dw_docs | IRC logs

[18:13:02] <rho> i think this is everyone we're likely to get, so let's press on?
[18:13:22] <mac|ow> okay. <3 *gets coffee*
[18:13:51] <isa|afk> (well actually, before I go, arew there any me-specific questions?)
[18:14:52] <rho> nothing specific to you. i want to ask how everyone is getting on, if you've had any problems or if there's anything you need from me. so if you've anything to report on that ront, do so now. else, i'll let you go for your sticky bun :)
[18:15:27] <LivredOr> I'm happy
[18:15:36] <isa|afk> hah. Main report is "waiting for styles team to finish mucking so I know what the heck to document" ;)
[18:15:56] <isa|afk> so. *goes off for brain fuel*
[18:16:04] <LivredOr> I've written a fair chunk of the basic commenting stuff, and the next plan is to write up the bits that rely on wtf
[18:16:18] <LivredOr> and put in smart links according to gerg's lovely backend info
[18:16:26] <rho> would you rather have something else to do while you wait, isa, or do you not want to take on any more, since styles stuff is going to be huge?
[18:16:28] <gerg> \o/
[18:17:05] <rho> i've seen what you've done, liv! haven't had a chance to read it through carefully, but i noticed that it had appeared on site, and went "squee"
[18:17:37] <LivredOr> I decided I wanted some text up there for beta launch :-)
[18:17:42] <LivredOr> Kat's not here, is she?
[18:17:43] <isa|afk> styles is enough (esp given that right now am dealing with higher-than-normal-for-me levels of pain and painkillers)
[18:17:47] <LivredOr> she and I seem to mesh well
[18:17:51] <gerg> i have a fair pit of the profile FAQ done, and skeletons for the privacy guide and inerests FAQs as well
[18:17:54] <gerg> bit.
[18:18:06] <rho> yeah, i figured as much, isa. take care of yourself first and foremost <3
[18:18:13] <isa|afk> <3
[18:18:24] <LivredOr> ooh, nice one gerg
[18:18:37] <LivredOr> I haven't thought about guides yet, cos that's more extended writing, but yeah
[18:18:38] <rho> yeah, i figured that you and kat would fit well together, liv. glad to see i was right!
[18:18:49] <rho> she emailed me to let me know she wasn't going tobe able to be here today
[18:19:16] <V_PauAmma_V> I haven't done squat on userdoc yet. (I'm still eyestalk-deep in code.)
[18:19:33] <gerg> oh, I did want to say, is it ok if i override the style to put bullets in for my lists?
[18:19:50] <rho> greg, you do know that the FAQs that i put in the categories are just guidelines, and that you should feel free to change them, add to them, etc. as you see fit?
[18:19:50] <gerg> (see http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=13 , the two lists at the bottom would look a lot better with bullets IMO)
[18:20:13] <LivredOr> yes, I would really like bullet points if it's technically possible
[18:20:24] <gerg> oh good. I think I will split off the "what goes in a profile" stuff into a separate FAQA
[18:20:56] <rho> yeah. you want to be aiming for lots of short FAQs rather than just a small number of longer ones
[18:21:03] <rho> sorry if i wasn't clearer about that
[18:21:16] <LivredOr> yay short FAQs
[18:21:38] <rho> for bullet points, i'll open up a zilla item about that when we're done here
[18:21:48] <rahaeli> i will fix the missing bullets in <ul>s soon
[18:21:54] <LivredOr> it's not very critical, but it would be nice
[18:22:02] <rahaeli> (insert grumbling about fucking reset.css here)
[18:22:12] <rho> and pau, yeah, i know you're still buried in code. that's cool. especially since some of the code stuff you're doign is stuff for us!
[18:22:25] <LivredOr> rah, what's wrong with the css?
[18:22:47] <rho> aha! even better! means i don't have to do anything, and the code fairies willmagically make it work for us anyway :)
[18:23:20] <rahaeli> long story short, for cross-browser compatability jesse included reset.css, which strips all styling from everything. and i do mean everything. it is very useful, and it is causing no end of problems.
[18:23:41] <LivredOr> ah, I see
[18:25:05] <rho> ok. think i know how everyone is getting on now (ande, you emailed me. will try to reply to that at some point this weekend). anyone have anything else to report/ask?
