#bookbrainz-devel

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      • Leftmost
        CatQuest, they will be added simultaneously with barcodes and are already working in the backend.
      • yeeeargh joined the channel
      • bookzombie
        bookbrainz-ws/master 82c0989 Ben Ockmore: pep8 and pylint fixes
      • CatQuest
        Leftmost: sweet
      • ah also the bug i opened and *still* haven't gone around to answering/testing. sorry about that. hecktic with school and such :/
      • yeeeargh joined the channel
      • LordSputnik joined the channel
      • LordSputnik
        LordSputnik has changed the topic to: http://bookbrainz.org | https://github.com/bookbrainz | Want to help? Grab a task from http://tickets.musicbrainz.org/browse/BB | Meetings - Fridays at 20:30 UTC | Agenda: -style revisited (Ben/Sean), JIRA revisited (Ben/Sean), IRC bot name (Leo)
      • Leftmost whistles,
      • Leftmost
        .
      • LordSputnik, Leo_Verto, around?
      • Leo_Verto
        Yes
      • Leftmost
        It's meeting time. :-P
      • LordSputnik is here now
      • Leo_Verto
        :D
      • Leftmost
        Hullo there.
      • Shall we get started?
      • LordSputnik
        <BANG>
      • I guess so ;)
      • So, -style... here's last week's discussion: http://chatlogs.musicbrainz.org/bookbrainz-deve...
      • Since then, reo has recommended a team of around 3 people be in charge of style stuff
      • Which seems OK to me, so long as they're going to stick around
      • kuno thinks x:40 is a peculiar meeting start time
      • Leftmost
        It's my understanding here that "in charge" means "has final say" (just so we're clear).
      • LordSputnik
        He also said (http://chatlogs.musicbrainz.org/musicbrainz/201...) that we probably shouldn't require consensus if we have a mailing list approach
      • kuno: yeah, we were 10 minutes late :P
      • So, I think we can agree there should be an open way for people to collaborate on a guideline, then a smaller group of people to accept it as official?
      • Leftmost
        Sounds good to me.
      • LordSputnik
        So, "open collaboration" say to me that it should be wiki-based
      • Leftmost
        Wikis are terrible for discussion.
      • Leo_Verto
        hmm, community input but the final decision is made by "the commitee"?
      • LordSputnik
        Yeah they are
      • Leo_Verto: yup
      • I think the main problem will be finding a commitee
      • I have a feeling that was how the MB style stuff was meant to work initially, but the style "council" kept changing/becoming empty?
      • Leo_Verto
        Looks like the problem is how to chose and control that council then
      • "control" as in prevent people from going crazy
      • One'd think ostracism might solve that
      • LordSputnik
        Well, the commitee could be elected by the style group and only be around for a while before a new one gets elected?
      • Leo_Verto
        But how is the "style group" defined?
      • User that have contributed to the style discussion in some documented way?
      • Leftmost
        I think elections make a certain sense, but I also think that having no regularly-scheduled elections is a good idea. If someone on the committee chooses to leave or becomes inactive, then someone can be elected to replace them, but other than that I think it should remain fixed unless someone abuses their position.
      • Leo_Verto
        Yeah, that was kinda my idea
      • the ability to unelect someone by vote of a majority of the style group can be added later
      • LordSputnik
        OK
      • So, reo said he didn't think a mailing list was particularly user friendly
      • What could we use instead?
      • kuno
        too much democracy, just ask who wants to do it and pick one.
      • Leo_Verto
        In general I concur, but groups.io makes mailing lists works like a forum
      • kuno
        (or there apparently)
      • s/there/three/
      • LordSputnik
        Well yeah, but people have to sign up to groups.io then
      • Leo_Verto
        yeah, we still need protection against malevolent or uncooperative council members
      • LordSputnik
        We could use JIRA comments and keep it in the same place as the style ticket
      • Leo_Verto
        but how user-friendly are those?
      • Leftmost
        LordSputnik, I think that places even more of a burden on casual users.
      • Leo_Verto
        Is there a way to search JIRA comments?
      • LordSputnik
        Err, not sure
      • Either way, I can't see casual users taking part whether it's groups.io or JIRA based
      • the only way that would happen would be with a built in feature, or a more open communications platform (eg. blog comments/twitter/facebook/irc)
      • Leftmost
        Is there a way we can get something forum-like backed by a mailing list so that people can use either and so that the latter doesn't require joining any sites?
      • LordSputnik
        Well, we can probably set groups.io to allow anonymous users to post
      • That sounds like a bad idea though :P
      • Leo_Verto
        Ugh
      • Yeah
      • I'd say we'd need a way to track who's engaged in style discussions, especially if we want to add any kinds of votes
      • LordSputnik
        Well, actually, groups.io has login through Google and Facebook anyway...
      • Leftmost
        ...which not everyone wants to use.
      • LordSputnik
        But between groups.io registration, Google or Facebook, it's a fairly good choice of registration options
      • You've got to have registration to stop spam, and that seems like the least obstructive way of registering people
      • Leo_Verto
        People would have to register for a forum or mailing list anyways
      • Leftmost
        Not for a mailing list. Subscribing to a list is not the same as registration.
      • Leo_Verto
        And we can enable anonymous subscriptions
      • I suppose it heavily depends on the list
      • LordSputnik
        So I'd vote for groups.io for discussion, a collaborative wiki for revisions of documents, and a style comittee to decide when a wiki page is ready to be made official
      • Leo_Verto
        Didn't we decide a wiki would be a bad idea?
