Perhaps a separate IRC channel for the GSOC students/mentors (#wikimedia-gsoc?) (and who ever else wants to hangout in there) so that it doesn't get flooded with random questions and such and wouldn't be as hectic (or scary) for the newer irc users.
That would be worse, splitting what knowledge/time is available into disparate segments is not great.
I agree that a seperate IRC channel is probably not a good idea. (There are enough mw channels already, and in most of them people give really great support, and there is no reason to cut the students off the main community.) However, a mailing list for the people involved with GSoC would be a great tool. Last year I did not really know who the other students and mentors where, and even although I did considerable effort in finding out, there was no place that had their contact info, or where we could have a discussion. A mailing list would go a long way in solving that. Last year I created a google group for this purpose about half way through the project, but this didn't take off. I suspect it's critical to have this sort of infrastructure in place before the projects start, and to give all students a poke towards it. This would also help detecting problems, both on student and mentor side, that would remain hidden if there is only communication between the students and their mentors.
Cheers
--
Jeroen De Dauw
* Wiki: wiki.bn2vs.com * Blog: blog.bn2vs.com
* Skype: rts.bn.vs --
Don't panic. Don't be evil.70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 6D 69 6E 67 20 34 20 6C 69 66 65!
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 11:58 AM, jeroen De Dauw jeroen_dedauw@yahoo.com wrote:
Perhaps a separate IRC channel for the GSOC students/mentors (#wikimedia-gsoc?) (and who ever else wants to hangout in there) so that it doesn't get flooded with random questions and such and wouldn't be as hectic (or scary) for the newer irc users.
That would be worse, splitting what knowledge/time is available into disparate segments is not great.
I agree that a seperate IRC channel is probably not a good idea. (There are enough mw channels already, and in most of them people give really great support, and there is no reason to cut the students off the main community.) However, a mailing list for the people involved with GSoC would be a great tool. Last year I did not really know who the other students and mentors where, and even although I did considerable effort in finding out, there was no place that had their contact info, or where we could have a discussion. A mailing list would go a long way in solving that. Last year I created a google group for this purpose about half way through the project, but this didn't take off. I suspect it's critical to have this sort of infrastructure in place before the projects start, and to give all students a poke towards it. This would also help detecting problems, both on student and mentor side, that would remain hidden if there is only communication between the students and their mentors.
Cheers
--
Jeroen De Dauw
Wiki: wiki.bn2vs.com
Blog: blog.bn2vs.com
Skype: rts.bn.vs
--
Don't panic. Don't be evil.70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 6D 69 6E 67 20 34 20 6C 69 66 65!
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
+1. mediawiki-gsoc-l sounds like a good idea to me.
-Chad
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 11:58 AM, jeroen De Dauw jeroen_dedauw@yahoo.com wrote:
I agree that a seperate IRC channel is probably not a good idea. (There are enough mw channels already, and in most of them people give really great support, and there is no reason to cut the students off the main community.) However, a mailing list for the people involved with GSoC would be a great tool. Last year I did not really know who the other students and mentors where, and even although I did considerable effort in finding out, there was no place that had their contact info, or where we could have a discussion. A mailing list would go a long way in solving that. Last year I created a google group for this purpose about half way through the project, but this didn't take off. I suspect it's critical to have this sort of infrastructure in place before the projects start, and to give all students a poke towards it. This would also help detecting problems, both on student and mentor side, that would remain hidden if there is only communication between the students and their mentors.
I don't think this is a good idea for the same reason as a separate IRC chat. Wikitech-l is low-traffic enough that it's reasonable to just use that, unless we're talking about an awful lot of GSOC discussion.
2010/3/12 Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com:
I don't think this is a good idea for the same reason as a separate IRC chat. Wikitech-l is low-traffic enough that it's reasonable to just use that, unless we're talking about an awful lot of GSOC discussion.
I agree, separating GSoC discussion from wikitech-l won't really unclutter anything (wikitech-l is not that busy) but it'll cause certain people to miss discussions they may have useful input on.
As to Jeroen's point of not knowing who's a GSoC student working on which project and what their contact details are: just like last year [1], an annoucement of the selected projects will be made on wikitech-l. Also, we should list students, projects, mentors and contact details on [[mw:Summer of Code 2010]].
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Personally I would like to see us welcome the GSoC students on existing mail-lists rather than creating special ones because one goal of WMF Staff envolvement this year is to entice the best students to "stick around" after GSoC is over and integrating them into the real community may better help them acquire the mediawiki habit :-).
