Changing the nature of our weekly meetings

So HelpHub has already been deployed and other projects are in need of some focus.

I’ve been thinking about how to make our meetings more useful. Meetings that are just about updates aren’t the best use of everyone’s volunteer time.

Meetings that require involvement but no one is prepared for ain’t the best either.

So I’m hoping that we can improve how we run the meetings. I’d love for everyone to suggest something.

I’ll start off –

  1. Let’s rotate facilitators and note takers. Both roles have the ability to help someone really get into the groove and understand the Docs Team.
  2. Let’s change all meetings to Docs Team meeting (no special HelpHub dedicated only meetings)
  3. Let’s time-box each section of the meeting
  4. Let’s have focuses for each meeting. (e.g.)
    • Docs Team Meeting (60% time on HelpHub discussions, 40% other pieces)
    • Docs Team Meeting (60% time Docs Handbook, 40% other pieces)
    • Docs Team Meeting (60% DevHub discussions, 40% other pieces)
    • Docs Team Meeting (60% Flagship WordCamp contributor day discussions, 40% other pieces)
    • You get the drift!

Any better ideas? I’d love to hear them!

Summary for Docs Team Meeting: February 10, 2020

Attendance

@leogermani, @valentinbora, @felipeloureirosantos, @milana_cap, @marcio-zebedeu, @tomf, @chrisvanpatten, @atachibana, @rahmohn, @estelaris, @nullbyte, @bph, @kulsumsiddique, @ibdz, @kartiks16, @passionate, @audrasjb, @themiked, @kenshino, @mkaz, @sukafia

Facilitator: @leogermani
Note taker: @valentinbora

Actionable points

  • @everyone to review and give feedback on the user survey by Feb 12th, 2020.
  • @valentinbora to post DevHub migration cross-check code to GitHub [update: done]
  • @milana_cap to update workflow for facilitating a meeting by including a step to review prior meeting notes
  • @milana_cap @kenshino to confirm usage of CrowdSignal or another service for hosting the survey
  • @atachibana to coordinate survey review before it goes live
  • @leogermani to review and update the Handbook and welcome box to attract new contributors
  • @leogermani to reach out to the #meta team to ask for stats to help highlight how important, popular and relevant docs are, as well as stats to support the survey (most viewed pages, devices used, referrals, searches etc.)

Next meeting

Monday, February 17, 2020, 15:00 UTC on Slack #docs (follow here)

Codex to DevHub migration

For context, please see the Codex to DevHub migration sheet.

@leogermani asked @atachibana about updated metrics regarding migration to DevHub

@valentinbora updated the team about a quick tool he’s written to cross-check migration status for Functions as he found quite a few pages out of sync in the Sheet vs. their actual live status. Before automated corrections there were 480/1069 Functions done (44.9%), after corrections we’ve won some and lost some, tallying to 374/1069 (35%)

@milana_cap (zzap) requested access to the code and @valentinbora promised to push it to GitHub. [update: done]

HelpHub (User Docs) Survey

Please check the survey and give feedback

everyone’s opinion matters

@leogermani reminded everyone that the purpose of the survey is to learn: “How complete is our documentation and how can we improve our user docs?”

@themiked considered the survey to be asking some questions that could be inferred by statistics instead

@mkaz asked whether the survey was to be taken from a user’s or a developer’s standpoint. @leogermani clarified that it’s both

@themiked mentioned that the question “How complete is our documentation” is a difficult one to answer for end-users but we could still give it a try

@leogermani encouraged feedback for the survey to go to the p2 post linked above in order to have it all in one place but would like to hear from @bph in terms of the roadmap for the survey, with WordCamp Asia in mind.

Comments for the survey should be added by February 12th in order to prepare the survey well enough in advance before WordCamp Asia happening on February 21st, 2020.

