>> I think you are not really appreciating that the WMF employees are also >> human beings. We share an office. We go out to lunch together every day. > > This is, as I said, one of the problems -- at least from the point of > view of greater volunteer involvement. (That you share an office and > go to lunch together, not that you're human beings. :) ) It's not > necessarily prohibitive, in that you could certainly have totally > healthy community development with lots of paid developers in one > place, but it definitely lends itself to locking out volunteers. >
I don't think you understand the importance of occasionally doing things with people face to face. A lot of trolling, misplaced paranoia, and WMF hate would disappear if *more* people met face to face more often. Working remotely, and never meeting people in real life simply isn't easy. Some people have the mentality to do so, but most people don't. (Most) People are social beings, and text communications strip most elements of being social away. What you are suggesting would make hiring more difficult, and would make working for the foundation more difficult. Note that I am employed as a remote employee. >> I don't see anyone deliberately hiding things. >> >> It's more the case that we don't have established procedures about how to be >> open, in a regular, repeatable fashion. We try really hard but the efforts >> are always competing with just trying to get things done. > > I don't know what you can call a private IRC chat where staff gets to > hang out and non-staff does not, except deliberately hiding things. I > can't speak for anything else because, well, it's hidden. I know it's > hidden somewhere, because I don't see it, but I don't know where, or > whether it's deliberate or not. > The chat in those channels isn't anything crucial or even related to development. If the channels go away, the talk that occurs there will simply move to private chats on IM. This being on IRC just makes it slightly easier to broadcast things to staff members. Do you really care to see chatter in the mediawiki channel like: "Free brownies in the break room.", "Water machine is getting fixed.", "Phone system is getting upgraded."? Should non-tech related employees be forced to deal with all the bot traffic, dev talk, and support talk of #mediawiki? Maybe it doesn't need to be private, but dealing with trolls gets old pretty fast. > As far as I can tell, very little happens at Mozilla face-to-face, > compared to what's done by newsgroup/Bugzilla/IRC. I've subscribed to > lots of Mozilla bugs and watched patches get submitted and reviewed, > and I've never noticed much of anything that seemed to be hidden. > Maybe because the patch author and reviewer usually live in separate > parts of the world. Even if Mozilla weren't a perfect example, > though, the Linux kernel is a case where virtually nothing important > happens except by mailing list, which proves it's feasible in > principle to run a large software project that way. > A lot of Linux kernel development is done in private email, private channels, face to face, etc. A large amount of kernel code comes from private entities like Red Hat and Novell. Do you participate in these projects nearly as much as MediaWiki? I think your viewpoint is likely skewed here. > I'm okay with discussing whether there might be efficiency or morale > problems with not having most paid developers in a central office, but > it's just not correct to suggest that it's impractical to develop > software that way. It's entirely practical. You can efficiently > produce high-quality software with practically all communication > online and public. > You can, yes, and we should strive for as much public communication as possible. I'm with you here. I personally don't think the problem is as wide-spread as you though. I've been working on contract with the foundation for the past year, and I don't think I've had any more insight on projects than I did previously (and I've been active since 2004). Only recently have I been added to the private lists and channels, and there is very little there that isn't also on public channels. The posts on the private lists are generally things that can't be posted in public because the material is sensitive in nature. You complained about this problem a few months ago when I posted to wikitech-l about Selenium. Funny thing is, I was asked to build a Selenium grid infrastructure to help the contracted QA enginneers, and that post was the beginning of the work. You assumed something was occurring in secret. The framework came from a volunteer, and two of the five people that phone into the meetings are volunteers. The first post on Selenium was asking for volunteer participation, and early on we decided all correspondence should be via wikitech-l. All planning is being done via mediawiki.org. >> To his credit Aryeh is aware of this but he believes that the >> productivity hit is worth it if it ensures the organization is 100% >> transparent. I just don't agree we need to go to such lengths. > > I made seven suggestions. Only one was about actually dissolving the > office, and I acknowledged that it might be extreme. What about the > others? Why does the private IRC chat need to exist, for example? > Why can't we have clear official statements that everything should be > as public as possible and that volunteer developers should be treated > as peers? Why can't teleconferences be replaced by public-logged IRC > chats? Are these also too extreme? > I think it is too extreme, yes. Some people are more comfortable talking problems out. There is a problem with teleconferences, though. The problem is that we don't put enough effort in to inviting volunteers, and don't put enough effort into posting the meeting minutes after the teleconference is done. This needs to be fixed. My proposed solution is: 1. Try to pick a convenient time for the teleconference, based on those who are interested in the content 2. Post the meeting time, number, and agenda well in advance, and encourage volunteers to attend 3. Invite everyone to add/modify the agenda so that their topic can be discussed; agenda items should have a time allocated to them 4. Stick strictly to the meeting agenda during the teleconference, especially in regards to time 5. Mute those who troll/are unwilling to stick to the agenda (they will still be invited to listen) 6. Post minutes as quickly as possible after the meeting is over (hopefully within a couple of hours) There needs to be some middle ground in regards to teleconferences. What you are proposing is something that you are comfortable with. It is a style you prefer to work. It excludes those who are more comfortable or more productive working in another way. Respectfully, Ryan Lane _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
