Forum:Monthly IRC meetings

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Monthly IRC meetings

		Catuse says at 08:18, June 3, 2013 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton."
		So this is something that's been bugging me for a while, and I've been getting the impression I'm not the only one: we, the FFWiki, are great at starting discussions about improving things, but absolutely terrible at actually finishing them. Just look around the forum if you don't believe me: the poll that TA set up at Wikia's request fell off after one night, the Game Manuals discussion is also dead, the Fandom Notability discussion made a lot of progress but never actually went anywhere because people lost interest, and unless it's being discussed privately, we have no idea if MMIII is going to be a thing, might be a thing but might not be, or has lost all traces of thingishness altogether. And that's not even getting started on discussions that happen in talk pages. I'm a hypocrite for not helping to see those discussions to completion, but complaining anyways. But anyways. Anyways, what I'm suggesting is monthly IRC meetings, similar to what they have at the KHWiki. I know, KHWiki can be a bit more ... chaotic than us, and I know their meetings, Roundtables as they call them, often end in failure because nobody shows up. But (a) being Lawful Good will only keep things smoother than KHWiki's meetings go (and they go smooth enough when people do show up), and (b) our IRC channel is a good four times bigger than KHWiki's, so if we agree on a time (I'm leaning on some time late evening Saturday UTC, when we seem to get the most activity) that should be a complete non-issue.

		Kaimi - "No matter how dark the night, morning always comes. And our journey begins anew." TALK - 08:28, June 3, 2013 (UTC)
		That's a good suggestion, Mittens (I hope you don't mind me calling you that. ;P). Yes, Saturday evening seems the best choice. If we would agree to that, I think we could use a timer we have built into our CSS or JS (I don't remember) and have that timer put somewhere on the main page, so people would know how long they should wait before that IRC meeting, also the timer would be put just few days before so it's not there all the time, but yeah: it's easier to get some help with the Wiki through the IRC channel. Is there an article you think is of an exceptional quality? Vote for it here!

Two things:

1. Have it's own separate channel.
2. Be logged and pasted on the wiki.

But I don't this solves the problem. People should pay attention to discussions on-wiki. I'd prefer highlighting over people needing to be forced to comment on things in an IRC chat. 92.28.179.6 12:02, June 3, 2013 (UTC)

		Catuse says at 18:21, June 3, 2013 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton."
		I know it doesn't solve the problem, but it does bandage it, and since I have no idea to fix it ... I guess this is the next best thing? I don't really get why it would need a separate channel (though, if the side conversations cause too much of a distraction...) but as for being logged, seeing as everything on FFWiki is logged several times over and pasted somewhere, that's kind of a given.

Some people don't care. And if they don't want to care then they shouldn't be forced to. The IRC channel is used mostly for general social stuff. I.e. it should be opt-in and shouldn't take things away from people who don't want to pay attention (other than taking away users who would paying attention in one chat but not the main).

Eh, that's what I think. That's all I have to say. JBed (talk) 19:38, June 3, 2013 (UTC)

One can also sometimes dump a link to a discussion he needs to be resolved on the IRC and interested people will popup in the thread and throw their two cents.—Kaimi (999,999 CP/5 TP) 17:13, June 5, 2013 (UTC)

Sometimes. Not most of the time. Which is what makes something like this necessary in the first place. C A T U S E 07:27, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

@Kaimi, I don't think deciding a weekday is a good idea yet. The whole problem with nobody showing up in KHWiki's ones was that it was Saturday. When we moved them to Friday, people actually did show up, even ones who never had before. --Sove 06:40, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

I suggest multiple meetings, to cover the time zones. At the moment (like, right now, as I'm on IRC) we have a rare occurence where we have several American/Canadian users on the IRC as well as the Australian users, but until around 11UTC, maybe later, is generally the latest the Aussies are around, and the Americans/Canadians filter through anytime after midday, with the Brits being around generally anytime. This is all just a guess from user's online habits, but you get the picture, not everyone is around all the time and it'd be impractical to ask everyone to all come together. So maximum of three or four meetings(?), all on the same day or maybe across two in the month, to cover everyone who needs to discuss stuff at different times, and keep the really important links to the forums in the topic, as is obvious. Then those in the various time zones can report back to each other, through the forums, Talk Pages, or Facebook for those who use it and aren't really that active in the mainspace anymore.

