Topic on User talk:Daimona Eaytoy/Flow

Hello Daimona, Greetings! I am reaching out to ask for your help with a technical workshop on the AbuseFilter extension.

A few months ago, through a workshop series as part of the Small wiki toolkits initiative, we learned that one of the Indic community's challenges is a lack of knowledge of tools to fight vandalism on wikis. Indic community involves 25+ smaller language wikis. We are considering organizing a workshop in December for the community. The focus would be on counter-vandalism tools, specifically on AbuseFilter extension and how to use it.

As you currently seem to be one of the active maintainers on this extension and may also know best how to use it, I wonder if you would be interested in running a hands-on workshop around this topic? If not, who else would you recommend I should reach out to? I would much appreciate your thoughts. Thanks!

Hi Srishti! Yes, I might be interested in this proposal. However, before I can give a final answer, I'd like to know a little bit more about the workshop. Specifically: 1) Is there a planned date on which this is going to happen? I want to make sure it doesn't collide with my personal agenda. 2) How long is the workshop going to be? This is just so I can get an idea on the topics that will be covered. And, 3) is there a list of (proposed) topics, or a place where people may ask for specific topics to be covered? Thank you!

Thanks Daimona for your willingness!

> 1) Is there a planned date on which this is going to happen? I want to make sure it doesn't collide with my personal agenda.

We are considering organizing this workshop sometime in the first weekend of December, on the 5th or 6th. But, we can be flexible if you want to propose a date and time that works best for you.

> 2) How long is the workshop going to be? This is just so I can get an idea on the topics that will be covered.

I imagine this topic would require 1-2 hours. Ideally, we envision this workshop to be hands-on; the goal is for participants to learn the necessary skills needed to combat vandalism and apply on their wikis immediately after the workshop. Also, some or all participants who will attend might not have a technical background, which also needs to be kept in mind while designing it. Having said that, feel free to design it as you feel right.

> 3) is there a list of (proposed) topics, or a place where people may ask for specific topics to be covered?

There isn't a list of proposed topics, only that in a recent conversation with Indic community members, they shared a need to learn about the tools to fight vandalism on their wikis. And, after talking with a few folks, we learned that AbuseFilter is the recommended option. So, we would like to keep this focus, but feel free to include the topics that would be relevant. If you have a specific ask from participants, we would be willing to share that with them when we promote this workshop.  I don't know much about this topic, but I can imagine that we can ask participants, for example, to bring instances of vandalism that they face on their wikis or share them with us in advance, so you can help write filters to address those during the workshop. Is this possible?

> We are considering organizing this workshop sometime in the first weekend of December, on the 5th or 6th. But, we can be flexible [...]

Great, thank you. I think that should be a relatively quiet period of the year, so it's likely OK.

> I imagine this topic would require 1-2 hours.

Hm, pretty long then. Perhaps we might have 2 parts, even on different days; say, 1h theory, 1h practice.

> Ideally, we envision this workshop to be hands-on; the goal is for participants to learn the necessary skills needed to combat vandalism and apply on their wikis immediately after the workshop.

This makes sense. We're still going to need some theory about how it works (generally speaking), but I'll keep in mind to focus on practice.

> Also, some or all participants who will attend might not have a technical background, which also needs to be kept in mind while designing it.

This is not a problem, especially if we agree on that beforehand. I can reserve some time for a brief introduction, e.g. to regular expressions.

> If you have a specific ask from participants, we would be willing to share that with them when we promote this workshop.

Not really, no, except for the level of technical background to assume. Specifically, the only real background we're going to need is about regular expressions, so my only question would be: "should we have a quick overview of what regular expressions can do?"; note, however, that this is not a simple topic, as it would require a full talk to be explained properly, so I'd expect participants to try and read something in advance, then answer their questions about that.

> we can ask participants, for example, to bring instances of vandalism that they face on their wikis or share them with us in advance, so you can help write filters to address those during the workshop. Is this possible?

Totally! In fact, that would be a great source of examples.

Thank you! We can organize the workshop in 2 parts then. We can do both on the same weekend, one on each day. Or, we can do one the following weekend. Whatever your preference would be. Time-wise, would 6 pm CEST work for you?

To your question about regular expressions, I think yes! It would make sense to assume that participants knowledge might be limited on this topic.

> We can do both on the same weekend, one on each day. Or, we can do one the following weekend. Whatever your preference would be.

I think both on the same weekend is fine, although it really depends on the precise date

> To your question about regular expressions, I think yes! It would make sense to assume that participants knowledge might be limited on this topic.

Makes sense. I'm probably not the best person for a full talk about regular expressions, but I can try preparing an introductory talk for the limited features that people might need when writing filters.

I have added the details on the date & time here. As of now the workshop is scheduled for 2:30 pm your time (which would be 6 pm for participants joining from India). I realized the time I proposed earlier will be too late for participants. Hope it still works for you!

Rest all sounds good to me. If participants share information ahead of the workshop, I will pass that on to you. If not, then we can sync-up here a week or so before the workshop.

> I have added the details on the date & time here.

Unfortunately, I have to decline availability for Dec 5. We can do both talks on the 6th, if that works. Or perhaps a single talk lasting 90 minutes?

> As of now the workshop is scheduled for 2:30 pm your time [...] Hope it still works for you!

Sure!

> Rest all sounds good to me. If participants share information ahead of the workshop, I will pass that on to you. If not, then we can sync-up here a week or so before the workshop.

Nice! Just to get an insight and prepare a couple of slides, I'm assuming that we're going to have an introduction to regular expressions, and an overview of AbuseFilter, followed by hands-on examples (I'll propose some, and include any request). Assuming a duration of 90 minutes it might be 60+30. Would that work?

Yes, I think a single 90-minute session on December 6th covering the topics you shared makes total sense to it! I've made changes to date and time on the wiki..

@Daimona Eaytoy Hope you have received the calendar invitation for the workshop already. You can also see the workshop details and the meeting link here. In our initial announcement, we asked participants to share any particular problems they would like to focus on during the workshop, but we haven't heard any replies. So, you may plan the workshop as you would like. If you have any questions, please let me know. I hope the timing still works for you; thank you for willing to mentor!

@SSethi (WMF):: Yes, thank you! The date still works, but I became a bit unsure about the timings. This really depends on the background of the participants, and how much we want to go in detail, but I think that 30 minutes for regular expression might not suffice, since I'd include an interactive part. Or they might suffice, and the talk could fit the 90 minutes timeframe. In doubt, I wonder if it would be possible to allocate 30 minutes more, to be used only if necessary (and also for questions etc.).

@Daimona Eaytoy Sorry, I missed the notification for your message. If you feel that there is an interest from participants to stay for longer during the workshop, or focus on specific areas, feel free to take 30 minutes extra.