ADT Weekly Meeting 17th October 2009

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2009-10-19 22:51:54 UTC

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Sunday 7am for me and we didn't stop for 2.5 hours - see bingeling it's not just you :p We talked a lot about schedules, communication (especially Support and Tag Wranglers) and held us a workshop on some of the finer points of the Collections design - should they be bookmarkable (we think yes), should the description field be compulsory (we think no).

Deploy Schedule: the AO3 has been updated and we're now on revision 1585 \o/ Our next deploy is planned for about three weeks from now and will contain the Invitations code and any fixes to existing problems that we can squeeze in - this is the Open Beta drop, we won't be able to add any more code before we launch.
- AO3 Logo: We've agreed on a temporary logo. I think it's very pretty and it's certainly a lot better resolution than our poor little 'house' favicon. Our energy is pretty centered around Open Beta right now so finding someone to run a logo competition is going to have to wait - suggestions and volunteers welcome ;)
- Filters: We're going to change the filers slightly, we'll change the Rating and ~~Warning~~ Category tickyboxes to radio buttons to reflect the fact that if you try to select more than one you always get zero results (can't be Rating=E AND Rating=T at the same time). This way, you can only ever pick one at a time anyway and will hopefully stop people having the frustrating experience of thinking they can have both then finding out they can't. erm, I really hope what I said made sense - poke me if it doesn't.
- Invitations: I can see the code being added to our code repository in great big chunks and elz greeted me this morning with a design question. Yes, some of our features get developed when I'm half awake and half dressed - it's an excellent system I swear!
Open Beta: Mid November. Our Support team are gearing up, we have plans, plan, plans and I'm only panicking every second hour :p
Stuff coming up: Open Beta! Code Optimising, Yuletide importing (OMG)

Previous posts on Dreamwidth (by samvara the 2009 committee chair) and the Organization for Transformative Works website (by the AD&T committee)

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Cesy Tue 20 Oct 2009 07:46AM UTC

\o/

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1. samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:10PM UTC
  
  \o
  Differently-abled victory arms!
  
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bingeling Tue 20 Oct 2009 12:50PM UTC

Hee good to hear! Even if I put one of the major discussion points on the agenda. +g+
Awesome reading meeting notes on the archive. :D

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1. samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:11PM UTC
  
  *loves*
  
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parenthetical Tue 20 Oct 2009 06:10PM UTC

Yay, Archive-tastic! \0/

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1. samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:12PM UTC
  
  For the win!
  
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Clare (Guest) Tue 20 Oct 2009 06:46PM UTC

I think it makes sense to change the rating system to radio buttons so that you can only select one, but I'm a bit confused by your choice to only allow one warning. I would think that it would make more sense to allow as many warnings as the author feels applicable. But maybe that is an issue with the coding, not the philosophy behind it. I'd love to hear a bit more about your thought process on that one!

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1. samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 07:38PM UTC
  
  That is totally my bad, I've typed 'Warning' and should have typed 'Category'
  I apologise for the confusion!
  *fixes up post*
  Thank you for picking up on that and letting me know :)
  
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2. 1. Clare (Guest) Wed 21 Oct 2009 05:43PM UTC
    
    Okay, that makes WAY more sense! Thanks!
    
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meanon (Guest) Wed 21 Oct 2009 01:31PM UTC

What does AD&T stand for?

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1. Elizabeth Perry (watersword) Wed 21 Oct 2009 04:28PM UTC
  
  "Accessibility, Design & Technology".
  
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Poi (Guest) Thu 22 Oct 2009 05:52AM UTC

What does Yuletide importing mean? Is it going onto its own copy of the software, or are all the stories being imported into AO3?

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1. samvara Fri 23 Oct 2009 11:00AM UTC
  
  The latter, the Yuletide code is aging and the moderators wish to move the stories (Collections) and the annual activities (Challenges) into the AO3 itself. It will still function as 'Yuletide' and have an identity as a special collection within the AO3, and it will still run every year as it has in the past.
  The schedule is at the mercy of the rate at which the AD&T committee can develop the required code, and control of Yuletide past, present and future is and will remain in the hands of the Yuletide mods.
  
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2. 1. Poi Sat 24 Oct 2009 04:01PM UTC
    
    I'm not worried about future Yuletides because I figure anyone choosing to take part in the future will know the deal when they sign up.
    I'm more concerned about how how clear it will be that stories from previous years have been archived without permission, especially given that Yuletide currently has a rule about not allowing stories to be removed from the archive.
    Like, if you do a fandom search will you get a bunch of stories some of which will be tagged "Yuletide Archive" but will otherwise look exactly like every other story, or a message saying "There are also stories that fit your search over at The Yuletide Archive", or will every story have a note at the top explaining the whole "special collection" thing, or something else entirely?
    I know this may seem like an irrelevant detail, but archiving without permission has traditionally been a very sensitive issue in fandom, and I'm not entirely convinced by "the archivist said we could do it".
    (also, wow, this comment box is so *tiny*!)
    
