[10:18] <Balkhog> @now
[10:18] <ubotu> Current time in Etc/UTC: September 10 2007, 08:18:55 - Next meeting: Forums Council in 3 hours 41 minutes
[10:34] <pochu> @schedule
[10:34] <ubotu> Schedule for Etc/UTC: 10 Sep 12:00: Forums Council | 10 Sep 19:00: Screencast Team | 11 Sep 15:00: Server Team meeting | 11 Sep 19:00: Technical Board | 12 Sep 20:00: Edubuntu | 13 Sep 12:00: Canonical Desktop Team
[11:15] <pochu> Seveas: I'm just curious, what is https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-irc-cloaks for?
[12:53] <PriceChild> @now
[12:53] <ubotu> Current time in Etc/UTC: September 10 2007, 10:53:40 - Next meeting: Forums Council in 1 hour 6 minutes
[01:32] <Artificial> yo Pricechild
[01:32] <PriceChild> *waves*
[01:32] <Artificial> 112 people to the meeting?
[01:33] <PriceChild> Artificial, a lot of idlers
[01:33] <PriceChild> all ubuntu meetings happen here
[01:33] <ziroday> @schedule Singapore
[01:33] <ubotu> Schedule for Asia/Singapore: 10 Sep 20:00: Forums Council | 11 Sep 03:00: Screencast Team | 11 Sep 23:00: Server Team meeting | 12 Sep 03:00: Technical Board | 13 Sep 04:00: Edubuntu | 13 Sep 20:00: Canonical Desktop Team
[01:34] <ziroday> hmm
[02:01] <ubuntugeek> Howdy all
[02:01] <forumsmatthew> greetings
[02:02] <Balkhog> hi..
[02:02] <PriceChild> Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ForumCouncilAgenda
[02:03] <ubuntugeek> Vorian wont be able to make it to the meeting today. Our agenda is pretty light this month, do to my miscommunication to vorian about the meeting date this meeting was put on the agenda a little quick.
[02:03] <ubuntugeek> So I think we plan on discussing Paladine'
[02:03] <ubuntugeek> complaint next month when he can be here
[02:03] <forumsmatthew> fair enough
[02:04] <forumsmatthew> Chuck Norris didn't want to talk about complaints anyway
[02:04] <ubuntugeek> :) hah
[02:05] <ubuntugeek> So, First item. Allowing users with over 6000 posts a custom forum title.
[02:05] <forumsmatthew> I brought that up
[02:05] <forumsmatthew> I thought it would be a nice way to reward faithful forums users
[02:06] <forumsmatthew> possible downsides?
[02:06] <ubuntugeek> I agree, I think if someone has 6000 posts they should be rewarded some how.
[02:07] <chuckdong> I agree too, I think 6000 posts deserves recognition
[02:07] <forumsmatthew> It would be pretty easy to implement. I should be able to get it done today
[02:07] <PriceChild> I don't think it'll be abused... there's no chance anyone would get that many posts by spamming etc. without getting bored/noticed
[02:07] <chuckdong> the only "downside" I can think of is users trying to artificially inflate their postcount with junk posts
[02:07] <ubuntugeek> Downsides, abuse (ie not following forum rules.) I think we would need to amend the forum guidelines to include a plurb about it
[02:07] <chuckdong> but 6000 times.... nah :D
[02:07] <MikeB> 6000 seems high to me
[02:08] <Balkhog> Is there any number better than 6000?
[02:08] <PriceChild> Balkhog, "better"?
[02:08] <ubuntugeek> 4500 ? I dont think we should go lower then that
[02:08] <forumsmatthew> MikeB, I had originally thought 1000, but that's probably too low
[02:08] <forumsmatthew> what do you think?
[02:08] <Balkhog> PriceChild, have some meaning.. or..
[02:09] <chuckdong> IMO 1000 is way too low. I'd be fine with something at around 5000 or so, but too much below that, I think, is too "easy" to reach.
[02:09] <PriceChild> I say higher the better 8-)
[02:09] <forumsmatthew> chuckdong, I agree
[02:09] <forumsmatthew> too high and no one get it
[02:09] <chuckdong> PriceChild: lol then it should be called the ayisu award!
[02:09] <MikeB> I would think 2000 shows a highly motivated forums users, especially since we don't count post to the social areas
[02:09] <PriceChild> haha
[02:10] <PriceChild> what's the highest user rank on the forums atm?
[02:10] <forumsmatthew> I'll go look
[02:10] <chuckdong> Administrator! ;-)
[02:10] <MikeB> also does the language filter work on User Titles
[02:10] <PriceChild> as in what amount of beans?
[02:10] <ubuntugeek> Mikeb: Not sure
[02:10] <chuckdong> hmm are you thinking to let users specify their own?
