Wikimedia Developer Summit/2016/Content format

T119022 - This is the session pad for the Content format area session, slated to begin at 2pm on Monday, January 4.

Purpose

T119022 - Working area overview: how do we make manipulating our data easier and more useful? (both for humans and computers). What format should we use for the authoritative version of our essential content to make accessing and manipulating it easier and more useful (both for humans and computers)?

Agenda

5-20 minutes - introductory comments
60-75 minutes - open discussion

Minutes

Etherpad

https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiDev16-T119022

Goals

General discussion of our 2016 strategy for dealing with our central problem. This includes:

Establishing the shared questions, challenges, vision
- What we should head for? (e.g. move primary data out of SQL-based data stores into key-value stores? Should we use Cassandra and RESTbase as stable primary storage?)
- What constitutes a "format"?
  - E.g. if the data is stored in a MariaDB database, is the database itself is part of the format?
- Are HTML-only wikis ever a viable solution (T112999)?
- What about other formats (e.g. markdown, a refreshed wikitext 2.0?
- JavaScript support for Scribunto?
- Polyglot Wikimedia?
- Fine-grained content tagging (e.g. Parsoid's stable IDs)
- What is Wikimedia's essential content?
  - E.g. Articles, Revisions, Attribution, Categories, Associations/links (e.g. language links, interwiki links), Media (bitmaps, vector art, audio, video), Locations/coordinates

The goal of this session will be to capture a document that can be the first wiki draft as a charter for this area.

Chronology

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

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:

Assign meeting roles:
Facilitator

Gatekeeper

Scribe

Timekeeper

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

Scribe(s): Document the session
Copy https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiDev16-YourSession to https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WikiDev16-[SESSION NAME]

Fill out the information in the template, including
Link to Phabricator task describing session

Goal as described by facilitator

Topics of discussion as laid out by facilitator

Action items and who is responsible for them

Create new Phabricator tasks as needed

At end of session, copy meeting notes into Phabricator as appropriate

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

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