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  2. 1. samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:29AM UTC
      
      Heya, just stopping to say I haven't forgotten you, I'm fact-checking with the Yuletide mods and Collections and Challenges designer before I reply!
      PS Issue 848 raised for the font size problem.
      
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    2. 1. Poi Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:51PM UTC
        
        I think that might be a different issue? I meant the size of the box you type the comment into; for me it's about a fifth the width of the page and a few inches high, it seemed small is all. I wasn't sure if it was a known issue or not!
        
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      2. samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 07:48PM UTC
        
        Oops, yes, it totally is, I am so used to it that when I was looking for something 'small' the first thing I saw was the font. *g* I'll bring it up at the next meeting.
        I'm thinking thinking re-size to fit page might work, or maybe a little higher (20%?) and a bit wider (30%?)
        
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    3. samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 10:42AM UTC
      
      Can I ask - when you say 'archived without permission', do you mean the permission of the Yuletide mods, or the permission of the Yuletide story writers, or something else I haven't thought of? It occurs to me it could be either/both and I want to be answering the right question here :)
      
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    4. 1. Poi Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:56PM UTC
        
        I meant the story writers. I know OTW's policy is to get the permission of the archivists/mods, and sees this as akin to taking over maintainership of an existing archive - which of course happens pretty often in fandom. I don't necessarily disagree with this stance, and I do want to see dying archives saved!, but I have some questions about exactly how it is being done.
        
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      2. samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 07:53PM UTC
        
        Thank you! I figured I better try and answer the right question :)
        My reply is a result of a quick discussion with both the mods (astolat and elynross) as well as the Accessibility, Design, and Technology committee and the Abuse committee. We hope we've hit the points you're looking for.
        We know there'll be some questions about the move, and we'll be posting more news as soon as the code is finished up and the final details worked out. Yuletide has outgrown its existing code and servers, and the mods were in the position of finding a new home or winding up Yuletide altogether; this is something of an emergency save, which is why this is happening in kind of a rush.
        All Yuletide stories will be clearly marked as part of the Yuletide special collection. We're still working on the exact details of how this will look: we envisage a 'Yuletide home' page within the AO3 for the Collection, a special Collections 'tag' on all Yuletide stories and the [eventual] ability to search within the Collection. Authors will also have all the normal features of the AO3, which means they'll be able to edit their stories without going through the archivists. They'll also be able to 'orphan' their stories if they want to keep them within the Yuletide collection without having them connected to an account on the Archive (you can read more about orphaning in the FAQ.
        The original Yuletide archivists will remain the maintainers and archivists of the Collection within the OTW, and the existing Yuletide rules will continue to apply.
        There will be more announcements on the yuletide_admin livejournal community if you want to watch there, and if you have a story in the Yuletide archive with up-to-date contact information, you will also be notified by email about the move (if you want to be sure you get that email, please make sure "[email protected]" is whitelisted).
        
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        Poi (Guest) Tue 27 Oct 2009 12:52PM UTC
        