[02:11] <forumsmatthew> re: language filter...I'm pretty sure it does work on user titles
[02:11] <PriceChild> i'll try 8-)
[02:11] <PriceChild> yeah it works
[02:12] <forumsmatthew> currently you need 7470 for the highest user rank image and 10000 for the highest title
[02:12] <forumsmatthew> that may change in a few minutes... :)
[02:12] <PriceChild> haha wow
[02:12] <PriceChild> yeah
[02:12] <chuckdong> wow
[02:13] <forumsmatthew> I could adjust the default table lower, then allow a custom title after whatever number we decide
[02:13] <ubuntugeek> Let me do a quick query on post counts and see what we are looking at in terms of numbers.
[02:15] <MikeB> well, I think it is a great idea, I say we vote and decide on the number later
[02:16] <Artificial> Why not let people (members) to allow custom titles when reach 10000th?
[02:16] <forumsmatthew> because only 3 or 4 people would have it
[02:16] <chuckdong> I think 10,000 is too high though....
[02:16] <chuckdong> it takes a tremendous amount of motivation to reach 10,000 just by support area posts
[02:16] <forumsmatthew> I was thinking something a little more accessible, but still difficult to attain
[02:17] <Artificial> 7000?
[02:17] <chuckdong> well Ryan should be able to let us know soon a rough distribution.
[02:17] <ubuntugeek> Ok after doing some queries, i think 3500 would be a fair number.
[02:17] <chuckdong> how many people are at 3500 or above?
[02:17] <forumsmatthew> that sounds good to me
[02:17] <MikeB> fine with me
[02:17] <ubuntugeek> about 60
[02:17] <PriceChild> wow that's i?
[02:17] <Artificial> well, we properly see alot post replyies like: "ok", "me too"
[02:17] <PriceChild> *it
[02:18] <ubuntugeek> when you get into the < 2000 range there are thousands and thousands
[02:18] <forumsmatthew> we might see some replies like that, but I kind of doubt it
[02:18] <popey> how about speaking to Gerry Carr @ canonical and see if you can get a freebie from the canonical store for people over a certain number of posts?
[02:18] <chuckdong> btw, ubuntugeek, did you kill the forum server? :D
[02:18] <ubuntugeek> yes I think i did
[02:18] <chuckdong> popey: ooh that sounds fancy
[02:18] <ubuntugeek> lol
[02:18] <popey> vouchers for example
[02:18] <PriceChild> lol i wondered why it was timing out
[02:18] <popey> he offered some for something else recently
[02:18] <popey> or at least suggested he would offer some :)
[02:19] <forumsmatthew> yep, server's down
[02:19] <chuckdong> Artificial: naturally we'd have to enforce anti-spamming...
[02:19] <Artificial> just made a reply on the forum, instead of posting it my gedit pop'd up with the title reply
[02:19] <chuckdong> and if it goes on too much, then we should just call it quits.
[02:19] <ubuntugeek> Yeah sorry, our poor db server :)
[02:19] <forumsmatthew> no, not down, really slow
[02:19] <chuckdong> my other proposal regarding to this....
[02:19] <chuckdong> what about some sort of infraction limit lockout?
[02:20] <forumsmatthew> that might work
[02:20] <chuckdong> i.e. after you receive N infraction points in oyur history, you are automatically disqualified
[02:20] <forumsmatthew> what I was thinking for implementation was to make a new usergroup
[02:20] <forumsmatthew> users automatically move to it
[02:20] <chuckdong> I'm thinking N would be somewhere near 3-5
[02:20] <forumsmatthew> after posting the right number
[02:20] <ubuntugeek> 5 infractions sounds good
[02:20] <forumsmatthew> there must be a way to exclude users with infraction points
[02:20] <chuckdong> we could go "all out" and make it similar to a Ubuntu Members interview process at a FC meeting :)
[02:21] <chuckdong> there seems to be few enough people who reach that milestone so we don't get bogged down
[02:21] <Artificial> Longtime trolls should have their own title! Saying: "hey, I'm a troll" LOL
[02:21] <ubuntugeek> matthew: yah i think we just need to make a infraction rule for that
[02:21] <chuckdong> whoo! database error :)
[02:21] <forumsmatthew> I'm getting the error as well
[02:22] <chuckdong> oh yeah, we should really design a non-IIS style error message ;-)
[02:22] <chuckdong> like a kernel panic mockup
[02:22] <Artificial> a Chuck Norris Killroy instead
[02:22] <forumsmatthew> ryan, I hope your email inbox holds up...here it comes
[02:22] <PriceChild> we're gonna have a couple of threads of "ubuntuforums.org runs on IIS!!!! - see error page!" when it comes back aren't we :P
[02:22] <PriceChild> I'm sure we've had a few of those before.
[02:23] <forumsmatthew> lol--Chuck Norris wasn't pleased that only a few forums members were participating in his week, so he kicked the server
[02:23] <chuckdong> PriceChild: lol remember when people found out we ran BSD at one point? ;-)
[02:23] <chuckdong> forumsmatthew: LMFAO
[02:23] <PriceChild> chuckdong, I'm too green to remember that :)
[02:23] <chuckdong> OOH! a chuck norris error page!
[02:23] <ubuntugeek> It broke
[02:23] <ubuntugeek> lol
[02:23] <forumsmatthew> I remember...