@mkaz considers open ended questions to be difficult for end-users to answer and is wondering whether end-users get their answers from official documentation or elsewhere

@bph, @leogermani, @milana_cap discussed where to publish the survey, be it CrowdSignal or Pollbuddy vs. Google Forms. @kenshino should have something to say about that

@kenshino @milana_cap agreed to first focus on gathering the right questions to survey for before February 12th

@felipeloureirosantos suggested the open-source LimeSurvey as a tool

@milana_cap offered to review CrowdSignal as a tool for the survey per @kenshino‘s request

Docs presence at WordCamp Asia

@milana_cap and @atachibana will lead the Docs table at WordCamp Asia 2020

@leogermani would like to attract more people to contribute to Docs and wants to review the Welcome box on the handbook page and bring documentation up to date to make it easier for newcomers.

@atachibana mentioned @estelaris‘ suggestion to reorganize the documentation tree with categories and subcategories.

@valentinbora suggested reviewing barriers to entry alongside motivational efforts for new contributors

Docs contributor and team badges

@milana_cap shared her work in progress document for criteria on obtaining docs badges.

@kenshino suggested to simplify the docs badge tracking Sheet to just two tabs. Any project leads can add contributors and they’ll be awarded a badge without question. 

Open Floor

@valentinbora posted some tickets regarding DevHub and Explanation post types to help with Codex to DevHub migration (see more)

@leogermani @milana_cap mentioned @netweb was working on making it easier for setting up a local HelpHub environment for new code contributors to join in

@sukafia would like to know how to suggest edits to the HelpHub (user documentation) and @milana_cap suggested to ask in the #docs channel directly on Slack

@felipeloureirosantos posted an update regarding Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR) docs. They have 5 new translated pages, 1 page in progress and a new contributor over the past week

@leogermani and @valentinbora conferred about the migration process, specifically that there’s little room for automation regarding redirection, but the redirect itself could be taken care of by an automated script once marked Ready for redirect

Transcript

https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RP4WU5/p1581346828033500

Agenda for Docs Team Meeting 10 February 2020

Our next Documentation Team meeting is scheduled on

Monday, February 10, 2020, 15:00 UTC

in the #docs channel on Slack.

Items to discuss:

  1. Attendance
  2. Notetaker & Facilitator selection
  3. HelpHub (User Docs) Survey
  4. Our presence at WordCamp Asia
  5. Open Floor

#agenda

Request for Comment: Questions & Ideas for our Upcoming User Survey

Now with DevHub and HelpHub migration in full swing, we are ready to survey WordPress users about the usefulness of our documentation. 

In preparation, we’d like to collect topic suggestions from WordPress documentation team members and people who pay attention to the Make / WordPress blogs. Ideally, the questions can be reused yearly to gather information that will help inform our team’s work in the future. 

The goal of this specific survey is to learn “How complete is our documentation and how can we improve our user docs?”

Example: Where were you able to find End User documentation on wordpress.org?

  • Yes, after searching and looking at a few pages. 
  • Yes, right away via the Support pages
  • No, I couldn’t find them and gave up 
  • No, I read about the Block editor on someone else’s blog
  • Didn’t know there was documentation

In this example, we want to learn how hard it is for those taking the survey to find the documentation for the block editor, the big change to how end users work with WordPress.

This survey, of course, is not just about the block editor, but all documentation.

Please add your comments by February 12th, and we will be able to prepare the survey in time for launch at WordCamp Asia, February 21st. 

We also need volunteers for the team to create the survey. Please leave your name in the comments if you would be available to work on the survey between now and Feb 19th, 2020.

Summary for Docs Team Meeting: February 3, 2020

Attendance

@Kenshino, @felipeelia, @bph, @tjnowell, @WPZA, @kafleg, @marcio-zebedeu, @nobnob, @passoniate, @sasiddiqui, @leogermani, @jamieschmid, @atachibana, @milana_cap, @estelaris, @audrasjb, @chetan200891, @themiked

Facilitator: @kenshino
Note taker: @milana_cap
Next meeting facilitator: still don’t have one, feel free to apply.

Function reference redirect status

Thanks to @marcio-zebedeu and @stevenlinx, we have re-routed 447 (of 1069) pages, which is 41.8% in total. They re-routed 125 pages within just two weeks. Thank you so much!

HelpHub (User Docs) Survey

@bph and @atachibana are in charge for this survey. @themiked volunteered to help.

@bph started working on draft, @atachibana will review.
updated: The P2 is available: Request for Comment: Questions & Ideas for our Upcoming User Survey

Survey needs to be published by 12 Feb 2020 so we have a week to make it work (19th is the real dead-line).