        To be clear, because I think you have misunderstood me a bit as being concerned about what will happen to the Yuletide challenge, I am not worried about Yuletide in particular. In fact, I think there is relatively little to worry about with Yuletide since at least most of the authors archived will be contactable and already aware of (and largely full of goodwill towards) AO3. I am also not worried that it will be inconvenient to find Yuletide stories or that the rules will change etc.
        What I am concerned about is how adopted archives in general are to be integrated into AO3 - actually, I guess the thing is I do not think adopted archives *should* be fully integrated into AO3; I think there should be some small degree of separation, or they cease to be archives. And I am concerned that OTW's policy on this seems more directed towards making the stories conveniently available to anyone who wants to read them, and not so much interested about what the writers of the stories might have to say about it (obviously I am not talking about stories that are both in a collection *and* attached to an account, only stories where the authors are not aware you are archiving their work, and possibly haven't even heard of AO3.)
        A tag saying 'this used to be in an archive' is not equivalent to an archive. If you vacuum up a bunch of stories into AO3 of Borg and add a tag and an index page, you have not 'saved' the archive, you have just archived all the stories on it without permission. Those are two different things.
        Um, yeah, I know I am really not putting this very well, but I feel that to save an archive requires saving more than the text of the stories.
        To use Yuletide as an example: I've got two stories there, but I have only archived one of them on my AO3 account, because I don't like the other one. I don't mind so much it being on the Yuletide archive, since anyone who reads it is likely to know that it was written as a gift and in a limited amount of time, and will read it in that context and as part of that community (and hopefully in a forgiving Yuletide spirit). But most people will be going in through the front page of AO3, not the collection index page, and searching using the search engine; they will not have that context or be part of that community, which for me is *part of the story*. So if stories archived without permission will in practice be indistinguishable from stories archived by their authors, part of the story is lost.
        (I know, they get a special tag, but it also sounds like *all* collections will have a tag, so how is a story archived without permission in a 'rescued dying archive' type collection to be distinguished from random AO3 story in an 'awesome wingfic' type collection? Not that I don't have faith in the power of your coders, but a tag that can convey all that would have to be so special as to have superpowers. And this is something that needs to be obvious to a casual reader, not a faithful OTW stalwart who reads all the admin posts and stuff).
        It's not like I think it would take a huge amount to resolve what I see as the problem here, it just kind of feels like you (OTW you) don't see a problem at all, and that worries me. Again, I am glad Yuletide and dying archives in general are being saved! But, again, archiving without permission is one issue on which fandom usually has consensus: *don't do it*. And it looks an awful lot to me right now like you are doing it.
        Some suggestions: Search results that return stories archived without permission to present said stories separately, underneath a link to the front page of the collection (as if results are being presented from two separate archives: AO3, and This Archive We Rescued). Stories archived without permission to have Very Large Clear Notes at the beginning including a link to the front page of the collection, and an 'if you are the writer of this story' type spiel about how to get an account if you want to delete/orphan/adopt your work. Annnd, um, actually, while other people might have other issues, and I think this could use some discussion *before* the code is finished up, those two things would cover all my own issues, so maybe I didn't need to go on for so long that I am *at the character limit*, dear god.
        Sorry!
        
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        samvara Wed 28 Oct 2009 10:19AM UTC
        
        Congratulations on hitting the word limit!
        Thank you for your patience, if I understand you correctly, it's how we're planning on labelling imported stories that you are concerned about?
        I get what you're saying about the stories being posted within a context and wanting to preserve as much of that context as possible.
        We will definitely provide a way to easily get from the story to the Collection - I like your other suggestions as well. I have passed them back to the person working on the design - we think it's important too!
        I hope I've addressed your concerns, if not, bear with me and I'll keep trying :)
        
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        Poi Wed 28 Oct 2009 01:58PM UTC
        
        Congratulations on hitting the word limit!
        I think I had 8 left! I am not normally so long winded, I swear to god, though I know you won't believe me when you keep getting stuck being rambled at.
        Yeah, labelling the stories, but really it's just that if you are going to justify archiving stories without specific permission as being akin to taking over maintenance of an archive, the archive in question has to *continue to exist*. As, like, a discrete unit. So, I see a need to make it clear that these stories do not so much belong to AO3 as to this other archive, because that's the archive they were given to.
        Anyway, thank you very much for your patience and passing on my suggestions, and now I'll leave you alone ;}
        
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AO3 News

ADT Weekly Meeting 17th October 2009

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Cesy Tue 20 Oct 2009 07:46AM UTC

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samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:10PM UTC

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bingeling Tue 20 Oct 2009 12:50PM UTC

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samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:11PM UTC

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parenthetical Tue 20 Oct 2009 06:10PM UTC

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samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 08:12PM UTC

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Clare (Guest) Tue 20 Oct 2009 06:46PM UTC

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samvara Tue 20 Oct 2009 07:38PM UTC

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Clare (Guest) Wed 21 Oct 2009 05:43PM UTC

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meanon (Guest) Wed 21 Oct 2009 01:31PM UTC

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Elizabeth Perry (watersword) Wed 21 Oct 2009 04:28PM UTC

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Poi (Guest) Thu 22 Oct 2009 05:52AM UTC

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samvara Fri 23 Oct 2009 11:00AM UTC

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Poi Sat 24 Oct 2009 04:01PM UTC

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samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:29AM UTC

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Poi Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:51PM UTC

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samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 07:48PM UTC

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samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 10:42AM UTC

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Poi Mon 26 Oct 2009 04:56PM UTC

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samvara Mon 26 Oct 2009 07:53PM UTC

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Poi (Guest) Tue 27 Oct 2009 12:52PM UTC

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samvara Wed 28 Oct 2009 10:19AM UTC

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Poi Wed 28 Oct 2009 01:58PM UTC

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