[02:23] <chuckdong> PriceChild: ah, well we got a lot of outcries :)
[02:23] <PriceChild> way before my time
[02:23] <forumsmatthew> chuckdong, do it!!!
[02:23] <chuckdong> :)
[02:23] <PriceChild> wooo tis back
[02:24] <chuckdong>  Currently Active Users: 239 (46 members and 193 guests)
[02:24] <Artificial> something like Chuck Norris smashed it
[02:24] <chuckdong> record low :)
[02:24] <ubuntugeek> Sorry about that, the query caused a backlog :)
[02:24] <chuckdong> lol I can imagine!
[02:24] <MikeB> we should make a special link to chuck norris facts in the forums for a week
[02:24] <MikeB> :)
[02:24] <ubuntugeek> Ok back to business.. did we decide that 3500+ are eligible ?
[02:24] <forumsmatthew> In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have queried the server at the same time...
[02:24] <forumsmatthew> +1 for 3500
[02:24] <Artificial> +1
[02:24] <MikeB> +1 for 3500
[02:24] <ubuntugeek> +1 for 3500
[02:24] <PriceChild> forumsmatthew, haha
[02:24] <chuckdong> 378,901 members...  60 out of them....
[02:24] <chuckdong> +1 from me.
[02:25] <forumsmatthew> I"ll adjust the usertitle table as well
[02:25] <ubuntugeek> k, matthew knows how to set it up. Matthew do you want to make an announcement as well?
[02:25] <forumsmatthew> and the rank table...since I spilled the beans in this chat on the number needed
[02:26] <forumsmatthew> I can make the announcement as well...once it's done you will see a note in the cafe
[02:26] <chuckdong> no pun intended...
[02:26] <chuckdong> ;-)
[02:26] <forumsmatthew> pun intended
[02:26] <chuckdong> hahaha
[02:26] <chuckdong> :D
[02:27] <Artificial> don't feel so baaaahd, matthew ;)
[02:27] <ubuntugeek> Ok moving on..
[02:27] <forumsmatthew> ewe are horrible!
[02:27] <ubuntugeek> The next item i just put on the agenda this morning from this post.
[02:27] <ubuntugeek> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=545940
[02:27] <ubuntugeek> I know pricey has asked me about it in the past and I figured we should discuss it
[02:27] <highvoltage> oh cool, a forums meeting!
[02:27] <forumsmatthew> I think this is a fair request. We could have a link to email the FC and whoever is around could do something
[02:28] <PriceChild> yeah we had a guy in #ubuntuforums about it
[02:28] <chuckdong> hi, highvoltage
[02:28] <forumsmatthew> to register the user
[02:28] <highvoltage> hi chuckdong
[02:28] <forumsmatthew> would we get a ton of spam, though?
[02:28] <ubuntugeek> Well yeah thats the main reason we have the captcha in place
[02:28] <forumsmatthew> yeah
[02:29] <ubuntugeek> Remember when we had that bot signing up 1,000's of accounts?
[02:29] <ubuntugeek> we had no captcha in place
[02:29] <PriceChild> that took hours to clean up..
[02:29] <chuckdong> I am reading through the alternatives right now.
[02:29] <ubuntugeek> yeah it was a pain in the ...
[02:29] <PriceChild> still finding bits weeks later
[02:29] <chuckdong> I am not impressed by *ANY* of them personally
[02:29] <ubuntugeek> Chuckdong, no they require code hacking
[02:29] <PriceChild> chuckdong, weekend project?
[02:29] <PriceChild> ;)
[02:29] <ubuntugeek> which is why we never used them
[02:29] <chuckdong> I'd love to investigate a better solution but I'd first like to speak to a Captcha expert
[02:30] <chuckdong> ubuntugeek: not just code hacking
[02:30] <chuckdong> I don't think ANY of them perform the fundamental job of a CAPTCHA
[02:30] <chuckdong> that is, test for humanness.
[02:30] <ubuntugeek> Agreed
[02:30] <chuckdong> those seem like dummy rate limiters.
[02:30] <chuckdong> which doesn't solve problems with spammers with an entire /24 address block to themselves.
[02:31] <chuckdong> * Tricking bots with dummy "Do not fill in this field" form fields that are labelled as such and also hidden with CSS.
[02:31] <chuckdong> I have personally seen this one fail
[02:31] <ubuntugeek> So my question is, in our familiarity of the forums and the downsides to not having a captcha do we need the current captcha is working well? Sure it has down sides but thats a vbulletin limitation.
[02:31] <chuckdong> ubuntugeek: when a good alternative comes around, I would love to see it implemented
[02:31] <ubuntugeek> +1
[02:31] <chuckdong> but currently I don't see any alternate proposals that satify that bill.
[02:32] <forumsmatthew> yeah. I would love to have a better option, but I don't see one yet
[02:32] <forumsmatthew> +1
[02:32] <chuckdong> if someone knowledgeable on CAPTCHA techniques could come and talk with us about the subject, I'd be more than happy to listen and discuss
[02:32] <forumsmatthew> the spam problem is too big to go without a good captcha
[02:32] <ubuntugeek> Maybe in vbulletin 4.x series they will enhance the captcha abilities.