Danese
On 3/12/10 11:19 AM, Roan Kattouw wrote:
2010/3/12 Aryeh GregorSimetrical+wikilist@gmail.com:
I don't think this is a good idea for the same reason as a separate IRC chat. Wikitech-l is low-traffic enough that it's reasonable to just use that, unless we're talking about an awful lot of GSOC discussion.
I agree, separating GSoC discussion from wikitech-l won't really unclutter anything (wikitech-l is not that busy) but it'll cause certain people to miss discussions they may have useful input on.
As to Jeroen's point of not knowing who's a GSoC student working on which project and what their contact details are: just like last year [1], an annoucement of the selected projects will be made on wikitech-l. Also, we should list students, projects, mentors and contact details on [[mw:Summer of Code 2010]].
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The reason I suggested a separate IRC channel, since i wrote about it at night and my crazied ramblings probably didn't resemble much, (or communication venue in general, for example people have pointed out a mailing list) is because as someone pointed out (someone, Dmitriy i think it was without rereading all the emails) pointed out some of our channels are quite busy such as our #mediawiki and it is easy for questions to be missed espically in the peak-er hours of IRCing. Where as a smaller lesser traffic-ed channel would allow people to see their scrolls backs for questions that might of asked while they were away without having to sort out alot of join/quit/part messages and the like, nor would this venue have to be restricted to the GSOC people, anyone could join if they desired.
-Peachey
K. Peachey wrote:
The reason I suggested a separate IRC channel, since i wrote about it at night and my crazied ramblings probably didn't resemble much, (or communication venue in general, for example people have pointed out a mailing list) is because as someone pointed out (someone, Dmitriy i think it was without rereading all the emails) pointed out some of our channels are quite busy such as our #mediawiki and it is easy for questions to be missed espically in the peak-er hours of IRCing. Where as a smaller lesser traffic-ed channel would allow people to see their scrolls backs for questions that might of asked while they were away without having to sort out alot of join/quit/part messages and the like, nor would this venue have to be restricted to the GSOC people, anyone could join if they desired.
-Peachey
And no people in low hours. Also note that the same problem is applicable to anyone else that uses #mediawiki We will know who the students are, just tell them to mail (wikitech|mediawiki)-l if noone answers them. You may also provide them a list of people to ping (mentor helpers), while they should easily figure out who is helping them every time and who is not, they may not know if asking specifically to him will be well received or not. It is also important that they *stay* in the channel (so they can be answered by the backlog). And if everything fails, tell them to complain "everybody was talking about hip-hop and nobody payed attention to me!" After all, they have official support, in form of a mentor and community should be supportive, too. Is our support so bad?
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
The reason I suggested a separate IRC channel, since i wrote about it at night and my crazied ramblings probably didn't resemble much, (or communication venue in general, for example people have pointed out a mailing list) is because as someone pointed out (someone, Dmitriy i think it was without rereading all the emails) pointed out some of our channels are quite busy such as our #mediawiki and it is easy for questions to be missed espically in the peak-er hours of IRCing.
I've certainly experienced this problem myself, so I can definitely understand it. However, this is something that all new contributors are in danger of going through, not just the paid interns, so we should probably think a little bit about the larger problem while we're at it.
That's not to say that we shouldn't come up with a GSoC-specific solution as well. I'm not sure a new channel is the right solution, but it's worth brainstorming on solutions. For example, is there a helpful (and non-annoying) role that a bot might be able to play? E.g. a bot can know the IRC handles of the students, and if no one answers that person by name after 30 minutes, it could ping a set of us volunteers with "xxx, yyy, zzz, robla: could you check if GSoC-Student-A's question: 'is it ok if I introduce a couple new globals?' got answered?" I'd be ok with being on that list.
Rob
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 5:55 PM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
The reason I suggested a separate IRC channel, since i wrote about it at night and my crazied ramblings probably didn't resemble much, (or communication venue in general, for example people have pointed out a mailing list) is because as someone pointed out (someone, Dmitriy i think it was without rereading all the emails) pointed out some of our channels are quite busy such as our #mediawiki and it is easy for questions to be missed espically in the peak-er hours of IRCing.
By the same token, there are more people around to answer. Students should be encouraged to ping mentors and other relevant people so their questions are seen. Questions won't be seen any better in a channel with fewer people -- you'll have less scrollback to go through, sure, but also fewer people checking the scrollback.
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