22:46:29 <paulproteus> #startmeeting
22:46:29 <zodbot> Meeting started Thu Jul  8 22:46:29 2010 UTC.  The chair is paulproteus. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
22:46:29 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
22:46:45 <paulproteus> I'm having a meeting with myself, with Fedora people watching.
22:46:49 <paulproteus> And I have no idea how to use MeetBot.
22:46:54 <paulproteus> Helpfully it's documented on wiki.d.o.
22:47:34 <paulproteus> #topic Describe Asheesh's thoughts about the OSCON proposal
22:47:40 <Jefro> hey all
22:47:52 <paulproteus> Hey (-: I'm having a meeting with myself and maybe mchua re: our OSCON talk
22:48:03 <mchua> paulproteus: yo yo yo!
22:48:21 <mchua> Sorry, was distracted by OLF talk proposal emails
22:48:23 <mchua> but I am here now.
22:48:23 <paulproteus> No worries
22:48:28 <mchua> So, let's yak it up.
22:48:32 * mchua pulls up our proposal abstract
22:48:37 <mchua> what did we say we were gonna talk about, again?
22:48:41 <paulproteus> mchua: The OSCON website one?
22:48:44 <mchua> yeah, that
22:48:48 * paulproteus goes to the TOS wiki
22:49:11 * paulproteus reads http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/OSCON_2010#Junior_Jobs_and_Bite-sized_bugs:_Entry_points_for_new_contributors_to_open_source
22:49:27 <Jefro> paulproteus // having a meeting with myself and maybe mchua // LOL
22:49:33 <mchua> awesome.
22:49:43 <mchua> Jefro: feel free to hop in and interrupt us if you like.
22:50:27 <paulproteus> Seems like the topic of our talk is (1) problem: projects don't know how to say what bugs are bitesized.
22:50:36 * mchua is chilling in quaid's garden and listening to Straight No Chaser sing "Can't take my eyes off of you" in the meantime. It is... a wonderful day.
22:51:01 <paulproteus> (1)a Miro, GNOME, etc use bitesize bug tagging
22:51:03 <mchua> paulproteus: yeah, I usually start thinking about the dreyfuss model around this point
22:51:04 <Jefro> no worries, I'm sweating over OSCON myself
22:51:18 <paulproteus> mchua: Right
22:51:22 <mchua> bitesize means a few things here.
22:51:26 <Jefro> mchua - that sounds so incredibly awesome.
22:51:30 <mchua> few skills needed, for one.
22:51:31 <paulproteus> You've mentioned that to me, but I'll read  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition
22:51:39 <mchua> but also short time completion - quick win
22:51:48 <mchua> (the few skills adds to that, since you don't need to learn too much to jump in)
22:51:53 <mchua> and also not much context needed
22:52:11 <mchua> i.e. you don't have to know 5 mailing lists and 30 people on IRC nor read up on 3 months of list backlog in order to understand the question
22:52:23 <mchua> which is the part that ties into the "novice" section of dreyfuss - new folks don't have that sort of immersion
22:52:37 <paulproteus> Interesting, yeah.
22:52:46 <mchua> er, ability to function well in that immersion without some scaffolding
22:52:59 <mchua> which is why a lot of the scaffolding you're building into openhatch is so useful.
22:53:07 <paulproteus> (aww)
22:53:11 <mchua> it's like having a guide sit next to you and explain that yes it is okay to click *that* button
22:53:29 <paulproteus> I'm going to go back to summarizing the talk abstract to for now.
22:53:30 <mchua> (actually, sometimes you literally do have a guide sitting next to you... if the meetups idea from FOSSCon takes hold. ;)
22:53:36 <mchua> paulproteus: please do. I ramble too much. :)
22:53:38 * mchua sits back and listens
22:54:01 <Jefro> relevant to your talk, I just remembered seeing this go by on slashdot earlier in the week:  http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/07/04/195239/Finding-Open-Source-Projects-Looking-For-Help
22:54:20 <mchua> Jefro: whoa, thanks!
22:54:21 * mchua reads
22:54:27 <paulproteus> Jefro: Yeah, have you read the comments / did you notice openhatch.org collapsing under the load (-:
22:54:30 <paulproteus> (1)b Once bitesize bugs are labeled, how do new contributors find them?
22:55:02 <paulproteus> (2) We claim to have solved this problem with OpenHatch. We highlight bite-sized bugs have a volunteer opportunity finder with browsing by language, bitesized, and type of skill required.
22:55:02 <Jefro> ha... I stopped reading slashdot comments quite a while back.  they have become functionally equivalent to those found on icanhascheezburger.com
22:55:10 <mchua> paulproteus: be forewarned that I will try to inject cognitive science, education research, and learning theory in *everything* you say. ;)
22:55:39 <mchua> Jefro: that's interesting - most of the comments to that thread can basically be summarized as "just do it"
22:55:42 <paulproteus> Jefro: That's fine, but search the comments for how frequently "openhatch" appears for a quick laugh (-:
22:55:47 <mchua> which is... I mean, yes, accurate, but... less than helpful
22:55:51 <mchua> (or rather, "just do it, duh")
22:56:00 <paulproteus> "jdid"
22:56:25 <mchua> if a kid came up to you and said "teach me to cook!" would you go "just do it"?