[02:32] <chuckdong> for now, the CAPTCHA has to stay based on past issues...
[02:33] <chuckdong> in addition, I'd like to add, if anyone has an accessibility handicap that prevents them from filling out the registration form, they are more than welcome to contact a staff member for assistance.
[02:33] <chuckdong> perhaps we should give them a mechanism to do this with
[02:33] <chuckdong> I'd expect relatively few people out of our potential visitor pool to need this type of assistance
[02:33] <chuckdong> and it probably means less work in the end than to implmenent some fancy unfamiliar CAPTCHA
[02:34] <ubuntugeek> Chuckdong, agreed. How about this, on the signup page we can direct them to post in the feedback area as a guest user? The guest user would need to be a moderated account.
[02:34] <Seveas> pochu, ubuntu-irc-cloaks is purely administrative so we can keep track of cloaks
[02:34] <chuckdong> ubuntugeek: sounds good
[02:34] <ubuntugeek> matthew, mike?
[02:34] <forumsmatthew> that's not a bad idea...
[02:35] <forumsmatthew> we can watch and see if the post moderation queue fills up with spam
[02:35] <forumsmatthew> at least it won't be on the forums at large
[02:35] <ubuntugeek> right.
[02:35] <chuckdong> sounds great
[02:35] <MikeB> seems like a good idea
[02:35] <ubuntugeek> k, we'll try it out and see how it goes.
[02:35] <pochu> Seveas: thanks. I was wondering whether I could leave the team without loosing my cloak, but I guess not :)
[02:35] <chuckdong> on a related note.... what's up with e-mail notifications? It seems like some users never get one, despite having a seemingly valid e-mail?
[02:36] <chuckdong> i.e. registration confirmation
[02:36] <chuckdong> I've had to help several users jump through that one personally...
[02:36] <forumsmatthew> I"ve helped one or two as well
[02:36] <Artificial> Could it be specific email adresses?
[02:36] <MikeB> spam filters on their end?
[02:36] <ubuntugeek> My guess spam filters. We could turn the email validation off
[02:36] <ubuntugeek> but its a small percent that has issues
[02:36] <chuckdong> I recall an incident prompting me to turn it back on.
[02:37] <chuckdong> but in general, I think it's better with it on.
[02:37] <ubuntugeek> If a user has problems you can just goto into the user manager and change the group to registered user to eliminate the need for the verification
[02:37] <chuckdong> right
[02:37] <forumsmatthew> true, it's not hard and not that common of a problem
[02:37] <ubuntugeek> agreed
[02:38] <forumsmatthew> anything else?
[02:38] <chuckdong> regarding next week's agenda....
[02:38] <chuckdong> I don't think the first item is a valid one for the FC to discuss.
[02:38] <chuckdong> I can't imagine any productive road that discussion would go down
[02:38] <ubuntugeek> hi hobbsee
[02:38] <chuckdong> hi Hobbsee :)
[02:38] <forumsmatthew> I can't see a single reason we can't discuss that now, and quickly
[02:38] <forumsmatthew> hi, Hobbsee
[02:38] <Artificial> yes, where's my smiley set for the forum, that got promised to be intergraded
[02:39] <ubuntugeek>  /me runs from Artifical
[02:39] <Artificial> LOL
[02:39] <forumsmatthew> I vote to keep Kiwi, he's a great admin and a huge asset to the forums
[02:39] <chuckdong> +1 :)
[02:39] <forumsmatthew> I have no other comments
[02:39] <ubuntugeek> +1
[02:39] <MikeB> +1
[02:39] <Artificial> +1
[02:39] <ubuntugeek> I have a comment on that complaint.
[02:39] <chuckdong> but more seriously, if he actually wants to take that up, it's CC territory, not us....
[02:40] <forumsmatthew> chuckdong, agreed
[02:40] <forumsmatthew> ubuntugeek, please comment as you like
[02:40] <chuckdong> however, I'd be willing to take a listen to what Paladine has to say regarding the appeal of his ban.
[02:41] <ubuntugeek> When a forum staff member put themselves out into the general pool of users and enforces rules they will always be the brunt of the complaints. All the admins have seen it. If any one of us handled that situation it would have resulted in the same situation.
[02:41] <forumsmatthew> chuckdong, yes. He can present that at the Oct 10 meeting
[02:41] <chuckdong> ubuntugeek: agreed
[02:41] <forumsmatthew> +1
[02:42] <chuckdong> some staff members tend to be the ones who act upon the agreement of the concensus, but that's that -- there was concensus reached beforehands
[02:42] <ubuntugeek> The bottom line is, the complaint is week and he was clearly looking to troll based on  his actions which are not defined on that agenda.