[18:26:36] <gerg> Not I. I'll probably be ready to take more stuff on after next weekend
[18:27:23] <rho> for my part, i've got a draft version of the account faqs up, which i need to look over again to check i haven't put anything stupid in, then i'll probably ask one of you guys to be a second pair of eyes for me on them
[18:27:37] <LivredOr> squee, account faqs!
[18:28:44] <rho> ok, other things i wanted to talk about, is how us doc types fit in with the rest of the project, and our interactions with other groups and teams and what have you
[18:29:04] <LivredOr> mm?
[18:29:06] <rho> first i've put a page up on the wiki at http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Site_issues_noted_during_documentation
[18:29:21] <rho> which is for things that we notice when we're writing docs
[18:29:51] <rho> most things we'll come across will be things that are basically a case of "yeah, we know, we just haven't got around to impementing that yet"
[18:30:13] <rho> but it's good to write them down, just to make absolutely sure that nothing gets missed
[18:30:30] <gerg> the inactive account policy too. i.e. are we having one, because if so it's a good time to decide since there aren't any users
[18:31:10] <rho> it's also helpful for "things we need to go back and edit/write" after they've been taken care of code/policy-wise
[18:31:50] <LivredOr> good point
[18:32:12] <rho> i'm 99% sure we decided that we weren't going to do anything about inactive accounts, and that people were perfectly welcome to keep their inactive accounts. rah can verify/correct me on that one
[18:32:40] <gerg> sounds reasonable to me
[18:32:45] <gerg> especially since we're keeping invite codes
[18:32:55] <LivredOr> yes, account security is way way > namespace IMO
[18:34:16] <gerg> oh actually i did have one and since rah's here
[18:34:36] <gerg> are we keeping the restriction that people between 13-18 can't edit certain things in their profile or are we killing that/
[18:34:45] <gerg> er, not edit, but display.
[18:34:48] <rho> another thing is about terminology. if you've noticed any terminology that you think is dumb and should be changed while writing your docs, then go ahead and change it (or run it past me/rah/dw_docs@/#dw/wherever), but make sure that you document it on the terminology page on the wiki
[18:35:20] <rho> the site copy team is going to be getting up and running shortly, and we need to be certain we're all on the same page for terinology
[18:35:32] <LivredOr> I sort of hate the choices we made for wtf (sorry, rho), but I think it's better to live with it for now
[18:37:13] <rho> an example of the sort of thing i'm thinking of: while writing the accounts faqs, i decided that email validation was a stupid name, so i change it to confirming your email address, since it seems to actually make sense to me (and #dw seemed to agree when i asked them)
[18:37:26] <rho> and heh. i'm not offended if you don't like my names :)
[18:37:26] <LivredOr> oh, good plan!
[18:37:28] <LivredOr> I like that a lot better
[18:37:47] <gerg> i think if you really don't like the WTF names it isn't too late to change them
[18:37:54] <gerg> open beta would be too late
[18:38:01] <LivredOr> exactly what I predicted did happen: the actual dev volunteers, who know the stuff really well, are completely confused between subscribing to journals and subscribing to notifications
[18:40:20] <LivredOr> the rest of it, the fact that there isn't a good name for "journal I'm subscribed to" or a good verb for "grant access to", I expect I'll get used to with time, but the subscription confusion is really bad
[18:40:51] <rho> yeah, what greg said. i've not seen any confusion, but if you have, bring it up somewhere, and we can talk it out
[18:42:28] <LivredOr> there was a big confusion in #dw, when people were trying to test the subscription limit, and getting it muddled up with the "friend" limit
[18:44:20] <rho> yeah. we decided that we'd go with calling that feature tracking, since it never really had a unified name, i don't think. but if people are still calling it subscriptions, i can see potential confusion
[18:44:36] <rho> the problem is, i'm not sure what else to call it
[18:44:37] <LivredOr> what's the name for "events that you track" if not "subscriptions"?
[18:44:51] <LivredOr> people aren't using the verb "subscribe" inappropriately, from what I've seen, but the noun, yes
[18:45:28] <gerg> tracked events?