Our presence at WordCamp Asia

@atachibana and @milana_cap are going to lead Docs table.

We need to work on these items and get some ideas that we can share with the WCAsia Contributor Day team so that they can tell attendees.

  1. How can we make our work more interesting to people so they will come to the table? (We have to do this pre-event)
  2. How can we make it rewarding during the event?
  3. How can we keep them post event?

Docs Team Badges

It’s a Docs Team Badges time this week. If you don’t have a badge and should be getting one, please submit your names to either:

  • @atachibana (DevHub, HelpHub Content, translating HelpHub)
  • @zzap (HelpHub Dev, Docs Team Handbook)
  • Theme Review Team reps (Theme Handbook)

Transcript: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RP4WU5/p1580742450325700

Next meeting will happen on

Monday, February 10, 2020, 15:00 UTC

Agenda for Docs Team Meeting 3 February 2020

Our next Documentation Team meeting is scheduled on

Monday, February 3, 2020, 15:00 UTC

in the #docs channel on Slack.

Items to discuss:

  1. Attendance
  2. Notetaker & Facilitator selection
  3. HelpHub (User Docs) Survey
  4. Our presence at WordCamp Asia
  5. Open Floor

X-post: Get Involved Table at WordCamp Asia 2020

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/community: Get Involved Table at WordCamp Asia 2020

Summary for Docs Team Meeting: January 27, 2020

Facilitator: @kulsumsiddique

Attendance: @kenshino, @bph, @felipeelia, @kulsumsiddique, @audrasjb, @ibdz, @wpza, @felipeloureirosantos, @nullbyte, @kafleg, @atachibana, @nobnob

Note-taker: @audrasjb

Next week Facilitator: @kenshino (but invite for other meeting facilitator is open, please comment below if interested)

Team workflow and badges

@felipeelia: workflow docs are being constructed on Trello. @milana_cap is the one to ask for access if needed.

Badges are being discussed in this P2 post. The contributor badge has been discussed for a while now, trying to reach a number of X micro contributions. On his last comment there, @felipeelia suggested to give the badge right away, just as in Core and Meta. @bph added that there is precedent on other teams and make the contributor badge seen right away: it’s the best onboarding tool we have.

@bph proposed a list of elligible contributions:

  • Fix an article
  • Create meeting notes
  • facilitate a meeting
  • reporting an issue on the comment form?
  • Creating a PR for Gutenberg docs
  • user notes on code reference
  • write an article on HelpHub
  • update an article on HelpHub
  • migrate a page to DevHub
  • Report an issues

@kenshino shared some worries about relevancy: “if we say that fixing a typo is fine – we’ll have a rush of requests to do that to farm badges”. Indeed, Core and Meta have automated system to give props to people who contribute on Trac, based on commit messages. There is no such system for Docs.

@felipeelia argued that 1) People receive core/meta badges sending a 1-line patch ; 2) Coming in to Docs Slack team and reporting a small typo does require some effort. @bph added that working out how to communicate a fix to the Docs team is a significant step. even if the contribution is just a typo fix. @kenshino agreed, but the team must keep an eye on abuse to tighten those rules if needed.

Regarding Team Badges, @kenshino proposed to set up a sheet and to give edit access to people that are running projects within the Docs Team.

HelpHub Survey

Reminder from previous meeting discussions: The goal is to build the questions of the survey with the general theme being “How do you think we can improve the WordPress documentation?”. Some questions using the likert scale to track how good it is now so the Team can repeat the survey in the future. Some open fields to get proper feedback so it’s possible to define future projects better. That would be great for this survey to be ready for WordCamp Asia, in less than one month.

@atachibana is coordinating the effort. @bph proposed to assist on this task.

Step 1 is to start a Google Doc in the team’s shared folder.

This survey and the Docs team focus for WordCamp Asia are set to be the next meeting focus.

@bph proposed to draft a P2 post to ask for questions proposals. @kenshino proposed to review this draft.