[02:42] <ubuntugeek> Thats all I have to say
[02:42] <ubuntugeek> We can discuss it more next month when he is present
[02:42] <chuckdong> let's reserve specific dicussion on the user for hwen he is present
[02:42] <ubuntugeek> Thats all I have for this meeting
[02:43] <chuckdong> but for now, I move to reject item 1, regarding KiwiNZ's removal off the agenda
[02:43] <ubuntugeek> +1
[02:43] <MikeB> +1
[02:43] <forumsmatthew> okay, I'm off to adjust the user title table and to work on a new user group
[02:43] <ubuntugeek> I am off to delete 8k worth of forum down emails
[02:43] <chuckdong> lol
[02:44] <forumsmatthew> thanks, everyone, for a good meeting
[02:44] <Artificial> before you leave UG
[02:44] <Artificial> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=234954&highlight=smiley
[02:44] <ubuntugeek> ;)
[02:44] <chuckdong> I'll add a summary until Vorian can do a proper one :D
[02:44] <ubuntugeek> thanks jdong
[02:44] <Artificial> :-D
[02:44] <MikeB> later all
[02:44] <ubuntugeek>  roundhouse kicks and vanishes.. chuck would do it
[02:45] <forumsmatthew> +1
[02:45] <forumsmatthew> lagging, sorry it took a minute
[02:46] <Artificial> Matthew = Lag master 2000
[02:46] <Artificial> (can be bought at TVShop)
[02:46] <Artificial> cya all
[08:06] <dthacker> @now
[08:07] <ubotu> Current time in Etc/UTC: September 10 2007, 18:07:14 - Next meeting: Screencast Team in 52 minutes
[08:23] <ph8> i can actually attend the next server meeting
[08:23] <ph8> fantastic!
[08:23] <ph8> thought i'd share that with everyone :)
[08:59] <popey> ooo nearly time
[08:59] <popey> Anyone around for the screencast team meeting?
[09:00] <spd106> yes
[09:00] <popey> cool
[09:00] <popey> going to be a quiet one :)
[09:00] <popey> ok, lets make a start.
[09:01] <popey> BONG! Screencast meeting begins
[09:01] <popey> Agenda is at:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScreencastTeam/Meeting20070910
[09:01] <popey> * Action points from last meeting
[09:01] <popey> ( which can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScreencastTeam/Meeting20070827 )
[09:02] <popey> Ok, firstly, no new non-ubuntu-screencast-team screencasts have been uploaded since that meeting
[09:02] <popey> when they are they will be categorised as such
[09:02] <popey> we now have scp (well I do) access to the screencast site
[09:03] <popey> (this makes uploading much easier but I still "only" have 90K/s upload rate so it still takes an age to upload 6 videos per screencast!)
[09:03] <popey> site was getting DOSed, this was fixed
[09:03] <popey> drupal 5 can wait until the canonical system admins have made a theme for it - and definitely until after MoS2007
[09:04] <popey> The rest is all still in progress
[09:04] <popey> Ok, onto the next item.
[09:04] <popey> * Current status
[09:04] <popey> We have uploaded 9 screencasts each in 6 formats (3 sizes, two codecs), and they're proving quite popular
[09:05] <popey> we have around 1000 subscribers to the high quality ogg feed through miro/democracyplayer alone
[09:05] <popey> we have been in the "most popular" slow on miroguide for the last week:- https://www.miroguide.com/
[09:05] <popey> yay us!
[09:05] <Webspot> yay
[09:06] <popey> (hi Webspot )
[09:06] <Webspot> hi :)
[09:06] <popey> downside is that this week has been madly busy in my personal life - so I am behind - my bad, apologies
[09:06] <Webspot> I'm also behind :p
[09:06] <popey> (two kids with birthdays in one week and one starting school means I get called away from the computer a lot)
[09:06] <popey> however this is not a disaster! :)
[09:07] <popey> I have decided we need to rejuggle the plan - so we will talk about that in a bit
[09:07] <popey> we have had a fair bit of feedback in the form of comments on the site
[09:07] <popey> ranging from "these are great" to "remove this now, you said Linux was an OS, it's a kernel you idiot!" type posts
[09:07] <popey> I am really happy to get both types of comments
[09:08] <popey> means people are watching them :)
[09:08] <popey> Also had a comment about the less than stellar quality of the 1280x720 ogg video - and it turns out I had a setting too low in xvidcap for quality
[09:08] <popey> i discovered this 5 mins ago
[09:08] <spd106> Which size video is the most popular?
[09:08] <popey> so all screencasts from now on from me will be much crisper
[09:08] <popey> 1280x720 ogg - easily
[09:09] <popey> and surprisingly
[09:09] <spd106> Will the new quality bump up th efile size?
[09:09] <popey> howeveer that is based only on the feed usage, not the actual downloads of files
[09:09] <popey> shouldn't do too badly no it just means there will be a cleaner master to encode from
[09:10] <popey> so that's the current status - I have one extra one that's not online yet - "installing ubuntu"
[09:10] <popey> I have decided to split it
[09:10] <popey> to have multiple "installing" videos
[09:10] <popey> one for using the live cd, one for the alternate cd and maybe another for server/netinst
[09:10] <popey> so we cover all bases - make sense?
