[pydotorg-www] some requests for a meeting minuting feature on www.python.org

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 12.06.2020 19:35, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
> On 6/12/20 1:22 PM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>> On 12.06.2020 18:30, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
>>> I spoke with Ernest a few weeks ago about how www.python.org could
>>> become a better home for public minutes of meetings. So here is my
>>> current thinking - this is long, but I want to share it in public in
>>> case it helps others understand the work.
>>
>> You may have noticed: the python.org website has a completely
>> non-working CMS. If you want to achieve collaboration, I'd strongly
>> suggest looking for something different (e.g. the NextCloud/OnlyOffice
>> idea you're floating) and focus on that.
>>
>> The documents would then appear under a subdomain, but at least
>> there'd be proper control over who gets to edit what and, what's
>> really more important, enables other people than the handful with
>> python.org editing rights to submit content in a user friendly
>> way.
>>
>> BTW: I may sound a bit negative on all this. That's because I
>> had been fighting to make python.org more user (= people providing
>> and maintaining content) friendly for several years without
>> success. If you have more luck: more power to you :-)
> Hi, Marc-Andre! I was probably less clear than I should have been about
> my suggested workflow:
> 
> 1. Before, during, and immediately after meeting: people collaboratively
> edit agenda and notes using Etherpad, Google Docs, Nextcloud, or
> something like that
> 2. After meeting, once notes are finalized: someone moves them into the
> www.python.org CMS.

That's a good workflow and we're using such a workflow in the EuroPython
Society - without the second step, though: we simply keep the document
open as live document for the intended audience to see. And we use
the same document for all meetings, since this is good for understanding
the history and development of how things come to be.

Editing usually starts by creating an agenda. This is then updated
during the meeting with the notes and results of the discussions /
votes.

> That second step doesn't absolutely need to be a multi-person step. The
> "Granular privileges: I'd like to let all my team members add minutes
> within our chunk of the site hierarchy." item in my list was in the
> "heavily encouraged" section, not the requirements. If you would
> prioritize requirements for this feature differently I would like to
> read your remix of my list (and what project are you minuting meetings
> for? if it's a very different type than the one I've been working on
> then maybe we have different requirements).

I've been using the above approach with a live agenda / minutes document
for many years now and in several contexts, both professionally and
when working with volunteer organizations.

It's been working really well.

What's essential is that multiple people can edit the documents
at the same time. We're using Google Docs for this, but OnlyOffice
should work just as well.

> Also, when you say "completely non-working" I'm not sure what you mean.
> I can successfully log in and edit pages, and the changes then display
> on the site. Perhaps you mean that the granularity of editing rights is
> inadequate?

Yes, you can log in and edit text, but that's where it ends. There
is no history of edits, it's not possible to revert an edit, get an
update of who edited what, there's no builtin workflow for things which
need reviews (such as success stories) and it's not easy to manage
permissions to certain areas of the website.

A true CMS covers all of the above. Google Docs and OnlyOffice
will cover most of the above, even though they are not real CMS
systems (think of Plone for example) either.

> I don't intend to fight anyone, but thank you for the kind wishes!

With "fighting" I meant that I tried to get the website fixed to
provide better CMS support running up against lots of walls along
the way. For the job board, I eventually started implementing patches
myself.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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