#contributor-day, #helphub

X-post: WCEU 2020 – Leave no Contributor Behind

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/updates: Comment on WCEU 2020 – Leave no Contributor Behind

Agenda for Docs Team Meeting 27th January 2020

Our next Documentation Team meeting is scheduled on

Monday, January 27, 2020, 15:00 UTC

in the #docs channel on Slack.

Items to discuss:

  1. Attendance
  2. Notetaker & Facilitator selection
  3. Discussion on the Docs team organization in general
  4. HelpHub Discussions
    • Progress of the survey
    • Categorizing discovery issue by a proper search system
  5. Project Updates
    • Common APIs Handbook
    • DevHub
  6. Follow up on other topics
    • Update on mobile navigation for the article page design
    • Multisite docs
    • Update on meta ticket regarding new readme.txt file for the Developer Handbook
  7. Open Floor

Summary for Docs Team Meeting 20th January 2020

Facilitator & Attendance

Facilitator: @felipeelia

Attendance: @milana_cap, @atachibana, @marcio, @bph, @audrasjb, @tjnowell, @nullbyte, @pbrocks, @carike, @tomf, @kulsumsiddique, @nobnob, @kartikshukla, @estelaris, @kenshino, @clorith and @fierevere.

Note-taker: @audrasjb

Next week Facilitator: @kulsumsiddique

Meeting transcript on Slack

DevHub migration status

@atachibana shared some stats about this project: 322 of 1069 pages were re-routed from Codex to Code Reference, which is 30.1% of all.

This is one of the ongoing efforts of the Documentation team. If anybody wants to help, they can contact @atachibana via DM or via #docs Slack channel.

New contributors are encouraged to read this handbook page to learn more about contributing to HelpHub articles.

Discussion on the Docs team organization in general

As WordCamp Asia is coming, it would be nice to reach an agreement on two items: Team Workflows and Badges distribution.

Team workflow

It refers to reporting an issue about WordPress documentation. There is a Trello board for that. Most workflows are covered, if not all.

@milana_cap hopes to have the Workflows page published in the first week of February.

Badges

Contributors are encouraged to leave comments and suggestions on this post by the end of this week so @milana_cap can start working on a P2 proposal.

@felipeelia pointed out the example of someone who noted an error on one of the available docs and asked if they would be elligible to receive the docs contributor badge. @bph noted that it’s a micro-contribution. Several micro-contributions could lead people to receive a contributor badge. @felipeelia pointed out that it would need to keep track of each contribution in a document. @bph added that normally each contributor could keep track of it and let the Team know, when the threshold is reached.

@estalris noted that the design team do triages and people who participate on triages don’t receive a badge, because that is a micro-contribution. Only members with a specific project or role in the team are the ones that receive badges. Note: it’s for the Team badge.

Support team has a 400 replies goal to receive the contributor badge. Becoming a moderator comes with the team badge.

HelpHub

@atachibana is working on the progress and will prepare something for the next meeting.

@kenshino said he would love for that Survey to be ready to be distributed at WC Asia, in one month.

The goal is to build the questions of the survey with the general theme being “How do you think we can improve the WordPress documentation?”. Some questions using the likert scale to track how good it is now so the Team can repeat the survey in the future. Some open fields to get proper feedback so it’s possible to define future projects better.

@estelaris worked on the subcategory issue https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qSNKiAwLbc2nLrtGLj4Ndp4-N0daZOfgazlsSYnFXqM/edit?usp=sharing. That was her first draft in trying to organize the articles, but she needs help to define the subcategories.

A discussion started about the relevancy of categorization, but the Team agreed categorization makes sense when there is a lot of content as users would be able to filter what they want to look for. @kenshino noted that we’re trying to solve a discovery issue and those won’t be solved with one method. Categorizing them is a start. But a proper search system is also necessary.

@estelaris and @atachibana are going to work together on sub-categorization system.

New readme.txt file for the Developer Handbook

@carike noted that the Core Privacy team discussed the proposed headers for readme.txt files. There is some debate about whether external calls need to be one item or split into three. Everyone agrees with the headers in general though. Next step is a meta ticket. They cannot update the readme.txt before the new headers are added, as this would lead to confusion.

Custom fields page

@leogermani edited the Custom Fields page as previously discussed. He added an entry to the Workflows card in Trello about Code reference.

#meetings, #summary