[18:47:18] <rho> one thing that i think rah wanted to do was wait 6 months, see what people on the site are actually calling things, and then revisit the issue. though i may be completely misunderstanding what she had planned
[18:47:45] <LivredOr> the problem with that is that changing all the terms in mid-stream might not be so great
[18:47:48] <LivredOr> but otherwise I kind of like that idea
[18:49:15] <mac|ow> i think it's not too horrible to change them if we make it a site-wide job. like get users to report missed changes and such. it might suck, work-wise, but i think it's better to go through the pain and get an intuitive and correct naming system than it is to 'make do'. 8 years after i started using LJ and i still -weekly!- here a complaint about the 'friends' list. :p
[18:49:29] <mac|ow> *hear
[18:49:38] <LivredOr> yes, getting rid of the word "friend" is totally awesome
[18:50:36] <rho> the other thing to remember is that we're not going to come up with any terminology that's competely perfect. there's always going to be some scope for misunderstanding or something
[18:51:15] <mac|ow> i just think we risk the trap of having another "friend" fiasco if we're not willing to invest in changes in the first six months. i know it's counter-intuitive to the programming side (my programmer friends are always 'who cares what it's called?! it works!'). if we're open to being flexible, we still might find that our original terms work best, but at least we gave it a try.
[18:51:31] <LivredOr> I see what you mean
[18:51:39] <LivredOr> and yes, rho, I should squish my perfectionist instincts!
[18:51:39] <rahaeli> yep.
[18:52:14] <rho> ok, let's move on then
[18:53:40] <rho> i've been talking with domtheknight, and we want to send all our faqs and guides through the testers. the basic idea being just to check that all the instructions we give actually work, and that it's all clear
[18:54:20] <rho> not that i'm expecting you guys to write misinformation, but there's always the risk of, for instance, something changing on site after you've written about it
[18:54:32] <rho> and besides, more eyeballs are always good
[18:55:05] <LivredOr> sounds great to me!
[18:55:35] <rho> so, what i'm thinking is that you let me know when a faq/a group of faqs are "done", then i'll let dom know, and he can pass them onto his testers
[18:55:50] <LivredOr> ooh, yay
[18:56:18] <rho> once i get a copy-editing team up and running, i'll pass them onto the copy-editors at the same time
[18:56:30] <rahaeli> (she)
[18:56:40] <rho> oops. my bad.
[18:56:43] <LivredOr> dom is a girl?
[18:56:44] * rahaeli grins
[18:56:47] <LivredOr> names are confusing!
[18:57:46] <rho> doubly confusing for me, since i was differentiating between fraught (dominique on irc) and domtheknight by thinking of them as girl-dom and boy-dom. think i'll have to revisit that one!
[18:59:18] <rho> but yeah. let me know when your faqs/guides are in a finished state, and i'll pass them onto relevant people (of whatever gender)
[19:00:17] <rho> and, what else did i want to bring up... *checks notes* ah yes
[19:01:19] <rho> mostly just as an fyi, we're planning on releasing all our userdoc under the creative commons by-sa license
[19:01:51] <LivredOr> expand by-sa, please?
[19:01:55] <rho> which means that people can use and modify it, but they have to credit us, and they have to release any modifications under the same license
[19:02:02] <LivredOr> sounds very good to me
[19:03:28] <rho> yeah. basically, we want to bring our docs in line with our general policies of openness, like we have with the code, etc
[19:03:43] <rahaeli> and it's not like LJ's clone sites don't steal LJ's FAQs
[19:03:51] <rahaeli> so why not make it easy to do so!
[19:04:17] <V_PauAmma_V> (to rho) So basically, it's like the GPV, except for text? (Trying to place it among the open licenses)
[19:04:24] <V_PauAmma_V> s/GPV/GPL/
[19:04:26] <LivredOr> are they actually not allowed to steal LJ's FAQs?
[19:04:41] <V_PauAmma_V> (to LivredOr) Nope. They're en_LJ, not en.
[19:05:00] <rho> pretty much, pau. yes
[19:05:22] <rho> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ if you're interested
[19:07:30] <gerg> it's like the GFDL only not quite as evil
[19:07:32] <gerg> i like the cc license.
[19:08:03] <rho> GFDL is pretty dire, really
[19:09:11] <rho> the other thing is, this way when people take our stuff, they might actually credit us, rather than just keeping quiet and hoping nobody will notice :)
[19:10:02] <LivredOr> it is definitely gonna be interesting to see what happens with clone sites *daydreams*
[19:11:49] <rho> the other thing i wanted to cover today is the dw_docs community. basically, what do we want to use it for?
