Community Tech/Retrospectives/2015-10-15

Action items from last time
These items were from the previous-previous retro
 * Working with community legacy code: super frustrating and hard to keep momentum going
 * Ongoing concern; no specific action right now
 * Specific engineering maneger/support when Ryan was gone would have been useful
 * Arranged for Bryan to fill in on a tech basis next time Ryan is out
 * Could use more review/feedback
 * More interaction with the community would have been better for fixing the database reports
 * Have follow-up conversations:
 * Most of our work is English Wikipedia specific so far +1, some very specific!+1|++ 2
 * No conversation yet. Should have email convo about most work being in English so far.
 * We will need to add more items to the backlog soon, but from where?++ 2
 * Had some conversations; still a concern; keep talking; Danny should help
 * NK: I feel like we need a meeting to discuss the tasks from the last sprint and share lessons, from a technical point of view. Especially our Investigation tasks (which we squeeze into our sprint planning right now). +1|++ 2 - Mailing list material? - Possibly! Take some time to write up mini-retrospectives on individual tasks?
 * Discussed on list; no firm conclusion. Maybe could be a standard practice to circulate a couple paragraphs about each to see if that triggers discussion?
 * GitHub workflows: we can do this on mailing list
 * Sort of did this, but should probably end up with a more formal process; Frances will move the github workflows email thread forward
 * How to handle delayed/nonexistent feedback especially when not possible to ping relevant people in real-time
 * Email! Email is ok, especially a heads-up re: an existing discussion elsewhere that needs input.
 * Brainstorm/discuss CoC handling with Kaldari/Quim/??
 * Some happened
 * Post retrospective notes: Ryan
 * Done

What has gone well?

 * Niharika (with Kaldari) put together a quick prototype for a complicated feature, it works & we're ready to show it to users +1
 * Working with Heather to make a nifty graphic for the Wishlist Survey
 * NK: Learnt a lot of new stuff while developing the browser testing script with a good deal of help from Ryan, that was fun
 * NK: RevisionSlider prototype is coming along nicely
 * Tech support survey is ready to send out today. Yay! (worked with translators)
 * Good work on Citation Bot, have a reasonable grasp of how it goes together (Frances thinks so at least)
 * We have a PM! *\o/*
 * Interaction with community on citation bot continues to go really well

What could have gone better?
-- Kaldari + Danny need to work together on wishlist survey
 * Haven't gotten feedback from TCB team in a while (tried to reschedule)
 * Difficulty getting feedback from AlexZ (a maintainer) regarding Popular pages report
 * Danny - still learning the current tickets & work
 * (Slow) Making progress on Wishlist Survey
 * Document more in phab; less inside head
 * Fixing HotCat - harder than expected
 * Getting travel approval seemed to take awhile/some effort (wikisource)
 * More communication about why attending might have helped
 * RfC is not closed yet, but probably can't do anything about that +
 * Getting it closed is a blocker for some citation bot work
 * Involve Johan in getting RfC closed
 * Feel code momentum flagging (FH), want to get right back into that
 * Need to figure out the connection/distinction with Community Engagement++++

What else is on your mind?

 * Gadgets 2.0 +
 * Some discussions have happened; need to avoid code quagmire; team could choose to own it
 * MVP would be helpful
 * Danny will set up a meeting with team and Kunal (and others?) about Gadgets 2.0
 * FH would like to review more but doesn't necessarily feel like they have the context
 * Eternal question: refactoring old bot code, y/n
 * Should we have a standard story grooming meeting, mid-sprint? +++
 * Should we have a central place for people to report broken gadgets/templates etc.? Not allowed on Phabricator right now. Perhaps a page on Meta? Or a dedicated Phab board.+++
 * There may be hundreds of broken gadgets, so any system needs to account for lots of reports
 * Could also be a recruiting tool for onwiki devs
 * Danny proposes Meta space; FH would like to have expectations set from the beginning, possibly https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Friendly_space_expectations (just change "grants" stuff to "technical" or similar)

Deeper discussions
Question of scope: not all bugs/tasks/projects that affect "power users" are going to be good entry points for volunteer devs (for a number of reasons) There is, for next week -- Danny, Kaldari, Quim, Luis, Rachel -- I don't want to add more people to it, but we'll definitely talk with the team right after Makes sense.
 * Need to figure out the connection/distinction with Community Engagement++++
 * Should there be one big shared backlog?
 * Is there a meeting scheduled with Luis/Toby about this?

Action Items (pulled out after the meeting ended)

 * Should have email convo about most work being in English so far. (Frances, email sent)
 * Maybe could be a standard practice to circulate a couple paragraphs about each completed investigation task to see if that triggers discussion? (Kaldari)
 * Frances will move the github workflows email thread forward (done)
 * Danny: Should we have a standard story grooming meeting, mid-sprint? +++
 * NK: Should we have a central place for people to report broken gadgets/templates etc.? Not allowed on Phabricator right now. Perhaps a page on Meta? Or a dedicated Phab board.+++ (Niharika already sent an email on this, others should respond) - That's a different thing. (ah, sorry) I'll send out an email about this too.:) -- Email sent
 * Kaldari + Danny need to work together on wishlist survey
 * Kaldari will involve Johan in getting RfC closed
 * Danny will set up a meeting with team and Kunal (and others?) about Gadgets 2.0 -- Done

Retro of retro

 * less rushed, much better
 * NK: Bad connectivity for me today. :( :(
 * extra time was useful +
 * lots of good action items
 * Good catch from Kevin on getting too deep into one area, moved us along
 * Thanks Niharika for catching that Kevin had grabbed the wrong past action items
 * still appreciate the facilitation very much!