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Hi Brion,

Please contact b6s for hacking days planning. He is the hacking days planner
in the Taipei team.

His e-mail account is barabbas at gmail.com

If you wish to contact the program committee coordinator for the main
conference in the Taipei team, you can contact Tzu-Chiang Liou at
tcliou at gmail.com

Hope this helps.

--
Hsiang-Tai Chien (H.T.)

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia! http://en.wikipedia.org

My Wikipedia User Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Htchien

My blog - Hsiang-Tai @ Taiwan: http://htchien.blogspot.com

My Flickr Photo Album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/htchien

Think Different, Do Smarter, Work for Joy!!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikimania-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Brion Vibber
> Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 6:41 AM
> To: wikimania-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimania-l] Hacking Days planning?
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> We'd like to have the techs a little more involved in Hacking
> Days planning than last year; Ivan did a fantastic job at
> arranging a tech-themed mini-conference, but it wasn't really
> what we expected and I think it ended up less productive and
> more stressful and hectic than it should have been because of that.
>
> Who should we be talking to on the program committee or
> whatever to make sure everybody's on the same page? I want
> everybody to both have a blast and get some stuff done at the
> same time. :)
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)



___________________________________________________
??????? ? ????????????????
http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/

Hi Brion,

Thanks for asking about the hacking days. You wrote:

> We'd like to have the techs a little more involved in Hacking Days
> planning than last year; Ivan did a fantastic job at arranging a
> tech-themed mini-conference, but it wasn't really what we expected and I
> think it ended up less productive and more stressful and hectic than it
> should have been because of that.
>
> Who should we be talking to on the program committee or whatever to make
> sure everybody's on the same page? I want everybody to both have a blast
> and get some stuff done at the same time. :)

Like the years before the planning is pretty chaotic. The place to look
up is

1.) This public mailing list
2.) The public, official Wikimania wiki http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/
3.) The internal Wikimania2007
4.) irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimania

I heard of rumors that the board was talking about whether to have
hacking days at wikimania at all and there is no Ivan in the program
committee nor any other person with enough time and experience to
organize hacking days. There were only thoughts and maybes (see the page
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_days
that you just brought back to life), but noone who said "yes, I will
organize hacking days". Organization is pretty slow because of
communication issues (language, timezone, two wikis, unclear
responsibilities, long lag in creating minutes, spare free time, ...) -
at the moment I can only tell that there are no concrete plans of any
hacking days at Wikimania 2007. :-(

Greetings,
Jakob

Brion -- Perhaps a couple of core MediaWiki techs can be actively involved
in hacking days plans. I'm sure b6s would appreciate their input and
energy; and it might be a good rule of thumb for future hacking days.

Also, if people who like hacking MediaWiki (or MediaWiki interfaces and
skins) but aren't core developers or techs, want to get together and hack,
that sounds like a good idea to me. This would be separate from an event
designed for the core developers to hang out and have fun, but this
doesn't mean they can't both happen.

--SJ


On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, Jakob Voss wrote:

> Thanks for asking about the hacking days. You wrote:
>
>> We'd like to have the techs a little more involved in Hacking Days
>> planning than last year; Ivan did a fantastic job at arranging a
>> tech-themed mini-conference, but it wasn't really what we expected and I
>> think it ended up less productive and more stressful and hectic than it
>> should have been because of that.
>>
>> Who should we be talking to on the program committee or whatever to make
>> sure everybody's on the same page? I want everybody to both have a blast
>> and get some stuff done at the same time. :)

I'd like to see if we can punch out some community collaboration systems
to replace some rather ugly and complicated templates on Meta. For
example, internationalization efforts could really use a system that
allows people to register what translations they can do and
automatically contact volunteers to help translation projects. If
translations also happened in the system, it could export translation
files in .pot and various MediaWiki-friendly formats for immediate use.
Translation language priorities would be far simpler to establish. Even
the workflow of creating, editing, and verifying translations could be
encoded into the system. Maybe i18n.wikimedia.org?

