volunteers are involved in planning, building, and maintaining the Cloud VPS and Toolforge projects as co-equals with paid staff from the Wikimedia Foundation? Since the start of the "Labs" project in 2011, one of the guiding principles for WMCS projects has been improving collaboration between Foundation staff and technical volunteers. Learn more about some of the policies and practices that are used to make this collaboration possible.
The submission would be under either the "governance" or "technology" tracks. I think it would work best as a panel discussion that is either "hybrid" (some folks in Singapore, some on-line) or pre-recorded video.
I think this is something that folks in the community might be interested in learning a bit about. I also think it would be interesting for those of us who have participated in this process to take some time to reflect on how we have worked together in the past and how we might like to see those those processes and practices evolve in the future. To make this talk work well there should be active voices from both the paid and volunteer staff involved. Towards that end, I'm mailing the cloud-admin@ list + 4 of you that I know have been active in the past in helping with Toolforge and/or Cloud VPS admin and features work to gauge your interest in participating. Thoughts?
[+ CC Petrb]
Oops forgot to reply. (I was like 'this is a long text I'll read it later' and then I forgot).
I like having this talk. I think one of the things that potential contributors may have is feeling intimidated by the complexity and that feeling of "this is too much", or that "this is something for the Foundation".
[...snip...]
I don't think I can make it to Singapore but I'm interested in hearing the talk. Depending on the time & sleep schedule maybe I could be there for the hybrid slot. Really looking forward to it.
Also CC'ed Petr, who was very active maintaining Toolforge during the 2013-2014 era.
Thanks for adding Petr to the thread YiFei.
After waiting for what felt like forever we have been notified by the Wikimania planning committee that this talk has been accepted for the conference. Now we need to figure out if there are actually enough of us who are interested in participating that we can actually make an interesting and informative presentation.
The abstract that I submitted is available at https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions/Co-creating_platforms_and_products:_how_the_Wikimedia_Cloud_Services_team_works_with_the_larger_Wikimedia_technical_community_to_build_and_maintain_Cloud_VPS,_Toolforge,_Quarry,_PAWS,_and_more_-_KNXDBK. As I wrote in the proposal, I envision this as a panel discussion amoung a number of us that have been a part of designing, implementing, and operating the Cloud Services projects at any time between 2011 and now.
With up to 60 minutes to fill I think it would be helpful if there were at least 4-5 of us interested in participating. We can present some amount of "filler" material in the form of a short history of Labs/Cloud VPS and Tool Labs/Toolforge projects, but the more interesting content in my opinion would be personal stories such as what YiFei has shared in this email thread about how he remembers becoming involved and what his own feelings are about that involvement.
The conference is offering "hybrid" sessions where some (or all) of us can join the presentation remotely, so you do not need to travel to Singapore to be a part of this session. I myself will be participating remotely.
The Wikimania organizers are waiting on me to respond that we will be presenting at the conference. If at least three others receiving this email respond that they are willing to be part of the panel discussion by Friday 2023-06-23 22:00 UTC I will accept our place in the schedule. Your participation would be at minimum agreeing to join the presenter video meeting for the session and being ready to respond to questions like "How did you first become involved in the Cloud Services project?" and "What's one practice from your time helping Cloud Services that you would like to see other Foundation sponsored projects adopt?". Folks who want to be more actively involved in working on the questions or preparing other content for the presentation are very much welcome too, but I can commit to being responsible for those parts myself to get us started.
When exactly is the panel? I can try my best to stay awake for it if it's in a bad time, since time zones.
Also I'll join remotely. Is it over zoom / google meet / something?
YiFei Zhu
Bryan
Bryan Davis Technical Engagement Wikimedia Foundation Principal Software Engineer Boise, ID USA [[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] irc: bd808