On 10/5/22 21:01, David Caro wrote: This is news to me. In general, I feel that over the last few months, quite a lot of planning and progress reporting has moved from our various public channels (most notably Phabricator and -cloud-admin on IRC) to private ones. I don't particularly like this trend. Taavi

On 10/6/22 6:39 AM, Taavi Väänänen wrote: I'm definitely interested in talking and thinking about this more. I think it is true that the cloud services staff have started coordinating more frequently in video calls, so your comment is a useful reminder that we need to redouble our efforts on post-call documentation. Are there other topics, decisions, or work areas that have recently vanished behind the curtain? And, if so, do you have thoughts about how we can be better? As a team we definitely aspire to do essentially all of our work in public view, but lately I've been struggling a bit with what exactly that should mean. Communication channels proliferate and everyone seems to only get a 30% view of what's happening depending on which feeds they follow. A good example is Arturo's blog posts about Toolforge futures[0] which are quite effective as /potential/ communication but may not have actually reached the eyes most in need of an update. -Andrew [0] https://techblog.wikimedia.org/2022/03/14/toolforge-and-grid-engine/

In terms of PAWS, and Quarry, there are plans to move them. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T308873 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T301469 have some notes, and associated branches for both. I am aware of no plans of moving toolforge, thus, assume there are no tickets or similar discussing it. In terms of the above plans for Quarry and PAWS, how can it be better communicated what is happening with them? On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 3:14 AM Taavi Väänänen &lt;hi(a)taavi.wtf&gt; wrote: > On 10/6/22 23:16, Andrew Bogott wrote: > > I'm definitely interested in talking and thinking about this more. I > > think it is true that the cloud services staff have started coordinating > > more frequently in video calls, so your comment is a useful reminder > > that we need to redouble our efforts on post-call documentation. > > I'll start with the disclaimer that I'm very much involved the > infrastructure side of WMCS. Others in a different position, for example > those using our "products" may have different views, and I'd be curious > to hear them. > > I'd also like to make it clear that I'm not angry about a single > decision or person. Most of this has been in my mind for a while now, > and Lucas wondering about the current status of the grid engine made me > realize that I should probably voice these concerns so that we can do > something about it. I'm happy to see that others care about these points > too. > > > Are there other topics, decisions, or work areas that have recently > > vanished behind the curtain? And, if so, do you have thoughts about how > > we can be better? > > I feel like that for quite a few projects, the actual technical work is > tracked publicly in Phabricator, but the planning and roadmapping > process is happening behind the scenes. The grid engine deprecation and > build pack stuff are both good examples of this. > > > I'm also going to use this opportunity to note that there is WMCS work > going on which isn't problematic in this sense. For example, the very > recent work to replace the cloudnet hardware is very easy to follow. For > example comments like https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T319300#8285959 > are very helpful. > > > As a team we definitely aspire to do essentially all of our work in > > public view, but lately I've been struggling a bit with what exactly > > that should mean. Communication channels proliferate and everyone seems > > to only get a 30% view of what's happening depending on which feeds they > > follow. A good example is Arturo's blog posts about Toolforge futures[0] > > which are quite effective as /potential/ communication but may not have > > actually reached the eyes most in need of an update. > > > > [0] https://techblog.wikimedia.org/2022/03/14/toolforge-and-grid-engine/ > > This is a good question. I'm *not* advocating for a model where there > are no private meetings or Slack groups or stuff like that. I would like > to be aware that meetings are happening so that I can provide context on > matters I'm familiar with or voice my opinions when I have those for > certain approaches. I also would like to be aware of major decisions, > especially if they affect projects I'm working on. > > As a final note, I've been referring to the #wikimedia-cloud-admin IRC > channel and the cloud-admin mailing list as public venues. While > technically true (the IRC channel and the mailing list archives are > public), I don't think those are mentioned anywhere on Wikitech and > cloud-admin subscription is moderated for non-staff (and I have a vague > memory of my subscription being rejected before I had Toolforge admin > access). I think there's some work to be done here to make it easier for > people to get involved. > > Taavi > > _______________________________________________ > Cloud mailing list -- cloud(a)lists.wikimedia.org > List information: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/cloud.lists.wikimedia.org/ > -- *Vivian Rook (They/Them)* Site Reliability Engineer Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>

FWIW, the WMF Data Engineering team has had some discussions about this in the past, and we decided that all decisions and real work doc has to be either in Phabricator or on a Wiki. We use Slack or IRC to discuss things, but if we come to a conclusion, we try to summarize and document the conclusion in Phab. I think we do this well with most things, but not as well as we should with annual and quarterly planning docs (I think these are in google docs and better works). On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 10:54 AM Bryan Davis &lt;bd808(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

+1 On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 2:04 PM Amir Sarabadani &lt;ladsgroup(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I've created T320224 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T320224> to discuss the issue of the php74 image and its fonts. I'm the one who was hassling to get the fonts back in 2019, and probably again this year. I'm sorry if it made it seem urgent! SVG Translate is an important tool, but it's not something that should dictate any overall systems on Toolforge. :-) I'd be happy to help with whatever work is required to sort this out. On 7/10/22 08:21, Bryan Davis wrote: