/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/06/11/#ubuntu-website.txt

=== blizzzek is now known as blizzz
=== newz2000 is now known as newz2001
newz2000is it almost time? I guess so, date -u says: Thu Jun 11 19:48:28 UTC 200920:48
boredandblogginghi newz200020:55
newz2000hey20:55
SiDioh, today is the meeting day20:55
SiDicompletely got out of my little head20:55
newz2000\o/20:56
newz2000I didn't make a big deal out of it, I think we should have a couple meetings before the next release20:56
knomeso the meetings take place in #ubuntu-meeting?20:57
newz2000no, we do them here20:57
newz2000this room is normally quiet enough to allow that20:57
knomeoh, right.20:57
newz2000and we have a log bot20:57
knomesure20:57
knomei'll just lurk around then ;)20:57
SiDialready quite enough is a nice metaphor :)20:57
newz2000list time though I started talking too much and got kicked for flooding. :-)20:57
newz2000s/list/last/20:57
SiDi(thats because everyone works very hard - no time for chatting)20:58
knomezomg20:58
SiDiknome: doesnt it remind you someone on #xubuntu ? That guy that continuously speaks...20:58
knomecody-somerville? ;)21:00
newz2000hah21:00
newz2000oh yeah21:00
knomeit would be nice to see some ircstats from #xubuntu-devel ;)21:01
newz2000I think we should start21:01
SiDiknome: me /o21:01
knomeokay.21:01
knomeSiDi, ;)21:01
newz2000here's the agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/Meetings21:01
alejandraobregonhello21:01
newz2000hello alejandraobregon, you're the first order of business. :-)21:01
newz2000Let me re-introduce myself first, I'm Matthew Nuzum, the Ubuntu.com webmaster21:02
newz2000I work for Canonical and do some other webmaster stuff too21:02
newz2000In recent weeks two more people have been assigned to the web to help out21:02
newz2000arusha, aka Christina Kolkott and alejandraobregon, aka Alejandra Obregon.21:03
newz2000alejandraobregon: would you like to introduce yourself and what you do?21:03
alejandraobregonHi I'm Alejandra, I'll be working in Canonical's London office as a user experience designer.21:03
alejandraobregonI'm part of the new design team21:04
newz2000alejandraobregon and arusha are currently working on canonical.com21:04
SiDiWell, I hope you'll enjoy Canonical then :)21:04
alejandraobregonthank you!21:05
knomeo/21:05
newz2000later they will also be in charge of the user experience for ubuntu.com as well21:05
newz2000I'm sorry that arusha could not be here, she is sick today21:05
alejandraobregonwe're looking forward to working with everyone on our ptojects21:06
newz2000They are discussing ways to involve the community doing things like user testing and other experience related tasks21:07
newz2000but they're not yet ready to decide on what projects to tackle this cycle so we'll have to wait for that21:07
newz2000but we do have a couple other projects that we need not wait to start21:07
newz2000Both we've discussed in the past, but now they're official projects and we'd like to publish them during this release cycle21:08
newz2000you may remember our localization project21:08
newz2000We don't feel it's wise to translate all of ubuntu.com into other languages21:08
newz2000but it would be good to help people who prefer a language other than ENglish to find resources in their preferred tongue21:09
newz2000Has anyone here done much work with localizing a website?21:09
newz2000s/much/any/21:09
SiDiI have once21:09
SiDifor a company.21:09
knomea few times21:09
SiDiIt was fully french, localized to english/japanese/korean/chinese.21:10
knomebut not at this large scale21:10
newz2000well, you both have more experience than me. :-)21:10
SiDinewz2000: i actually think it's feasible to translate it21:10
SiDiWe can use launchpad with a bit of hacking for hosting the translations, imo, and get help from the community for the most exotic locales21:10
SiDiAnd if you wrote the site with an UTF-8 codec the weird locales will be a piece of cake (main problem is the database-stored text)21:11
newz2000how would we use Launchpad?21:11
knomei think we could think of a wikipedia-style exluding/including translations21:11
knomelet's say that any translation that has over 90% translated, is available in the site21:12
SiDinewz2000: after a bit of thought, i ended up thinking the fastest and easiest way to make translations is to define the strings you need in some locale files you include21:12
newz2000let me explain why we're not doing the whole site currently21:13
SiDiso i think we could parse po files, or just write php <-> po convertors and use the po on launchpad21:13
newz20001: Most of the content in ubuntu.com stinks21:13
newz20002: We're having a hard time maintaining the content to an acceptable standard in one language21:14
newz20003: there are only two reasons21:14
newz2000:-)21:14
knome4: there is no reason four either21:15
SiDihm, 1. is a drawback :D21:15
alejandraobregonnewz2000, so what was the localization idea you had?21:15
newz2000The idea I have is to create one page per human language that helps people find relevant resources in that language21:16
newz2000So for example, ubuntu.fi could maintain a page that has light content explaining Ubuntu and pointing to help, forums and etc in finish21:16
newz2000should be ubuntu-fi.org21:16
knomeyeah, i suppose the loco maintained sites differ a lot from each other.21:17
knomethe finnish site is relatively good.21:17
newz2000Also, the finnish site is an easy example. It's more challenging to think about Spanish21:17
newz2000where there are a dozen relevant loco teams21:17
newz2000If a person visits ubuntu.com with a preference for non-english language then we could show a link in a conspicuous location in their own language21:18
newz2000the link would be to a page preferably in the www.ubuntu.com site21:19
SiDinewz2000: actually we can use the browser's locale21:19
SiDito determine the actual location of the user and give him the good LoCo ressource21:19
newz2000that may be possible21:19
knomeSiDi, that's not always a good starting point.21:19
knomei must disagree because many people use english as their locale21:19
knomeeven in finland21:19
knomeo/21:19
newz2000knome: do you feel that the english ubuntu.com site mostly satisfies your needs?21:20
alejandraobregonperhaps we need to find an international way to say 'languages' on the homepage or the support page and then lead them to a page where they select their preferred language e.g. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html21:20
knomenewz2000, i use ubuntu.com really little.21:21
knomenewz2000, so it's hard to say21:21
alejandraobregonthat gives us they space we need for the words in english and in the other languages21:21
newz2000knome: my point is that do you feel that people who set their language to en in Finland are ok with an English site and its' the people who don't sent their preferred language to English who would benefit from this feature?21:22
newz2000alejandraobregon: this is a very intriguing idea21:22
knomenewz2000, not sure. there are things i rather read in finnish.21:22
knomeautomatic redirect is bad at least.21:22
newz2000we will definitely not do that21:22
newz2000knome: when you to to www.google.com is it in English or Finnish?21:23
knomethe page might propose something based on your locale and maybe your calculated location (there are services for that etc.)21:23
newz2000oh, that won't work actually, they go by geoip21:23
knomegoogle.com is english21:23
newz2000oh really? very interesting.21:23
newz2000I wonder if they use the secondary language if the first is English21:23
newz2000let's ponder alejandraobregon's idea for a moment21:24
knomethe page gives me a link "go to google suomi (finland)" though.21:24
newz2000ok, so they must grab the secondary language21:24
knomeyeah, they grab it, but don't use it.21:24
newz2000well, they do use it21:24
knome(fortunately :)))21:24
newz2000they use it to offer you the "go to google suomi" link21:25
knomethey don't force *me* to use it :)21:25
newz2000right, that's what I'm envisioning as well21:25
SiDiknome: did you ever *define* it to be english ?21:25
knomeSiDi, i suppose i have done it, if one can do it.21:25
SiDiWhat is your language preference setting in firefox ?21:25
knomeenglish.21:25
knomei think.21:25
knomelet me see :)21:25
SiDiActually if i chose google to be english, then it gives me a "Go to google france" link21:26
knomeactually...21:26
SiDibut my first languages are all french variants21:26
knomei don't even have a finnish lang in ff21:26
SiDioh21:26
newz2000knome: so they're going by geoip then21:26
newz2000I saw this first hand while in Spain recently21:26
newz2000google was in Spanish but I changed nothing on my computer except it's physical location21:26
knomeanyway we should propose some of our best guesses about the language.21:27
SiDinewz2000: geoip fails a lot with my home's ip and yet google works fine21:27
knomebut still present the complete list and in *no* case automatically redirect21:27
SiDiand when i google from spain i got french results, while bing gives me spanish ones21:27
newz2000ok, it will take some trial and error, let's discuss alejandraobregon's idea21:27
SiDiknome: +121:27
newz2000alejandraobregon: so we'd have a link in the user's preferred language and it would take us to a page that offers all of the avilable locales, even the various spanish variants?21:28
alejandraobregonyeah i guess so... because a user may prefer a different language to their locale21:28
alejandraobregonwe want to give users the choice... so maybe a best guess link and a link to more languages21:29
alejandraobregonthen they can go directly to their local language21:29
newz2000this may make some things easier, for example, we could then have one page per loco team21:29
alejandraobregonor go and choose an alternative21:29
newz2000do you think we'd have to translate this "directory" page to the local language or do you think it'd be OK to have minimal English text and the directory with their preferred languages listed first?21:30
alejandraobregonif you see the firefox link i sent, it has a column with the names in english and a column with the name in each language21:30
alejandraobregonwe could do something similar21:31
SiDiby the way, does canonical own URIs such as ubuntu.fi ubuntu.fr, etc ?21:31
newz2000sometimes, usually the canonical ones are ubuntu-XX.org21:32
SiDiif users chose to use those, we could put them directly to the locale for the domain name21:32
SiDibut the ubuntu-XX.org are for LoCos right ?21:32
newz2000correct21:32
newz2000so does anyone else have thoughts about alejandra's suggestion?21:32
knomesounds good.21:33
knomeas long as *no* flags are added to indicate any language ;)21:33
alejandraobregonagreed21:33
SiDiI think the best guess should be used by default, but if you only want a page / locale with locale information, then yeh, a best guess links and another link seem to be enough21:33
newz2000agreed21:33
newz2000we'll have to do some technical evaluation to see what we can and can't do21:34
newz2000I suspect there are numerous barriers21:34
newz2000alejandra and I discussed this a little in another meeting and she made a great point21:34
newz2000that we need to ensure that the text that shows in a conspicuous place on each page does not give the user the impression that it will show them a localized version of the current page21:35
newz2000it's not a lnaguage preference, it's a pointer to localized information21:35
knomeyeah.21:35
SiDiSomething like "Ubuntu near your location" translated in their locale ?21:35
knomena!21:35
knomelocation is not language21:36
SiDinear where you live21:36
SiDiCome on, my english is garbage, knome :p21:36
knomespain is spoken in argentina and spain, and they are not really so close to each other.21:36
newz2000I don't think "Ubuntu" needs to be part of it, but maybe, "help in your language" or similar.21:36
alejandraobregon"Resources in your language"21:36
newz2000right21:36
newz2000the shorter the better, but obviously this varies from language to language21:37
SiDithe question is about should it be language or "country" ?21:37
SiDiubuntu vn wont offer the same info than ubuntu es regarding to LUGs and LoCo21:37
newz2000I think language first and foremost, and where logical, then country21:37
newz2000For example, in the US there are many Spanish speakers21:37
newz2000ok, let's make a plan for this and then move to the next topic21:38
newz2000I propose that we split this into two projects:21:38
newz2000technical aspects and recruiting translators21:38
newz2000I think we should discuss the technical aspects on our mailing list in the coming days and schedule a meeting with the ubuntu-translators team to discuss the other part21:39
knome(ask the loco's :))21:39
newz2000yes, good point, they need to be in on it too21:39
SiDigrab the loco website hackers and ask them to participate to the list, too21:39
SiDithat'll help a lot in the "brainstorming / technical limitations to plan" stuff21:39
newz2000ok, do you think anything more on this topic needs to be discussed during this meeting?21:40
knomenay :)21:40
alejandraobregonnewz2000, do you need me for the next topic?21:40
SiDinewz2000: if i can add a word on the domain names21:40
newz2000no, thank you so much for meeting with us alejandraobregon21:40
newz2000SiDi: go ahead21:40
knomethanks alejandraobregon and see you :)21:40
alejandraobregonnot at all, nice to meet you all! :)21:41
SiDiWell, i think the goal is ubuntu web presence team is a bit of "marketing"21:41
SiDispreading ubuntu by controlling the tools that give us visibility on the web21:41
SiDiand i think this would include a quite good control of the ubuntu.XX TLDs21:41
SiDisome of them seem quite outdated, they dont really reflect ubuntu21:41
SiDiand i know that many french users will for instance visit ubuntu.fr if they use their address bar instead of google21:42
SiDicause we're used to .fr sites21:42
SiDiso i think you should try to find people in the LoCos who can affirm they'll maintain their ubuntu.XX site21:42
newz2000yes, good idea21:42
newz2000That reminds me, canonical recently hired someone who would just interface and encourage the loco teams21:42
newz2000I need to meet that person. Maybe they can help in this project. Or at least provide input.21:43
boredandbloggingnewz2000: who?21:43
* newz2000 looks21:43
SiDihttp://www.ubuntu.de is a good exemple :)21:43
newz2000I think the person is David Planella, aka dpm21:44
knome.fi domains can be owned by finnish persons or companies only.21:44
newz2000Title is "Ubuntu Translations Coordinator" and his boss is Jono21:44
SiDinewz2000: there seems to be no policy about how to manage those TLDs. Some are not bought (uk, for instance), some are redirecting to u.c (.es) some to ubuntu-XX.org (.fi), and some are custom ubuntu sites, while some are othher sites that just own the TLD21:44
knomeoh, we have ubuntu.fi? great.21:45
newz2000there is a policy, but not for tlds21:45
knomewhat's the policy for xubuntu.fi for example?21:45
newz2000The policy is ubuntu-XX.org for physical locations, ubuntu-xxx.org for languages, and YY.ubuntu-XX.org for sub-regions21:45
SiDii meant about the ubuntu.XX TLDs21:46
newz2000we don't register or maintain ubuntu.XX tlds in most cases21:46
SiDii suppose we would like them to redirect to the ubuntu-XX.org ?21:46
newz2000though there are a couple, mostly pre-existing our policy for ubuntu-xx.org21:46
newz2000SiDi: no, we leave that up to the decission of locos.21:46
SiDinewz2000: is there a reason apart from the cost of maintaining TLDs for leaving some out of your control ?21:47
newz2000I'm sure there is, I think it's just because you have to draw the line somewhere.21:47
newz2000I'll discuss the quality control issue with dpm when I meet him21:48
newz2000because that is a valid point21:48
SiDialright21:48
newz2000let's discuss the "choose a location" project21:48
newz2000this one is important to me, but it's also hard for me to know how to get community involvement21:48
newz2000I picture it as a three-phase project21:49
newz20001: reduce the list to countries instead of listing each mirror21:49
newz20002: using geoip, pre-select the user's country (or one logical)21:49
newz20003: hide the selection list altogether21:49
newz2000My goal is to get at least through step 2 by karmic beta21:50
newz2000I've got a few other thoughts, but maybe you guys would like to comment first21:50
SiDihm, the 1. can have problems though21:50
SiDifor instance, in france, the mirrors are mostly universities and a very opensource friendly ISP21:50
SiDibut the ISP only gives decent bandwidth to its own clients21:51
SiDiso only them (still a fair 25% of french people) should use this mirror21:51
newz2000Yuck21:51
knome:D21:51
knomethat sounds like finland.21:51
newz2000I wonder how common this is21:52
SiDiwell, the main mirrors are ISPs and univerisities21:52
SiDiusually people chose their mirror carefully when they download :)21:52
newz2000that statement may be contestable21:53
newz2000it is a core ubuntu philosphy (from my perspective) to continually lower the barrier to adoption21:53
knomeeven if the isp doesn't *try* to limit the bandwidth, for technical reasons it just might be faster to download from your own isp :)21:53
SiDioh, some people dont look at all, though, thats true21:53
newz2000arusha suggested using the words, "from a location near you..." and hiding the select list21:55
newz2000but making it clickable to choose a mirror21:55
newz2000in my mind I'd pictured this still being, "choose a country" not "choose a mirror within that country"21:55
newz2000The benefit for "a location near you..." is that it hides the sometimes complex and non-obvious logic from the end user21:56
knomemaybe the latter would be better anyway.21:56
SiDian obvious link that'd make the list popup with ajax could be good21:56
SiDibut you'd also have to display the "location" so the user can easily check if it looks ok21:56
newz2000well, that's the problem21:57
newz2000sometimes the best location may not look OK21:57
knomemaybe we need to reconsider the descriptions/titles then.21:57
newz2000as I understand it, some south american countries are better off going to europe to download rather than the neighboring country21:57
newz2000I wonder if there's a way that we can be scientific about this21:58
knomemaybe we could ask the locos to provide a list of the best mirrors to them21:58
knomeand then suggest them to user in that order21:58
knomeand after that, fallback to nearest location21:58
newz2000mirrors are constantly changing. every day at least, sometimes every couple hours21:59
knomecountries then,.21:59
newz2000let's talk about technical aspects21:59
SiDithen suggest a random mirror, put something like "We chosed a location for your down : Bolivia ISP#20394" and a link "If it is slow, click here to chose another location"21:59
newz2000I wonder if we can do some A/B testing where we count how often a location is changed22:00
SiDi(remind me to evocate the alt attributes of images in ubuntu.com after this topic by the way)22:00
newz2000and we try, "a location near you..." as one option and "Bolivia ISP#xyz" for the other.22:00
knomenewz2000, if the code is written by us, it's possible.22:00
newz2000we get to write the code. \o/22:01
newz2000this will be a combination of server side code (php) and client side code22:01
knomeyes22:01
newz2000what's the best way to work on this code collaboritively?22:01
SiDioh you mean spotting the favourite mirrors for each user ?22:01
newz2000SiDi: referring to my statement about A/B testing?22:02
SiDi(i woke up early so it sometimes take me time to understand things)22:02
knomei wonder if the client side code could ping the download location and output it to the server, which by that info determines if the mirror is ok for the user.22:02
knomeoutput it = the ping reply time22:02
newz2000knome: hmm...22:02
newz2000same domain policy may make that challenging22:02
newz2000but maybe it could work22:03
knomemaybe.22:03
SiDiknome: except we cant ask our average "client" to host such code so we'd have to find people worldwide for heavy testing22:03
knomeSiDi, hmm?22:03
knomeSiDi, why can't we? ;]22:03
newz2000SiDi: we can actually. I know the Ubuntu release manager22:03
knomewe can do whatever we want... buahahaha22:03
SiDiim not even sure what we call clients, now22:03
newz2000it would have to be a little bit of jsonp or similar22:03
newz2000some code that lives on the mirrors that can be ajax included from the client22:04
knomenewz2000, i suppose rime could help you with that... ;]22:04
newz2000yes, he is a genius22:04
knomehehe okay22:04
newz2000;-)22:04
SiDiive got a question thought. That'd mean we base our information on the ping value between u.c and mirrors, right ?22:05
knomeno22:05
knomethe client and the mirror22:05
knomeif the client side script pings the mirror22:05
SiDiclient = user who downloads ?22:05
knomeyes.22:05
SiDiahem22:05
knomeor the application of the user who downloads.22:05
SiDiI'm sorry but i thought our goal was to have *new* people downloading the ISO22:05
knome(like "irc client")22:05
SiDinot *current* people on which we control the browser :/22:05
newz2000well, I was picturing having a short ping pull in external data to the web browser before the download begins22:06
knomeSiDi, client-side scripting can happen automagically when the user looks at the page first time.22:06
SiDi(unless you use JS... im so sorry, im exhausted)22:06
newz2000that's OK22:06
SiDii'll go grab coffee, im really sorry for my few above comments22:06
knomeSiDi, yes, js is what we are talking about ;)22:06
newz2000let's re-focus22:07
newz2000how can we work collabortively on this project?22:07
newz2000any suggestions? I've never done such a project.22:07
knomejust split it in parts and let the experts examine their thing.22:07
knomethen gather around in maybe a week or two and see what are the outcomes and see if it's possible to put together22:08
knome(or alternatively ask rime and he will provide the code in a few hours)22:08
knome;)22:08
newz2000well, again, there's several parts22:08
newz2000js and php22:08
knomesure.22:08
newz2000and there is a good bit of logic relating to which mirror to use if you're country isn't listed22:09
knomeso we need to determine the best download location for the user and then ask the client to ping that server, right?22:09
newz2000well, the ping part is debatable but yes22:09
knomeso which methods are we going to use?22:09
knomegeoip?22:09
knomerandomness?22:10
newz2000geoip22:10
knomeloco provided lists?22:10
newz2000well, if we start with geoip...22:10
knome;)22:10
SiDion another side, i suppose we dont wanna flood mirrors with ping22:10