I'd also like to create a citation- and source-tracking system where
people can debate sources and interpretations in a central system. Right
now, these debates are sprinkled over article and policy talk pages.
Worse still, once the debates get archived, newcomers just repeat them.
Maybe references.wikimedia.org?

These projects could be implemented as MediaWiki special pages or Drupal
modules. (Other systems could work, too, but I'd have to learn them.)
Hopefully SUL migration will be finished by WikiMania 2007 so users
won't need new accounts for new systems.

Samuel Klein wrote:
> Brion -- Perhaps a couple of core MediaWiki techs can be actively involved
> in hacking days plans. I'm sure b6s would appreciate their input and
> energy; and it might be a good rule of thumb for future hacking days.
>
> Also, if people who like hacking MediaWiki (or MediaWiki interfaces and
> skins) but aren't core developers or techs, want to get together and hack,
> that sounds like a good idea to me. This would be separate from an event
> designed for the core developers to hang out and have fun, but this
> doesn't mean they can't both happen.
>
> --SJ
>
>
> On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, Jakob Voss wrote:
>
>> Thanks for asking about the hacking days. You wrote:
>>
>>> We'd like to have the techs a little more involved in Hacking Days
>>> planning than last year; Ivan did a fantastic job at arranging a
>>> tech-themed mini-conference, but it wasn't really what we expected and I
>>> think it ended up less productive and more stressful and hectic than it
>>> should have been because of that.
>>>
>>> Who should we be talking to on the program committee or whatever to make
>>> sure everybody's on the same page? I want everybody to both have a blast
>>> and get some stuff done at the same time. :)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

On 2/4/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> We'd like to have the techs a little more involved in Hacking Days
> planning than last year; Ivan did a fantastic job at arranging a
> tech-themed mini-conference, but it wasn't really what we expected and I
> think it ended up less productive and more stressful and hectic than it
> should have been because of that.
>
> Who should we be talking to on the program committee or whatever to make
> sure everybody's on the same page? I want everybody to both have a blast
> and get some stuff done at the same time. :)

Both excellent goals!

As far as I could tell, there were three general feelings about
hacking days/tech talks last year. One was that hacking days was
overscheduled. Another was that there weren't enough good tech talks
in the main program (a lot of them got pushed off to hacking days; we
also didn't get many submissions in comparison with everything else).
The next was that there's a conflict in hacking days between the core
devs needing to have a meeting with each other, and the wider
development community getting together to talk about mediawiki. In
turn, Ivan planned hacking days last year partly in response to
feedback that hacking days was *too* unplanned & a little chaotic in
2005.

Here's some ideas for trying to remedy these issues and striking a
good balance:

a) have more excellent formal technical talks and panels in the main
program -- but this means that all of you interested in the subject
will have to *submit* talks :) (the cfp will be open soon, hopefully).
b) if the core developers want to plan a closed, invite-only meeting,
they should be able to do so before or after the main conference
(getting in touch with the accomodation/registration coordinator would
probably be a good idea for timing issues) but this wouldn't be the
same thing as a general hacking days.
c) we need good ideas in how to integrate ideas from the tech talks,
the more limited meeting, and those with interest in hacking mediawiki
into a smaller, more open hacking days.

As Jakob says, we haven't talked about this in the program committee
formally yet (and I don't know b6s's plans so far), but I personally
think rethinking hacking days & getting some of the core mediawiki
techs involved (every year!) is a great idea.

-- phoebe

Dear Mr. David Strauss,

May us have your suggesion on Hacking Days Extra 2007?
If you have time, please leave some outlines of your advises to
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_Days_Extra_2007

Thank you. :)

Sincerely,
Mike

2007/2/6, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>:
>
> I'd like to see if we can punch out some community collaboration systems
> to replace some rather ugly and complicated templates on Meta. For
> example, internationalization efforts could really use a system that
> allows people to register what translations they can do and
> automatically contact volunteers to help translation projects. If
> translations also happened in the system, it could export translation
> files in .pot and various MediaWiki-friendly formats for immediate use.
> Translation language priorities would be far simpler to establish. Even
> the workflow of creating, editing, and verifying translations could be
> encoded into the system. Maybe i18n.wikimedia.org?
>
> I'd also like to create a citation- and source-tracking system where
> people can debate sources and interpretations in a central system. Right
> now, these debates are sprinkled over article and policy talk pages.
> Worse still, once the debates get archived, newcomers just repeat them.
> Maybe references.wikimedia.org?
>
> These projects could be implemented as MediaWiki special pages or Drupal
> modules. (Other systems could work, too, but I'd have to learn them.)
> Hopefully SUL migration will be finished by WikiMania 2007 so users
> won't need new accounts for new systems.
>
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Dear Mr. Vibber and Ms. Ayers,

Let me reply your advises one by one in the following, along with Ms.
Ayers' statements.

2007/2/12, phoebe ayers <brassratgirl at gmail.com>:
>
>
> a) have more excellent formal technical talks and panels in the main
> program -- but this means that all of you interested in the subject
> will have to *submit* talks :) (the cfp will be open soon, hopefully).


WIKIWYG and CLEF WiQA funders have both accepted my invitation.
That is, we will have at least these two topics in the main conference
program. For CfP, web maintenance team is trying to establish Indico
and getting helps from Ivan, hopefully it will be open soon, yes.

For more concrete technical programs of main conference, we are
roughly following past Wikimania topics and then polish them.
Basically I am trying to organize human resources from Web API
perspectives. This is also current direction of Hacking Days "Extra,"
i.e. the parallel track of Hacking Days beyond MediaWiki itself.

b) if the core developers want to plan a closed, invite-only meeting,
> they should be able to do so before or after the main conference
> (getting in touch with the accomodation/registration coordinator would
> probably be a good idea for timing issues) but this wouldn't be the
> same thing as a general hacking days.


For MediaWiki core development, it is an invite-only hack-athon.
We would like to invite MediaWiki committers formally via MediaWiki
foundation later, and keep it self-organized by developers themselves.
What we can do for MediaWiki core developers is preparing a quite space
with high-speed network, confertable seats, enough foods and drinks, etc.

For more closed meetings before or after the main conference,
coordinators may provide clear information about suitable places
to meet and to stay. For example, if developers want to have a BOF
in the evening, we may order the best cafe with beers and wireless
for them.

c) we need good ideas in how to integrate ideas from the tech talks,
> the more limited meeting, and those with interest in hacking mediawiki
> into a smaller, more open hacking days.


To hold a parallel Hacking Days "Extra" with realistic productivity,
we need a series of "unit tests" to prove the "design" of Hacking Days plan.
That's why I also take charge of a local hacking days and an open source
conference in Taipei. They are
http://taipedia.info/mediawiki/index.php/TaiwanHackathon (in English)
and
http://osdc.tw/ (in Chinese),
respectively.

I am looking forward to any concrete question (and even challenge)
about what's the best "evaluation" method to ensure the Hacking Days
can reach good coverage and accuracy both.

I know there are also a lot of arguments on this mailing list and
wikitech-l. The replies are going to appear soon.

Cheers,
Mike
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2007/2/6, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>:
>
>
> Brion -- Perhaps a couple of core MediaWiki techs can be actively involved
> in hacking days plans. I'm sure b6s would appreciate their input and
> energy; and it might be a good rule of thumb for future hacking days.


Thank you for such kind consideration, Mr. Klein.

