[Scipy-organizers] twist on github PR approach: treating gh-pages as master

[James Bergstra]

New to the list: hi people!

In follow up to the other thread (Publication and review in SciPy) I wanted
to suggest a technical twist that would address *part* of the difficulty
getting publications out.

The github PR system is great, but one trouble with it is that it doesn't
go far enough along the path to publication. Namely, merging things to
master doesn't actually publish them in the conventional sense of the word.

However, Github runs Jeckyll-based webpage rendering services so that
individuals and organizations can host things at e.g.

http://scipy.github.io/scipy_proceedings

by pushing to gh-pages branch instead of master or master2013 or whatever.

PRs should essentially be operating on that branch, rather than master. PRs
should include a file in the _posts subdirectory, and put supplementary
data (like e.g. the paper source and built PDF) in some other folder that
the webserver can access. That way, when the chair/admin signs off and
merges a PR (a paper) then it's DONE. The website served by github using
Jeckyll is immediately and automatically updated with a new post about the
paper, that post has links to whatever the author wanted: a PDF, a demo,
link to slides, source, etc... in short, it is PUBLISHED, and no one has to
come back and change anything later.

Thoughts?

- James