[09:11] <Webspot> yeah
[09:11] <popey> the good news is this pushes back the schedule a bit - and gives you more time to make yours :)
[09:11] <popey> bad news is we need to rejig the schedule
[09:11] <popey> i am coming to the conclusion that we should drop the idea of "week 1" "week 2" and just have a steady stream of the screencasts
[09:12] <popey> because it restricts us having "week of this" or "week of that", I don't think people care
[09:12] <popey> I think they just want the content :)
[09:12] <popey> given we already have the "month of" moniker, having  a week of sub-moniker is overkill
[09:12] <popey> so, I will edit the wiki page after the meeting to reflect this
[09:13] <spd106> It's nice to have some structure, though you're probably right
[09:13] <popey> yeah, structure is good, but not when it makes life too hard for us :)
[09:13] <popey> would also mean we can be a bit more free with the schedule (within reason)
[09:13] <popey> i.e. we can start talking about specific applications at any time
[09:13] <popey> we don't necessarily have to stick to a theme for this week
[09:14] <spd106> I think the introduction week was a good idea
[09:14] <popey> yeah, and once people are up to speed with what it is, and how to isntall, we can go anywhere from there really, wouldn't you say?
[09:14] <spd106> true
[09:14] <popey> although it does make sense to show how to install apps and installing updates early on
[09:14] <spd106> As long as the quality remains high
[09:14] <popey> :)
[09:14] <popey> indeed
[09:15] <popey> ok, there is an extra spanner I am going to throw in :)
[09:15] <popey> I am on holiday for a week from 14th to 21st, and will have sporadic very low speed internet access
[09:15] <popey> so this means we either go mad to make loads, or we just announce a "screencast holiday" on the site :)
[09:16] <popey> we will still have the total of 30 screencasts in september
[09:16] <popey> (I plan to record some whilst on holiday but cannot upload due to bandwidth limits)
[09:16] <popey> so will play catch up after 21st sept
[09:16] <popey> I will of course do my best to make as many as I can, and hope others will before the 14th (this friday)
[09:16] <popey> but I don't think we should kill ourselves to do it :)
[09:17] <popey> its all gone quiet :)
[09:17] <popey> ok, lets move on..
[09:17] <popey> we've kinda covered the progress so on to the next subject
[09:18] <popey> * Translation / Sub-titling
[09:18] <popey> I really wasn't expecting us to get some transcriptions done so quickly
[09:18] <popey> we now have quite a few srt files - subtitle/caption files - which I need to upload to the site
[09:19] <popey> I am thinking we can just put them on the page with each screencast as a link to download - and have a little note that says how to use them
[09:19] <Webspot> Yeah. Seems the best way
[09:19] <popey> it's possible to upload them to google and the flash player we use can support them but I'm not sure how to get the format right for both
[09:20] <popey> it seemed to barf when i tried - on both
[09:20] <popey> maybe the syntax wasn't right - it's on the to-do list anyway
[09:20] <spd106> I was wondering about that the other day
[09:20] <popey> the other thing we have to worry about is audio dubs
[09:20] <popey> oh?
[09:20] <spd106> google asks for utf-8
[09:20] <spd106> I'm not sure how to check for it
[09:21] <popey> how to check if a file is utf-8?
[09:21] <spd106> From what I've read it should be standard
[09:21] <popey> I don't know much about that I'm afraid
[09:22] <spd106> but when ever I open an srt it says some iso standard
[09:22] <popey> looking at it I think google is barfing at the blank lines in the srt file
[09:22] <popey> http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26577&hl=en_GB
[09:22] <spd106> oh, ok
[09:23] <spd106> I thought that was a part of the spec
[09:23] <popey> 1
[09:23] <popey> 00:00:00,881 --> 00:00:03,426
[09:23] <popey> This is Alan Pope with the Introduction Screencast
[09:23] <popey> 
[09:23] <spd106> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip
[09:23] <popey> for example, google wants:-
[09:23] <popey> just the timestamp and the text
[09:23] <popey> not the 1 or the blank
[09:24] <popey> I will monkey around with one of the files we have and report back to the mailing list
[09:25] <popey> see if we can get the format right
[09:25] <popey> next thing is audio dubs
[09:25] <popey> for example I have been sent an audio file for one screencast which i can easily dub and re-encode, so we have a french version of the samba screencast
[09:26] <popey> i guess i could just upload them all and make a french page perhaps?
[09:26] <popey> maybe link to the french page from the English page?
[09:26] <popey> and vice versa
[09:26] <Webspot> Yeah
[09:26] <popey> rather than chuck all the languages on one page
[09:26] <popey> so the url might be /samba_filesharing we could have /samba_filesharing_fr  and _es _de etc
[09:27] <popey> as a separate page they would be easier for people to link to
[09:27] <popey> and it woudl be obvious it's an existing screencast but with french audio
[09:27] <popey> hmmm, well it's obvious to me anyway
[09:27] <spd106> sounds like a good idea
[09:28] <popey> so long as they are linked to, maybe we should have a block on the side of the site that lists translated ones so far, and untranslated ones
[09:28] <popey> no, untranslated is silly
[09:28] <popey> because none have been translated to swahili so they are all in essence untranslated
[09:28] <popey> not sure how to display that
[09:28] <popey> maybe a simple table
[09:28] <spd106> Are you going to do all sizes?
