Wikimedia Search Team/Meeting minutes/2015-06-01

Checkins
James Moiz Max Yuri Tomasz Dan Nik Stas Wes Giuseppe Oliver (via email):
 * Starting adding event logging to portal
 * Doesn’t use standard platform, so some IE8 issues
 * It is a page on meta, so someone (ops?) will have to update that page to deploy it
 * Working on doc: How can we gather search quality feedback from users (look at how others have done it, and how we have done it in the past)
 * For expediency, should use qualtrix
 * (Notetaker missed second thing Moiz is working on)
 * Working with new server. Some issues.
 * Then will return to adding labels, new queries
 * Need to prep for upcoming conference
 * Worked on supporting vector tile maps on the new server. Code got deployed.
 * Did a lot of communications with community. Prep for this weekend’s map conference.
 * Will create a phab ticket for metrics needs
 * Will work with Wes on hiring/budget
 * Was mostly off last week
 * Productive talks at hackathon about WDQS
 * Working on a WD presentation
 * Progress on query string replacement, but not much lately
 * Focused on onboarding the next 2 Mondays
 * Needs to work on nasty bug with jobs that is breaking tests (and probably causing production weirdness)
 * Working on bugs/performance of WDQS. Got help from blazegraph. Not as fast as we want, but no longer “catastrophic”
 * Will work on more substantial features. Improve logging.
 * Navigating budget changes. Keep things moving forward. Will summarize when it is final.
 * Reductions in hardware purchases.
 * Focus our asks to external funding options
 * Headcount down to +3 (UX, DA, Relevancy eng)
 * Hackathon was great
 * Would like to have a followup in a separate meeting
 * Yuri did great showing off maps (and graphs)
 * Will meet w/Rachel to help us get the word out to community
 * Working on expectations of UX and metrics
 * Developing simple high-level doc of goals, progress, etc. Should probably go on wiki.
 * Nothing to report
 * Did
 * 1. Began research into user-perceived accuracy measurements (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100672) much papers, many wow.
 * 2. Studied queries per search sessions (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T99584) concluding that this is actually impossible under the current schema. We'll need a new one for it. Luckily we also need a new schema for something else, so we can probably bind them together.
 * 3. Hiring. One more interview (and another today) along with much scrubbing of the candidate pool and a pile of technical task reviews.
 * 4. /Hopefully/ finished off the NSA data support. They keep coming up with new requests; I keep smiling sweetly and telling them that the readership team will certainly be interested in those questions and that's who they should be talking to.
 * 5. Worked through various dashboard bugs
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100049,
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100055,
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100056.
 * Upcoming:
 * 1. Research around user-perceived accuracy measurements (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100672)
 * 2. Monthly Metrics support if we decide metrics is a thing we're doing.
 * 3. Defining a new EL schema that solves (at least partially) for 1 and 2 above.
 * 4. Reaching out to design research about understanding our user base.
 * 5. Reconfiguring our dashboarding service to support multiple, distinct services. This won't actually be useful until we have the data from 3 and from the EL schema currently on engineering's plate (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100673)

Scrum of Scrums

 * Anything from SoS that we should be aware of?
 * Analytics doing heavy A/B testing, so “take it easy” on event logging for next 10 days
 * Some concerns about event logging servers overload
 * Kevin and Dan will talk to firm up our requirements
 * Are we blocked?
 * No
 * Are we blocking? https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/blocked-on-search/
 * No

Info/To Discuss
From last week Any reports from the Hackathon? Should we schedule a meeting just for that? How can we have a maps presence at wikimania (since it wasn’t accepted)
 * How much of our new Java developer will go to WDQS?
 * Oliver proposes that all logging should go to the analytics cluster
 * Examples: Elastic, WDQS.
 * Need to spread the knowledge of how to do it (Oliver will coach Stas)
 * Nik: Should elastic go to kibana? KS to follow up
 * Wes will set up
 * At hackathon segment, but that’s just technical
 * Reach out to organizers to find out how we can

FYI

 * OpenStreetMaps conference this weekend which some folks will attend
 * Some folks will attend the Open Air conf Thursday June 4 (SF)
 * Kevin is giving Kanban tech talk June 15
 * Wikimania (July 15-19)
 * (need to insert relevant team page here)