newz2000we can pick randomly from a mirror in the same country, giving preferential treatement (weighting) based on bandwidth22:10
knomeSiDi, it's one ping per downloader per server.22:10
newz2000SiDi: good point22:10
SiDiis there a way to also retrieve the ping value from user to u.c without adding server charge so we can compare the two pings without pinging another mirror and judge if it looks ok or not ?22:11
newz2000SiDi: wow, that coffee works fast!22:11
SiDiactually i didnt finish prepairing it :p22:11
newz2000must be the smell triggering a response22:11
newz2000if we have a mirror in the user's own country we should use it, agreed?22:12
knomeyeah, but as we noted, it might not be the best mirror22:12
SiDiyes22:12
SiDiwhat im wondering is how to judge the quality of the mirror for the user22:12
SiDiat minimal cost22:12
knomethe servers can take the pinging... ;)22:13
newz2000they can before release day22:13
knomelol22:13
newz2000on release day we would not want to do this22:13
knometrue22:13
SiDithats what i thought :D22:13
newz2000So we should start this project soon so that we can do our testing well before beta comes out22:13
knomewe get the user hostname, right?22:13
newz2000yes22:13
newz2000but we have geoip22:14
knomecan we calculate the times that user from isp.fi has chosen mirror X22:14
newz2000oh, interesting22:14
knomeand then provide the mirror which most people have used22:14
newz2000again, not on release day, but yes, we could do that22:14
knomewhy not on release day? if the statistics are created now, what's the drawback?22:15
knomewe would not need to even ping the servers22:15
SiDiknome: the servers die on release day22:15
newz2000on release day everything is cached and dynamic content is difficult22:15
knomewell of course we can freeze the counters22:15
newz2000but we can server our rules to the client as js, we just couldn't reliably update our own server side database with results22:15
knomewhat do you mean?22:16
newz2000So once we gather data during non-heavy load times we could then make some rules...22:16
newz2000if user's hostname is X use Y22:16
newz2000oh, can JS do that? maybe not22:16
SiDiwith a fat js table it can22:17
newz2000:-/22:17
SiDior with some XQuery but thats server activity too ?22:17
newz2000if it's a GET request it can be cached and is OK22:17
knomethere's no limitation on where we store the data22:17
newz2000true22:17
knomeso what's the problem?22:17
SiDimay i ask how many people downloaded jaunty during the first release week, btw ?22:18
newz2000yo may ask but I may not say22:18
knomeo.O22:18
newz2000*a lot*22:18
knomehow secret is that? :P22:18
SiDi*more* than official estimations about our users, which say we have less than Fedora ? :/22:18
newz2000according to some people in Canonical (my boss for example) very22:18
knomeright :)22:18
SiDialright then ^^22:19
newz2000no, Fedora publishes their stats and I can say for sure that the numbers I have are far greater than what they publish22:19
knomelol22:19
newz2000but fedora's methodology for collecting data is very different than ours22:19
newz2000so it is not a fair apples to apples comparison22:19
SiDiindeed. a download doesnt mean an user22:20
knomethe numbers are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, we just don't know how much of them or in which order22:20
knome;))22:20
SiDiknome: come on :p22:20
SiDiknome: we know we have more xubuntu users anyways ~22:20
newz2000ok, let's get back on topic22:20
knomeSiDi, than fedora? sure ;)22:20
knomenewz2000, yes, sir22:20
newz2000a problem comes up when the user is from a country where we have no user22:20
SiDiso the best solution would be to serve the favourite mirror for the users with a similar hostname / geoip data ?22:20
knomeexcept if we have the data what is gathered.22:21
newz2000yes, that sounds right22:21
knomei like that idea.22:21
SiDiand if we fail to find the country, fall back to most popular / fastest servers ?22:21
knomeyeah, sounds okay.22:21
SiDi(by the way, if we do this, we put the ping idea aside, right ?)22:21
knomeSiDi, of course.22:21
newz2000SiDi: well, maybe this is where loco teams can help us22:22
newz2000they can help us create some rules22:22
newz2000oh, there is an open source project by Fedora that may already have the ruls22:22
knomethis would be *human* created data, not computer (a server can give a fast ping reply but usually just suck)22:22
newz2000do you guys remember this?22:22
knomenope.22:22
SiDiwhat about using a ping (or even download speed) js algorithm to evaluate the quality of the mirrors from different locations and ajust the favourite mirrors list with the result ?22:22