[09:28] <popey> list of screencasts down the side, translations along the top, links (ticks) in the middle for translations
[09:29] <popey> spd106: it's no extra effort just disk space and time to upload to do all the sizes
[09:29] <popey> I probably won't setup rss feeds and the like
[09:29] <popey> maybe have a category
[09:29] <RobV> Perhaps have a note available under screencasts saying "this screencast is also available in ...", as well?
[09:29] <popey> which would be useful for non-EN planets to syndicate
[09:29] <popey> yes RobV, good idea
[09:30] <popey> "also available in chocolate flavour"
[09:30] <RobV> i'm more a fan of vanilla, but yeah.
[09:30] <popey> I could tag all the existing ones with "english_audio" and "english_video"
[09:30] <popey> and then add extra tags for the non-english ones
[09:30] <popey> make them easy to find
[09:31] <popey> ok, this all sounds groovy
[09:31] <popey> we're SO going to run out of disk space :)
[09:31] <Webspot> How much do we have?
[09:31] <popey> /dev/hda1              25G   13G   11G  54% /
[09:31] <popey> but I don't know if that's LVM - it may be
[09:32] <popey> it's xen so i would expect it to be lvm'ed, and more space may well be just a request to the canonical admins away
[09:32] <Webspot> yeah
[09:32] <popey> when I said to them that I figured we would need 8GB MAX for MoS2007, they said it was fine
[09:33] <popey> ok, so the next question on the agenda is how do we manage the translations
[09:33] <popey> will it work just having a page on the site showing translation status?
[09:33] <popey> and ask people to email the srt to the mailing list and/or oggs of dubs to us/me ?
[09:34] <popey> would be nice to use launchpad/rosetta
[09:34] <popey> suggestions welcome!
[09:34] <spd106> I think some kind of version system would be uesful
[09:35] <popey> I am no expert on these matters
[09:35] <spd106> People make mistakes, I know I do
[09:35] <popey> we could use an lp ppa?
[09:35] <popey> sorry, lp bzarr repo
[09:35] <spd106> I'm new to this as well, I'm afraid
[09:35] <popey> maybe a mail to the launchpad-users list might help
[09:36] <spd106> What do the docs team use?
[09:36] <popey> i think it might also be useful to mail the loco mailing list - the global one - actually asking for translations
[09:36] <popey> I don't know
[09:36] <popey> but if we ask the loco list - we really need a system in place first
[09:36] <popey> so I think asking the doc team and/or launchpad devs first might be a wise plan
[09:37] <spd106> Is the screencasts team part of the docs team?
[09:37] <popey> see if we can organise a revision control system first, then solicit help
[09:37] <popey> yeah, kinda :)
[09:37] <popey> they would like to have some screencasts they can link to from the documentation
[09:38] <popey> brief history..
[09:38] <spd106> They have lot's of skilled translators too
[09:38] <popey> I setup the screencast site as a ubuntu-uk thing, Matt East (mdke) suggested it shouild be a global (not UK) thing and thus adopted us into the doc team
[09:39] <popey> i recently setup the irc and mailing list channels for us to discuss separate from -doc
[09:39] <popey> not because I don't want to be part of -doc, just figured we needed a dedicated channel
[09:39] <popey> if there is any help we can leverage from the -doc team then all the better
[09:39] <spd106> There was a post to the docs list today asking about screencasts
[09:39] <popey> yeah :)
[09:39] <popey> he popped into the irc channel too - seems very keen to make a few screencasts
[09:40] <popey> which is exactly what we need/want :)
[09:40] <popey> ok, so summary:-
[09:40] <popey> Contact launchpad devs (via mailing list) and doc team to see how they manage revisions of non-structured data like our .srt files
[09:41] <popey> once we can figure some kind of control system we start asking doc team and loco teams for help translating?
[09:41] <popey> make sense?
[09:41] <spd106> yep
[09:41] <RobV> yep; one thing: what about audio files?
[09:42] <RobV> Is there any structure in place for them yet, or will that need to be looked at - in due time ;) - too?
[09:43] <popey> I'll ask about that at the same time
[09:43] <RobV> Okay
[09:43] <popey> the two are heavily related really
[09:43] <popey> thanks for reminding me :)
[09:43] <popey> ok, next topic, unless anyone has anything further on translation...
[09:44] <popey> * Formats that videos are supplied in:-
[09:44] <popey> too many, too few?
[09:44] <popey> i need to get some proper stats from canonical system admins as to which videos most people watch
[09:45] <popey> we could potentially just have 1280x720 ogg and 1280x720 flash, and upload to google video for everyone else :S
[09:45] <popey> comments/flames?
