IRC office hours/Office hours 2013-10-24

Chat on Flow
Thursday 24 October 2013
18:00 - 19:00 UTC

[17:55:19] * marktraceur grabs his torch and pitchfork�
[18:04:29] <quiddity> Greetings, to anyone who is here for the Flow office hours. :) We don't have any prepared statements, so we're happily awaiting any questions you might have.
[18:04:56] <Ironholds> (he prepared that statement. he lies!)
[18:05:05] <Ironholds> quiddity: want to poke -en, too?
[18:05:08] <marktraceur> quiddity: Do puppies have Christmas? </facetious>
[18:05:51] <Finnegan> oh are we doing this again?
[18:05:58] <Ironholds> Finnegan: properly, this time
[18:06:21] * Finnegan gets the tar, feathers, and whips�
[18:06:24] <protonk> Ironholds: what is a Flow when it is at home?
[18:06:44] <Ironholds> protonk: a discussion system to replace talkpages
[18:06:52] <J-Mo> I have question!!! How will Flow integrate with Notification?
[18:06:53] <protonk> ah
[18:06:53] <Ironholds> although at home, it's just Jeff. Nice guy, two kids. Builds model trains.
[18:07:01] <Ironholds> (I like wordplay)
[18:07:10] * Maryana waves to protonk �
[18:07:19] <protonk> hello, Maryana!
[18:07:54] <Maryana> J-Mo: it'll integrate with echo quite nicely :)
[18:08:13] <Maryana> you'll get notifications for replies to new discussions you start
[18:08:17] <Maryana> as well as direct replies
[18:08:23] <quiddity> The main page for Flow is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Flow with other key pages linked in the sidebar navbox.
[18:08:26] <Maryana> and mentions will work as expected
[18:08:55] <J-Mo> dare we hope for autocomplete for @mentions?
[18:09:31] <Maryana> yes, eventually :)
[18:09:38] <Maryana> though probably not in the very first release
[18:09:40] <J-Mo> thanks Maryana :)
[18:10:04] <Maryana> have you checked it out on our test wiki?
[18:10:11] <Maryana> http://ee-flow.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Flow/Sandbox
[18:10:16] <Ironholds> J-Mo: that'll probably be in the VE version, rather than the wikitext one
[18:10:45] <Maryana> feel free to create an account and play around in that test wiki
[18:10:50] <Maryana> just be aware that this is changing every day
[18:10:54] <Ironholds> (obviously you'll still be able to send/trigger notifications in wikitext, just without autocomplete)
[18:10:59] <Maryana> and lots of things are still buggy/unstable
[18:12:19] <J-Mo> Maryana: where is the flow team at with other test deployments? any new ideas or scheduled betas?
[18:12:44] <Maryana> we're aiming to have our first release features more or less ready to go by early november
[18:13:07] * J-Mo is actually intensely curious about these things, and is not simply a WMF mole�
[18:13:10] <Maryana> that's when we'll invite wikiproject users to come check it out and decide if it's ready for an onwiki trial
[18:13:14] <Maryana> hehe
[18:13:28] <J-Mo> nice.
[18:13:42] <Maryana> so, yeah, look to hear something from us by the first week of nov.
[18:14:00] <Ironholds> J-Mo: feel free to ask the teahouse people if they want to get involved in the first release, too
[18:15:11] <Ironholds> don't worry, the Special:Flow prefix is going away
[18:15:13] <Ironholds> *phew*
[18:15:27] <J-Mo> how about bot integration? For example, will SineBot work with Flow? Or will all comments be signed automatically?
[18:16:18] <Ironholds> J-Mo: that's one of my biggest things, actually; it's pretty important to me
[18:16:31] <Ironholds> obviously, new API, new features (and new limitations), new code.
[18:16:59] <Ironholds> but what I'm hoping we can do is have a very well documented explanation for how to interact with flow, from a dev POV, coupled with outreach to bot-runners
[18:17:12] <Ironholds> in terms of SineBot specifically, automatic signing is A Thing.
[18:18:31] <spagewmf> Flow comments always show the username.
[18:20:03] <J-Mo> cool. who can moderate Flow comments?
[18:20:41] <Maryana> anyone can hide comments - admins/oversighters can delete/suppress
[18:20:46] <J-Mo> scenario: lets say Ironholds comes to my project and starts spouting off-topic
[18:21:27] <Ironholds> J-Mo: ahhh, a tuesday
[18:21:29] <Ironholds> continue
[18:21:30] <ebernhardson> "anyone" currently means autoconfirmed i think :P
[18:21:35] <ebernhardson> but easily changable
[18:26:34] <J-Mo> okay, another one for ya: tell me how I give someone a barnstar with Flow.
[18:26:49] <Maryana> you can add any template you want to a post :)
[18:27:09] <Ironholds> as long as it's black
[18:27:13] <Ironholds> or am I thinking the model T?
