[IPython-dev] [jupyter] Communications, mailing lists, gitter, etc...

Brian Granger ellisonbg at gmail.com
Sun Jun 28 02:04:01 EDT 2015


> The tools at our disposal are:
>
> - Our mailing lists (jupyter & IPython-dev)
>
> - Our gitter rooms: we don't want to kill them, we just need to adjust what
> we want to use them for, and probably reduce the number of rooms.  As the
> number of repos we have grows, having dozens of rooms is probably not
> manageable.
>
> - Github: issues will continue being used by folks as a mechanism to
> effectively submit problem reports that, in practice, are often questions.
>
> - StackOverflow: not to be underestimated, it's archival, searchable, etc.

One more tool we do have - live conversations (phone calls, skype, G+,
etc).  While these tools are not public, I know we will continue to
use them - our acknowledging this will help us to integrate these into
the public channels better.

> - We try to do a better job of communicating important ideas, questions,
> discussions, etc, on the project lists.  Let's encourage our users to do the
> same.  We also post key announcements more regularly here.  Everyone should
> really feel comfortable

I would add one point:

When private conversations happen the participants post a short
summary to the mailing lists or github. I think that remains one of
the biggest communication challenges we have. Being geographically
isolated from UC Berkeley, I know this first hand from both sides.
There are times that the entire UC Berkeley team assumes Jon and I
know about something when we don't. And I am sure there are times that
Jon and I assume the Berkeley folks know things that we do. I also
have many phone conversations that I don't summarize well to the rest
of the team. In summary, I am as guilty as anyone on our team of not
summarizing private conversations to the rest of the team and
community and I want to work really hard to change this.

>
> - We stop pointing people to gitter as the *first* help stop.  We should
> point them to the mailing list (and? OR?) StackOverflow instead.  Having a
> non-archival medium be the first point of help means a vast amount of
> duplicated and wasted time helping people.
>
> - The Gitter real-time help room and repo rooms can remain active but we try
> to maintain a discipline of using them only for when folks need the
> real-time collaboration.  If key decisions are made here, let's try to have
> a discipline of periodically posting a quick summary, even if it's just a
> very short one, to the mailing list, pointing out what happened.  In the
> long run, it will help us all better keep in touch with what the project is
> doing.
>
>
> What other ideas do people have, that can help us better communicate, both
> among project regulars and with the more occasional, broader community
> participants?

I would like to clarify which gitter channels we will use. Our current
set still feels a bit scattered. I would prefer to have one main
channel for each org and then only additional rooms for specific
projects that are very high traffic.

Would does everyone think?

Cheers,

Brian

>
> Cheers
>
> f
>
>
>
>
> --
> Fernando Perez (@fperez_org; http://fperez.org)
> fperez.net-at-gmail: mailing lists only (I ignore this when swamped!)
> fernando.perez-at-berkeley: contact me here for any direct mail
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Project Jupyter" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to jupyter+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to jupyter at googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jupyter/CAHAreOpGXgRSj1vr8YzV9pdmpXCrZdE-tL%2BeVAV-Kr%2BVe7pkng%40mail.gmail.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.



-- 
Brian E. Granger
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
@ellisonbg on Twitter and GitHub
bgranger at calpoly.edu and ellisonbg at gmail.com



More information about the IPython-dev mailing list