22:56:59 <mchua> or would you walk them through, I dunno, making pancakes, sitting with them through the process, showing them how to measure flour and heat a pan and how to hold a spatula?
22:57:07 <mchua> (and how not to kill themselves with knives)
22:57:13 <JonathanD> how old is said kid?
22:57:20 <JonathanD> :)
22:57:22 <JonathanD> hello mchua
22:57:39 <mchua> JonathanD: Good point. It's also different for different kids, right? 5 year old who hates vegetables != 15 year old who wants to go vegetarian, etc.
22:57:54 <JonathanD> well not only that
22:57:55 <mchua> there's no universal "learn to cook" curriculum, we all like different foods, have different kitchens
22:58:08 <JonathanD> but the age matters for simple things
22:58:17 <JonathanD> like, WHATs should I teach them.
22:58:20 <paulproteus> 3) We will show you how to use OpenHatch to ask for new contributors, find new people to work with, and help them learn how to help you.
22:58:21 * mchua nods. that's another good point
22:58:27 <JonathanD> I might teach a 5 year old how to mix tea from a powder
22:58:36 <JonathanD> but I'm surely not going to teach them to grill a steak.
22:59:07 <mchua> JonathanD: and also what they're able/allowed to access... which goes for hacking as well. if you've only got access to, say, a school lab, or an XO, or library wifi, vs "I've had a nice new laptop every year since I was 12 and have never lived without the internet and have all summer free to hack"
22:59:15 <paulproteus> That last one is a big vague, but I guess it has to do with the project pages.
22:59:20 <JonathanD> I might demonstrate how I do something to someone who I don't think is ready to actually prepare it on their own.
22:59:27 <JonathanD> As the demonstration might still have a teaching value.
22:59:31 <mchua> paulproteus: we claim to have solved this problem? :)
22:59:40 <paulproteus> "Our solution: OpenHatch is a community website where you can say what your project needs and what help you're willing to provide"
22:59:40 <JonathanD> (this goes beyond cooking, of course)
22:59:53 <paulproteus> </summary>
23:00:07 <JonathanD> I really like openhatch, paulproteus
23:00:10 <mchua> paulproteus: okay, so the learning objective here is "you've got a FOSS project and you want new folks, here's how to use openhatch to get that done"?
23:00:11 <JonathanD> I've been sending people there :)
23:00:18 <paulproteus> JonathanD: Oh, cool!
23:00:24 <paulproteus> Send me their thoughts/feedback too!
23:00:29 <JonathanD> I shall do so
23:00:46 <paulproteus> mchua: Yeah, I think that's the angle we push.
23:01:00 <paulproteus> And the answers are
23:01:11 <paulproteus> 0. Start with your bug tracker. Label bugs as bitesize
23:01:28 <paulproteus> 0.a. Explain why this is useful. Dreyfus model exposition is a fine idea by me.
23:01:30 <mchua> paulproteus: (keep going, I need to run a block over to the hotel pool)
23:01:34 <paulproteus> (okay)
23:01:39 <paulproteus> Maybe we can start with
23:01:41 <mchua> paulproteus: also, metrics to prove openhatch == teh betterz! == good
23:01:43 <paulproteus> 0. Here's what it's like to be a n00b
23:01:48 <JonathanD> paulproteus: you should expand beyond software ;)
23:01:55 * mchua can do #0, and also touch on non-coding
23:02:00 <paulproteus> mchua: I have some anecdotal evidence, and I might be able to sum those anecdotes into a number
23:02:20 <paulproteus> Normally I give presentations at high velocity to make sure they're interesting.
23:02:29 <paulproteus> This is one where we don't have a whole *lot* to say, but we might have a lot of convincing to do.
23:02:40 <paulproteus> But the problem is that we might end with people in the audience who simply already agree with us.
23:03:04 <JonathanD> paulproteus: to include free and open source arts and culture too.
23:03:24 <paulproteus> JonathanD: I maintain freeculture.org, so believe me that's occurred to me.
23:03:47 <paulproteus> I just don't have time. But if we had a Free Culture And Arts liason to help figure out how to bend the website to be useful in those ways and interact with those people, I'd be for that.
23:04:41 <JonathanD> paulproteus: ah, I didn't know that :)
23:04:48 <JonathanD> paulproteus: that might be a "Scott" thing?
23:04:53 <paulproteus> There's a lot about me you don't know (-;
23:05:00 <JonathanD> clearly!
23:05:56 <JonathanD> paulproteus: I'm thinking of the basekamp people here, it occurs to me that one or more of them might be able to assist there.
23:06:03 * paulproteus prefers to keep drafting in http://piratepad.net/wz3ofST2Om
23:12:19 <Jefro> if you guys are at a pausing place, sdziallas and I can update you on plans for the LinuxCon Education Mini-Summit
23:12:40 <sdziallas> yup yup
23:13:19 <Jefro> I'm just editing the speakers list, but it looks like we are going to have a quite a rollicking summit.  I only hope there are profs there as well!
23:13:34 <sdziallas> if so we should prolly #endmeeting the one above and get this one logged too
23:13:50 <sdziallas> Jefro: yeah, maybe somebody pass this around in the appropriate channels
23:13:51 <paulproteus> #endmeeting