[18:27:19] <protonk> is this all handled on the backend or is there more JS that the user is shown for Flow than for say the visual editor
[18:27:36] <Ironholds> protonk: define 'this all'?
[18:27:38] <ebernhardson> (note that the wiki with the sandbox running only has ~250 of the more popular templates imported)
[18:27:59] * Finnegan wishes that test site was SULed :/�
[18:28:09] <Ironholds> Finnegan: it's labs, unfortunately
[18:28:18] <ebernhardson> protonk: both
[18:28:29] <spagewmf> protonk there is some JS, but it's currently PHP sending HTML for the different blocks on the page
[18:29:05] <protonk> Ironholds: meaning what runs in the client to make flow happen. I'd look myself but mw barfed/minified code isn't super great for digging around w/o a roadmap. :)
[18:29:31] <spagewmf> protonk BTW if you opt in to VE in Special:Preferences, then Flow will use VE for editing
[18:29:34] <ebernhardson> spagewmf: but the oo.js stuff which is "in the pipeline" will be more like the other end. We will support both render from backend and the oo.ui stuff which will be more single page-y)
[18:30:04] <Ironholds> protonk: good question; ebernhardson, spagewmf ?
[18:30:11] <ebernhardson> protonk: add ?debug=false to the url
[18:30:25] <ebernhardson> protonk: then you will get all the individual unmolested files (mostly, some css preprocessors still run)
[18:30:26] <spagewmf> protonk, pro-tip: add ?debug=1 to any MW URL and it requests the separate JS files
[18:30:36] <ebernhardson> protonk: err debug=true :) or 1, or whatever
[18:30:52] <protonk> spagewmf: yay!
[18:32:17] <protonk> oh god that is so much better
[18:32:33] <J-Mo> will Flow let you reply to a reply, a la ":::"?
[18:33:17] <spagewmf> Finnegan: we may put Flow on mediawiki.org , just on some Talk:Flow_Portal pages, for dog-fooding. Then SUL will apply
[18:33:55] <spagewmf> J-Mo: excellent question. Prototype is topic has comments, comments have reply comments, and that's it. But there's a discussion at...
[18:34:45] <jorm> it will, but it will display in line.
[18:34:50] <ebernhardson> you can still reply to the nested comments, they just dont get further indented
[18:34:51] <jorm> at least in the current prototype.
[18:35:43] <quiddity> J-Mo, there's a thread asking for feedback on threading/indenting at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Flow#Request_for_your_feedback:_Let.27s_talk_about_nesting.21
[18:36:43] <J-Mo> nice, thanks quiddity
[18:36:51] <quiddity> J-Mo, there's also a FAQ answer with further details on the initial direction we're experimenting with, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flow/Design_FAQ#How_will_the_limited_indenting.2Fthreading_system_help.3F
[18:44:41] <J-Mo> cool! I'll look forward to boning up. Thanks, Flow team!
[18:44:48] <Ironholds> no problem!
[18:44:57] <Ironholds> wanna sign up for our newsletter? *nudges nick*
[18:45:09] <quiddity> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flow/Newsletter  !
[18:45:28] <quiddity> (no editions sent out yet)
[18:46:33] <protonk> where does the development code live?
[18:47:05] <Ironholds> protonk: our git instance, presumably; hangon
[18:47:32] <Ironholds> https://git.wikimedia.org/summary/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FFlow
[18:49:05] <protonk> cool. ty
[18:50:16] <protonk> Is it common to link to that in the project page for stuff like this? Apologies if these are more general/remedial questions
[18:51:37] <Ironholds> protonk: good point, we should make a link
[18:52:10] <protonk> STOP ASSUMING I'M MAKING A POINT
[18:52:11] <protonk>  :)
[18:52:12] <spagewmf> protonk since it's an extension, Extension:Flow is the "project page" at a code level, and that does have a _repo summary_ link
[18:52:45] <Ironholds> protonk: one moment while I tell the recruiters you're an alcoholic
[18:53:26] <Ironholds> ;p
[18:53:40] <Ironholds> (I kid, obviously)
[18:54:20] <spagewmf> maybe the Flow_Portal header should have a "Show me the code!" link to the extension page.
[18:54:31] <protonk> spagewmf: rgr that. I'm used to the web world where every project has a prominent link to code
[18:54:36] <protonk> could be added to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Flow_Navigation
[18:54:37] <protonk>  ?
[18:56:39] <Ironholds> alrighty, I think we're wrapping up at this end - quiddity, y'take logs
[18:56:41] <Ironholds>  ?
[18:57:27] <quiddity> protonk, Will do. Ironholds, Will do.  :)
[18:58:46] <spagewmf> protonk done
[18:59:31] <protonk> awesome.
[19:00:11] <Ironholds> okay; take care, all, and thanks :)
[19:01:05] <spagewmf> protonk get a gerrit account and send patches
[19:01:08] <spagewmf> bye all
[19:01:36] <marktraceur> Send lawyers, guns, and money!
[19:01:54] <protonk> spagewmf: will do