Wikimedia Developer Summit/2016/Collaboration

This is the session pad for the Collaboration working area (T119030), main topic Make code review not suck (T114419) slated to begin at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, January 5.

Purpose

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T119030 - Working area overview: "Central problem: how do we scale editing our code up to populations similar to editing our projects, proportionally increasing our positive impact and productivity?

Main session focus:

T114419- Make code review not suck

There is enough evidence that our code review process causes frustration. How bad a problem is this? Beyond the visible symptoms, what are the root causes of the long backlogs? Which are the potential solutions worth exploring? In particular, how can we re-arrange social conventions to make Code Review run better. While solving the problem in this session is a non-goal, having people leave the meeting feeling that one day we will have solved the problem - is a goal.

Agenda

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  • 10 minutes: session introduction
  • 25 minutes: Discussion of root problems of frustration. Or if there even is frustration
  • 30 minutes: Discussion of potential solutions to problems
  • 15 minutes: Conclusion. How do people feel about what's been discussed. Reflections on stuff discussed. Are there solutions that specificly excite people. Next steps.

Minutes

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Etherpad

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https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiDev16-T114419

Goals

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Please prepopulate this section with the goals of the meeting, and anticipate that collaborative editing around fulfillment of goals. This is a great place to capture action items from the conversation.

  • We have a better idea about the root causes of the problem
  • We have a number of ideas about how to fix the problem
  • [A somewhat meta goal] People feel hope that the situation will improve

Chronology

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This section is where an attempt is made to capture the gist of who said what, in what order. A transcript isn't necessary, but it's useful to capture the important points made by speakers as they happen.

Session guidelines

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This checklist exists to help each session at WikiDev meet the following goals:

  • Have productive discussion about topics that need face-to-face time
  • Make progress towards agreement on a solution
  • Document what was discussed, including areas of agreement and disagreement
  • Create written list of action items for follow up
  • Update or create Phabricator tasks as appropriate

Specific tasks:

  1. Assign meeting roles:
    • Facilitator
    • Gatekeeper
    • Scribe
    • Timekeeper
  2. Facilitator: run session to achieve specific goals.
    • State or build consensus towards meeting goal and style, referencing one of these meeting types:
      • Problem-solving: surveying many possible solutions
      • Strawman: exploring one specific solution
      • Field narrowing: narrowing down choices of solution
      • Consensus: coming to agreement on one solution
      • Education: teaching people about an agreed solution
    • Identify agenda items and guide discussion to stay on topic
    • Redirect participants who begin venting or discussing things that can be done online
  3. Scribe(s): Document the session
  4. Gatekeeper: Actively manage participation
    • Interrupt people if they are dominating the discussion
    • Help people who are having difficulty being heard
    • If the gatekeeper is talking too much, someone else should interrupt them
  5. Timekeeper: Keep track of time left and point out time passing to facilitator
    • If possible, estimate time for each topic written by scribes
    • Let people know when a topic has gone over its time
    • Give a warning when 5-10 minutes are left