[09:45] <spd106> I like the small ogg
[09:45] <popey> damnit ;)
[09:46] <spd106> I only have a 1024x768
[09:46] <popey> ah, ok
[09:46] <popey> understandable
[09:46] <popey> but if you grabbed the 1280x720 you could watch that scaled down?
[09:46] <popey> which would arguably look better than my re-encoded version
[09:46] <spd106> Yeah, but it wastes bandwidth
[09:47] <popey> well.. you say that...
[09:47] <spd106> I suppose I could cope
[09:47] <popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 85M 2007-09-10 15:00 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_1280x720.ogg
[09:47] <popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 31M 2007-09-10 14:16 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_512x288.ogg
[09:47] <popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 50M 2007-09-10 14:26 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_768x432.ogg
[09:47] <popey> yeah, you're right
[09:47] <popey> wowzers, look at those file sizes
[09:48] <spd106> Does anyone download the medium one?
[09:48] <popey> tell you what though, I am staggered and amazed we haven't been asked for MOV (H.264/AAC) and AVI (MPEG4/MP3) support!
[09:48] <popey> dunno, need to get stats from canonical
[09:48] <spd106> non-free
[09:48] <popey> well, from the windows weenies
[09:49] <popey> i mean
[09:49] <popey> and the apple ipod users
[09:49] <spd106> they're not here
[09:49] <popey> ipod video even
[09:49] <popey> hehe
[09:49] <spd106> Just provide a link to ogg codecs
[09:49] <popey> ok, lets defer this item until the next meeting, we'll keep doing what we're doing, and I'll see if I can get some stats about which files are popular from the system admins
[09:50] <popey> heh, the first screencast in the mos2007 has such a link
[09:50] <popey> ooo, speaking of which..
[09:50] <popey> we did get a request for a "what if I am on windows, how do i view these" page
[09:50] <popey> would be useful if someone could put together the text for such a page
[09:50] <popey> maybe a couple of screenshots
[09:51] <spd106> Surely most people have heard of flash
[09:51] <popey> well, yes, true
[09:51] <spd106> There's always one though
[09:51] <popey> :D
[09:51] <popey> ok, will put that on the back burner for now
[09:51] <spd106> There was that guy who asked about matroska too
[09:51] <popey> it's low priority - only one comment
[09:52] <popey> indeed
[09:52] <popey> i don't even know if ffmpeg supports matroska
[09:52] <spd106> What's support like amongst the media players?
[09:52] <popey> well, I was surprised that the totem auto codec download thing just worked
[09:52] <spd106> Totem plays them, but vlc choked on one I made
[09:52] <popey> I had a copy of $TV_PROGRAMME that I wanted to watch, and totem did the business
[09:53] <popey> erk
[09:53] <popey> back burner then :)
[09:53] <spd106> so did mplayer
[09:53] <popey> we know ogg and flv work
[09:53] <popey> i know the suggestion of multiple audio tracks in one video came up too
[09:53] <popey> this could needlessly bulk up the video sizes too
[09:54] <popey> I mean, nobody wants to download a video with 10 languages when they only "need" one do they?
[09:54] <popey> or do they?
[09:54] <spd106> Something for the future
[09:54] <popey> then again, do we really want to host 10 copies of the video
[09:54] <popey> for each of the languages
[09:54] <spd106> depends on demand really
[09:54] <popey> indeed
[09:54] <popey> ok, matroska, multiple audio tracks deferred
[09:55] <popey> 5 mins left, lets figure out when the next meeting will be now..
[09:55] <popey> 24th?
[09:55] <spd106> Fine with me
[09:55] <spd106> When are you back from hols?
[09:55] <popey> is 8pm good or should we go back to the 4pm slot we had previously?
[09:55] <popey> 21st
[09:56] <spd106> I prefer this time to earlier
[09:56] <popey> ditto
[09:56] <popey> kids go to bed at 7pm, so time for me to grab some food and a glass of vino
[09:56] <popey> ok, will shedule next meet for 24th@8pm BST
[09:56] <popey> thanks for the help Webspot spd106 RobV, much appreciated!
[09:57] <RobV> my pleasure. :)
[09:57] <popey> I'll update the schedule and will mail the list with the thoughts from today
[09:57] <spd106> Thanks popey
[09:57] <popey> (and now I am a fridge editor I can add my own meetings to the fridge calendar Muhahahahaahaha)
[09:58] <RobV> first the fridge, then world domination
[09:58] <RobV> popey: one last question/comment from me: are videos already being categorized? I find the website hard to navigate if I'm looking for a specific screencast
[10:01] <popey> not much, what kind of categories would you like?
[10:01] <popey> http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1123 woot, added already :)
[10:01] <RobV> Installation / Administration / Networking, etc?
[10:02] <RobV> At least, that's what I'd look for if I were looking for a samba screencast, for example
[10:03] <popey> ok, will add some extra categories
[10:03] <popey> i haven't actually categorised any of the MoS ones
[10:03] <popey> which is daft :)
[10:04] <RobV> Just noticed that too :P
[10:04] <popey> well, other than categorising for the purposes ofthe rss feeds :)
[10:04] <popey> which I had to do