Also, if people who like hacking MediaWiki (or MediaWiki interfaces and
> skins) but aren't core developers or techs, want to get together and hack,
> that sounds like a good idea to me. This would be separate from an event
> designed for the core developers to hang out and have fun, but this
> doesn't mean they can't both happen.
>
> --SJ


I've already asked one of skin developers, Mr. Paul Gu. He may lack of the
schedule of his semester and firefox activities, but there's still a chance
to
invite him and more skin designers on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_user_styles

Therefore, if we can have Hacking Days Extra as parallel tracks besides of
MediaWiki core development, it is possible to group some people to hack
for skins. After that, it is optional to MediaWiki commitees to pick up some
skins, and skin designers may also have chance to provide some thoughts
about the template to the core developers: they can be happened at BOF
time to prevent the risk of disturbing each others.

Best Regards,
Mike
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2007/2/6, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de>:
>
> Like the years before the planning is pretty chaotic. The place to look
> up is
>
> 1.) This public mailing list
> 2.) The public, official Wikimania wiki
> http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/
> 3.) The internal Wikimania2007
> 4.) irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimania


Actually, Taipei team also has a google group and a Trac for local
communication in Chinese. It is not good for international communication
of committees between different time-zone and languages.
So, thanks to Mr. Voss, now we have a centralized, internal mailing-list on
wikimania at lists.wikimedia.de
for committees.

I heard of rumors that the board was talking about whether to have
> hacking days at wikimania at all and there is no Ivan in the program
> committee nor any other person with enough time and experience to
> organize hacking days. There were only thoughts and maybes (see the page
> http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_days
> that you just brought back to life), but noone who said "yes, I will
> organize hacking days". Organization is pretty slow because of
> communication issues (language, timezone, two wikis, unclear
> responsibilities, long lag in creating minutes, spare free time, ...) -
> at the moment I can only tell that there are no concrete plans of any
> hacking days at Wikimania 2007. :-(
>

Thanks again to Mr. Voss for pointing out the problematic part of
collaborative works oversea.

The following paragraphs are just some thoughts without practical
issues, dear readers on this mailing-list could just ignore them. :)

To answer the worries and even the rumors, let me try to provide some
kind of evidences. Hacking days will be there and are on the way of
the direction that Mr. Brion Vibber pointed out. It looks like only
some thoughts and maybes because there are a lot of negotiations
under-table, e.g. I personally have to send many invitations to
potential developers to ensure that there's also interesting
side-project track along with MediaWiki core development.
I also pushes a local hacking days as planed on
http://taipedia.info/mediawiki/index.php/TaiwanHackathon
It's my fault to leave them private in our google group and Trac.
Therefore the Taipei team is going to have more reports
and announcements in English, to polish the "PR" part.

For the question about experiences, since Tzu-Chiang, Frances and I
work at Academia Sinica, we do have held several international
confereces in last four years. Mr. Jakob Voss has also invited as
the committee of WikiSym, I personally believe it is because that
he is competence.

However, the Taipei team does not have experience on Wikimania.
Wikimania is unique and young, clearly not many persons already
have good experiences to do it.

So, it's my fault again that did not recruit Mr. Ivan Krstic at very
first time. I did read Mr. Krstic's posts on the mailing-list and
people's feedbacks about last year's Hacking Days, and the reason
why I did not ask for help from Mr. Krstic early is because of
the nature of Eastern, or more specificly, Taiwanese; you know,
it's just like a culture shock: I think too much to decide not
bothering too many people and embarrass to ask whom had
received some negative feedbacks (although they're small) --
I'm afraid to make people unconfertable. Well, all of those
thoughts are just mistakes, we still appreciate deeply with
Mr. Krstic's helps, especially we are trying to build Indico for
CfP of this year.

The last thing I have to say is, about the time issue. I know
myself it that kind of person who is too naive to pending
reports and announcements until "everything" is ready.
It conflicts to the law of open source: release early,
release often. That's the main reason why I use Trac to
tracking my tasks and apply the design of Hacking Days
plan to a local event first: I do believe it will be a kind of
"test" to avoid more risks on Wikimania Hacking Days.

It's my lesson to walk in the fine line between this ideal
approach and my childlike nature. Thank you for all your
suggestions and kindness. Hope we will learn to be
professional and make Wikimania 2007 successful.

Cheers,
Mike
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