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Samvera Tech Call 2021-01-27

Samvera Community Wiki

Samvera Tech Call 2021-01-27

Sept 08, 2021

Meeting Logistics:

Agenda

(meeting notes below)

  • Community contribution process: how to improve it, share the responsibility of it, and feel good about it, all in the hopes of avoiding avoiding burnout (@Heather Greer Klein)

 

Moderator: @Lynette Rayle

Notetaker: @Collin Brittle

Attendees:

  • @Collin Brittle (Emory)

  • @Adeel Ahmad

  • @Juliet Hardesty

  • @Anna Headley (Princeton)

  • @Daniel Pierce

  • @Chris Colvard (Deactivated) (Ubiquity Press)

  • @Thomas Scherz (Cincinnati)

  • @bess (Notch 8)

  • you!

 

Meeting Process

  1. Standing pre-agenda items (moderator)

    1. Welcome

      • "Welcome everyone, please add your name to the Attendees list.  If you are unable to do so, please let us know, and someone will add you. To any newcomers, Welcome, and please feel free to ask questions. Likewise for all attendees. We strive for an open and accessible conversation around Samvera technology."

    2. Call for new agenda items

  2. Follow Agenda from above (facilitated by moderator) and record notes in Notes section below (note taker)

  3. Standing post-agenda items (moderator)

    1. call for next moderator and note taker (moderator)

      1. Moderator:

      2. Notetaker:

    2. Samvera help follow-up (moderator)

    3. Pull request review (moderator)

  4. Post-meeting action (note taker)

    1. After call, this week's notetaker should create the agenda for the next call:

      1. Open template agenda titled "Samvera Tech Call 2021-xx-xx"

      2. Click on ... in the top right corner, and select copy.

      3. Popup will open for location. It should contain:

        1. Space: Samvera

        2. Parent page: 2021

      4. Select copy. New page should be created.

      5. Modify the title to remove "copy of", update it with the next date, add moderator, notetaker, and any carry-over agenda info. Click Publish. 

 

Notes

Contributions

  • Heather is interested in direct outreach, communication to institutions

  • How do we address short-term things as long-term progress is made?

  • Often, people feel it is easier to make local changes than contribute upstream. Upstream has a longer review process, more back-and-forth.

    • This can frustrate regular contributors, leading to feelings of burnout.

  • Julie wants to tackle outstanding issues in Hyrax.

    • Some issues may be handled by the Hyrax maintenance working group.

    • For others, may reach out to institutions who may have already solved the issue

    • Core Components Maintenance working group and other groups have had mixed success

  • Coding for the community regularly means producing configuration that would not be necessary at the local institution

  • Open Source is not always a high priority for an institution

  • This is an issue that Partners, Steering will need to address

    • Developers are not leadership

    • Hard for developers to drum up community contributions and lead development

  • Developers can push a perspective that the work isn't done until it's merged upstream

  • Burnout issues will lead to difficulty in retaining (or replacing) tech lead, other positions

    • Also, we want to care for those in our community taking on roles which have historically been highly prone to burnout

  • Examples of successful contributions are useful for others to follow

    • Idea to thank people on slack when they contribute upstream or close issues

  • Large code base, but few contributors

    • Exacerbates the issue, and leads to code rot.

  • Dev congresses have been successful

    • May be useful to have the community manager help organize and schedule

    • Getting a schedule would help with institution resource planning.

    • Hyrax roadmap was useful as a schedule.

    • Dev congresses need a host, so usually were tacked on to another event.

    • Some have been focused on a single issue or product, others are more scattered.

    • Idea to have more dev congresses

    • Idea to have a dev congress that's only focused on pairing to get developers set up with a hyrax dev environment and close a small issue

  • Idea to individually approach partner institutions to ask them to contribute developer time

  • WG on this topic of community engagement and keeping partners involved and engaged for maintenance and new stuff, and that it is all critically important. How do we fit all those needs, what is a good predictable approach. Predictability is easier to sell to management. And gives a way to justify participation.

  • Getting the PRs upsteam, burnout trend and impact on Community health will go up to Steering and Partners for further consideration.

  • Next week: Will talk about the deliverables for the WG. Will also have more Hyrax Maintenance WG information.