I do agree that it needs its own channel though, as it's easy to become distracted from the conversation and become confused in the main channel. Tia-Lewise 08:20, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

I don't think multiple meetings is a good idea. It adds further layers of complexity that just wouldn't be there if people used the damn talk pages. Discussions work by others having opinions. If in one of these discussions one person has a minblowing outlook that changes everyone else's mind, the other two meetings without that person might not get that, take the opposite idea, and then what do we have? Unenlightened people who weren't involved in the entire discussion making a consensus on something because they were less informed. 2.102.229.203 13:50, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

It would probably be easier to have a forum thread or something where people could weigh in if they couldn't make it and didn't give their opinions on the talk page/forum before the discussion. Having multiple meetings means coming to multiple agreements, which might not be the same, and then we have to agree on an agreement. Metaagreement sounds no fun. :/ C A T U S E 18:33, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

		DrakeyC - Crossing the distant night...Wandering the desert sea...The gods' voices are mirages... TALK - 08:55, June 8, 2013 (UTC)
		I like the general idea of meeting on the IRC to discuss wiki issues in real-time so those issues don't die, but I have some thoughts. Who would be discussing these things? This is a big problem due to timezone issues, not all of our prominent members will be able to attend at once. Would we keep a list of issues needing to be discussed? I agree to holding it on a separate channel and logging the discussion, but would others be able to attend and raise business? Is the point of the meetings to keep issues moving or to resolve them? If the latter, I'm unsure how I feel about a potentially dead issue being decided by a relatively small committee.

TacticAngel TALK 16:32, June 8, 2013 (UTC) My thoughts on this are more-or-less in line with Drake. I would certainly try to attend, myself, if such a thing were to happen, but given member's varying time-zones and schedules, its sort of unrealistic to think we could find a time that would work. I believe forum discussions are better in every way for resolving large issues because it takes away the issue of a log, the natural and probably unavoidable exclusion of members based on schedule/location, and I am not sure if we are overwhelmed with issues that would really warrant the increase in bureaucracy.

		Catuse says at 20:05, June 8, 2013 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton."
		@Drake: Anyone who can attend, I guess. Ideally, anyone is welcome. Looking through the staff list, and special:listusers, I can think of about 20-30 active editors (10-20 active mainspace) on the wiki, so we should try for at least 15 present at a meeting. Naturally, though we should probably have some time after the meeting to discuss stuff that wasn't planned for. Others? Keep them moving, mostly. Though if there's enough people on, we could bring a discussion to a close, like we usually end up doing with LPs.

		Catuse says at 04:04, June 14, 2013 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton."
		Well, this discussion seems to have died down and everyone seems to be in agreement so I guess all that remains is to decide on a time and have a trial meeting?

We'd likely be looking for 21:00 or 22:00 UTC. Our core three groups are UK, NA, and Australia. And for UK that's late night, for NA that's evening, and for Australia that's late morning but early enough to be on according to what I've seen. 89.243.247.134 15:59, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x333/KujaFFIX/c838eb05.png

		Ark - Eternal Darkness TALK - 18:41, June 16, 2013 (UTC)
		Despite my relative activity on the Wiki and on IRC, I do favour keeping discussions on-Wiki where possible, as it keeps everything neatly recorded and users tend to think out their points more than they necessarily would in real-time. As such, I agree with TA that forums are better in every way for large and important topics, but, of course, it is often a challenge to keep small and medium topics running until they reach a conclusion (as proven by this one; Cat may or may not have had to poke me to post in it <_<), so an IRC meeting does make sense. Setting up a side channel is best, as some users do avoid the main channel due to its effectiveness as a tool of distraction (and/or the insanity/inanity); doing so would not be difficult (well, aside from choosing a name), and I would give the logging aspect triple redundancy before any other users even joined, so that's not an issue either (and I suspect that Cat can also manage logging and posting duties). It would probably be best to experiment with timing to find out what ends up working best, but ~22:00 UTC sounds reasonable in theory. I would suggest that it would be best to have a sticky forum thread in which topics to be discussed in the next IRC meeting can be added by anyone, although obviously topics should be able to be brought up during the meeting without prior notice. In terms of name for a channel, we could add something under our main namespace, such as #Wikia-FF-Discuss, but that is a rather cumbersome. Alternatives would include ##FFWiki (available), #wikia-finalfantasy (registered and currently directing users to #Wikia-FF), or something else. (Our old channel, #FFWiki, is also still registered by us and is currently forwarding users to our new channel, but I would strongly discourage using that channel for this - we moved due to namespace issues in the first place, and those haven't gone away; it would also simply be confusing). Let me know your views.