      • Leftmost
        It comes down to this for me: we want a way that people can contribute without having to create accounts. It makes sense to me to create an alternate interface for people who don't like/aren't used to mailing lists, but making people create an account _anywhere_ outside BB is an obstacle to participation.
      • Leo_Verto
        I'd prefer to use Github for style management, not sure how user friendly it'd be though
      • But branches and PR could potentially be really useful
      • Not to forget the built-in diff tool
      • LordSputnik
        Leo_Verto: I like the idea of GitHub, but I don't know whether that's as easy to use as a wiki for style contributors. I had in mind that the style comittee would take an "official" version of a wiki page and add it to some docs on GitHub, but we could alternatively have it all on GitHub
      • Leftmost
        git is pretty user-unfriendly as well. I suppose not everyone needs to be making changes to the docs themselves, though.
      • Leo_Verto
        Hmm, all on Github formatted with Markdown, easy to render, could potentially even be displayed elsewhere
      • LordSputnik
        Leftmost: I'm just looking to see if we can have groups.io allowing subscription without registration
      • Leo_Verto
        Well, I think user wouldn't even have to use local clones
      • The GH webinterface does pretty much suffice for working on text documents
      • LordSputnik
        Leo_Verto: But then they have to be registered on GitHub :P
      • Leo_Verto
        Well, they'd have to register for a wiki otherwise :P
      • Unless we hacked together OAuth for Mediawiki
      • Um
      • We could even keep the discussion on Github
      • It does sort of work as a mailing list
      • But it'd probably require registration in any case
      • LordSputnik
        Leftmost: it looks like groups.io may support subscription instead of registration
      • There's a subscription email address visible when you're logged out
      • Leftmost
        We should confirm that, then, and possibly go with that for now.
      • LordSputnik
        I'm just trying it out
      • Leo_Verto
        This seems like a good use for Captain Github Integration :D
      • LordSputnik
        Perhaps, although I don't want it getting spammy like bb-devel did :P
      • So, the style committee
      • One of us should probably be on it
      • If we're going with 3 people, we need another two volunteers from here :)
      • Leo_Verto
        I think chrysn_ expressed interest in style a while ago
      • Leftmost
        I don't think it's necessary that one of us be on it, but if you want to be on it, I've got no problem with that. :)
      • Leo_Verto
        Heh
      • LordSputnik
        Leftmost: confirmed, groups.io doesn't require subscription
      • err
      • registration...
      • :P
      • Leftmost
        Cool.
      • LordSputnik
        Ok, so, I'll set up a bookbrainz-style mailing list, we can announce the link here too.
      • Now... the style process
      • Do we require a JIRA ticket as well as a mailing list post? I guess discussion should just be open until the guideline is considered complete by the committee?
      • Leo_Verto
        This is where Github might be useful
      • We could get rid of the JIRA ticket and work with PRs
      • LordSputnik
        Oh yeah, and "where should the docs be stored" is another key question
      • Leo_Verto: we could, and keep JIRA for code tickets only, since -style can in most cases safely be considered a separate thing
      • (apart from where it requires adding something in the UI or some schema change, but those would be exceptional cases)
      • Leftmost
        LordSputnik, we could just use a git submodule if the docs are stored in git. :-P
      • Leo_Verto
        Extending my idea of unified style-on-github, we could potentially use github pages to serve as the official style doc
      • Or we could host that on bb.org
      • reosarevok joined the channel
      • LordSputnik
        reosarevok: hey, thanks for being here :) we're just deciding where to keep the docs - we've decided on a groups.io mailing list for discussion and a three person style committee to approve docs so far
      • reosarevok
        Heh
      • LordSputnik
        Leo_Verto: I'm not sure it needs to be on bb.org - we already have some docs on readthedocs.org, and that also supports markdown
      • So we could host style there too
      • Leo_Verto
        And it's super easy to update the docs with git :D
      • LordSputnik
      • Leo_Verto
        Webhook and pull on update
      • reosarevok
        As I mentioned to leftmost (I think?) mailing lists are a bit tricky because a lot of people don't like them that might otherwise participate
      • But dunno. Might not be an issue at first :)
      • Leftmost
        reosarevok, groups.io has a forum-like interface as well.
      • reosarevok
        Oh, I see
      • (haven't touched it yet)
      • Leo_Verto
        With Hashtags :D
      • reosarevok
        Sounds okyish then? :)
      • LordSputnik
        reosarevok: I'm hoping not - and with groups.io, there's also a forum-like interface if people prefer that, and probably RSS feeds and all that jazz too
      • Leo_Verto
        As someone who doesn't like mailing lists either, it seems pretty user-friendly
      • reosarevok
        I'd say keep the docs in the same place you keep other documentation
      • Whether that's the site or somewhere else
      • LordSputnik
        My idea for user documentation was to have a "User Guide" which contained general info/tutorial/style guidelines - that would be separate to the developer documentation, and probably live at bbdocs.readthedocs.org
      • Leo_Verto
        We've been dicussing the possibility of managing our style on Github
      • Advantages of this are: Issues, Pull Requests, multiple branches for final and release as well as the built-in diff tool
      • LordSputnik
        Leo_Verto: my only problem with Github is that only registered GitHub users can interact with it
      • Leo_Verto
        Essentially combining JIRA and the Wiki
      • LordSputnik
        Leftmost: what are you thinking? :)
      • reosarevok
        FWIW, one of my goals with style is to eventually condense it into a more book-ish thing
      • (in MB)
      • LordSputnik
        reosarevok: that's how I feel too!
      • reosarevok
        So, a bit more of a guide and a bit less of a collection of random pages