[19:12:31] <rho> i'm happy pretty much anywhere from "don't use it at all for now" to "move all userdoc business over there" depending on what works for everyone else
[19:12:46] <gerg> i'd be for moving everything there once we have a style
[19:12:56] <LivredOr> I would like it better than the mailing list
[19:13:02] <LivredOr> but I can't get my head round the mailing list
[19:13:12] <LivredOr> (plus, it would be a good way to get into the habit of using DW)
[19:14:00] <rho> yeah. i'm already into the habit of refreshing my reading page a couple of times a day :)
[19:14:28] * V_PauAmma_V doesn't read DW much yet. (Or at all.)
[19:14:29] <mac|ow> i think i'd like it better than the mailing list. i have trouble tracking the mailing list.
[19:14:29] <LivredOr> ooh, you have a reading page already?
[19:14:44] <LivredOr> I should add some of you guys, shouldn't I?
[19:15:56] <rho> ok. consensus seems to be that we move over. do you want to move over now, or wait until we have styles up?
[19:16:07] <LivredOr> move, please
[19:16:13] <LivredOr> it's not like the mailing list is pretty!
[19:16:21] <rahaeli> you can paste in a style for now!
[19:16:41] <LivredOr> oh, good point, rah
[19:16:43] <rho> if needs be, we can syndicate it onto lj. we can als... yes, that. though i suck at styles, so would probably whine at you to do that for us, D :)
[19:17:02] <gerg> yeah, just copypasta a style is fine, i just would like it to have one, as reading stuff without one is almost impossible
[19:19:32] <rho> ok, other question. are you happy with having the community be for userdoc + server doc + site copy, or would you want to have a just userdoc comm? my feeling is keep it all together for now, and consider splitting if we get high traffic
[19:20:09] <LivredOr> all together seems better to me
[19:20:17] <LivredOr> I want to know what the other guys are doing!
[19:20:17] <gerg> that sounds logical
[19:20:57] <mac|ow> i like knowing as much as possible (when i remember it :p) and it's actually easier for me to refresh myself if we have a comm with tags and such.
[19:21:23] <rho> and also, it's currently closed membership, but i'm planning on opening up membership. no problems with that, i presume?
[19:22:12] <LivredOr> given only devs are allowed accounts in the first place, why not?
[19:22:23] <LivredOr> we may need to remember to close it after the site goes into open beta, though?
[19:22:35] <LivredOr> I predict there will be griefers from day 1, even with invite codes
[19:22:36] <mac|ow> i don't see a problem with it in the interim. *nods* at Liv.
[19:22:49] <LivredOr> (this is based on my experience with Inksome, I'm not just a hardened cynic!)
[19:23:21] <rho> that sounds good to me
[19:23:35] <mac|ow> i think for organization's sake, a closed membership will be necessary later, just to control info-flow.
[19:24:59] <rho> lj_userdoc was never too bad. though yeah. probably better to close things up and come up with a more definite procedure for people coming in (when/if we need them) rather than just telling people to suggest stuff
[19:26:53] <rho> what i'd also like to do, long term is have someone act as a liason between support and documentation. so the support people would say "we need this" and then that would get reported to doc people who coud go and write it. rather than having the support people also being the doc people (though i'm sure there'll be some overlap)
[19:27:18] <rho> (and of course, it all depends on what shape support ends up taking in the end, which is still very much up in the air, i think)
[19:27:26] <gerg> I like that idea too, rho.
[19:27:38] * LivredOr impatient for support to exist!
[19:27:41] <gerg> Instead of expecting he support people to learn userdoc's idiosyncracies
[19:28:03] <mac|ow> that's a really good idea.
[19:28:20] <LivredOr> yeah, official liaison would be great, even if there is overlap coincidentally
[19:29:31] <rho> i think that's pretty much everything that i had that i wanted to talk about. anyone else have anything?
[19:29:56] <gerg> sounds like things are going well :D
[19:30:11] * LivredOr bounces
[19:30:12] <LivredOr> thank you rho
[19:30:33] <rho> we're heading in the right direction, for sure :D

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