newz2000knome: right, and remember, serving a 700M file is different than a 10k file22:22
knomenewz2000, of course.22:23
knomeSiDi, the mirror quality can change heavily in a day, for example22:23
SiDitrue22:23
knomeso it's kind of unreliable, if we don't do many tests22:23
newz2000launchpad does periodically (couple times per day) test each mirror22:24
knome(once per week, for example)22:24
knomeoh, that much22:24
knomewhy don't we use that data then?22:24
newz2000we do22:24
newz2000that's why the mirror list changes so often22:24
knomeright22:24
knomei haven't d/l'ded ubuntu since 7.10 so i wouldn't know22:24
SiDii was thinking of client-side tests22:25
SiDito ensure the mirrors selected from the users are consistent22:25
SiDiand not just the first of the list, but actually the likely to be the best one22:26
knomeSiDi, so you still suggest we let the client do pinging? :P22:26
newz2000there are some problems with that idea22:27
knomeyes.22:27
newz2000it doubles or tripples the mirror traffic, it causes a delay while the ping is done, and it requires us putting a suitable script, like a json file, on the mirrors22:28
SiDiknome: just experimentally, to compare the data gathered22:28
SiDibut if its too hard to setup we can drop it, also :p22:28
newz2000it has some merit, I'll discuss it with the release manager22:28
newz2000but it's only a small part of the tasks we need to do22:29
newz2000so maybe we should create a project in Launchpad that has the js and php code needed to do this22:29
newz2000and then share it so we can work colaboritively22:29
SiDiyeh22:30
SiDii wont do it anyway, i'm a total noob with js :)22:30
newz2000ok, that will be our next step22:30
knomei don't know much js, but i can ask rime to look at it.22:30
newz2000I'm sure we'll have no shortage of resources22:30
newz2000ok, anything else to discuss for this meeting?22:32
knomewell, were trying wordpress with xubuntu, as you might have read from the cc'd mail.22:32
knomejust informational. :)22:33
newz2000yes, I saw that22:33
newz2000If that will meet your needs it's a great choice. It's a good product.22:33
knomei think it will.22:33
SiDinewz2000: i'd like to raise your attention about22:34
SiDithe use of u.c without images22:34
newz2000oh?22:35
SiDisometimes i (and other people with poor bandwidth) disable it, and it really breaks things in ubuntu.com22:35
SiDicause there is some text displayed in pictures, and too many empty alt attributes22:35
newz2000ah22:35
newz2000we should definitely address this22:36
newz2000we could file bugs but as it is I'm getting behind on the bug tracker22:36
SiDihttp://imagebin.ca/view/eyfYgCC.html22:36
newz2000ah, right, because the animation uses mostly bg images22:37
newz2000hmm... that's a very interesting point22:37
SiDiwell, as you can see, it lacks information :)22:37
SiDithe alt should be removed from the left side icons as theyre decorations for existing text22:38
SiDiand the text should be displayed otherwise in the alt attributes22:38
newz2000yes indeed22:38
SiDifor the bg images, there are js scripts that check if the user has support for images, i think22:38
newz2000Do you feel like submitting code patches per chance?22:38
SiDiwith such a script, you could spot users without images and inject some html at worse22:38
newz2000or use header image replacement techniques22:39
SiDii'll add this to my todo list then :)22:39
newz2000oh, that may not work actually22:39
newz2000SiDi: it would be a big help. But I will also look into it.22:39
SiDiwheres the code hosted on launchpad, btw ? (if it is)22:39
newz2000this code is not hosted22:39
newz2000you'd have to view the source22:39
newz2000but you'll see that most of the content in question is in drupal blocks22:40
SiDithat'd help me much in seeing what we can put in alts and how to workaround the background images22:40
SiDigreat - i dont know what a drupal block looks like :)22:40
newz2000view the source and search for block22:40
newz2000it's a div with a class="block" on it22:41
SiDiokey22:41
newz2000for example: http://pastebin.com/d42d32f3622:41
newz2000bad example22:41
newz2000http://pastebin.com/d344054e822:41
SiDixubuntu.com looks almost perfect without images22:41
newz2000who made that theme?22:42
SiDiknome or vinnl i think22:42
newz2000There are several things I'd like to do differently22:43
newz2000ok, let's call it a wrap.22:44
newz2000I'll post the log on the website and summarize the topics into emails to the list where we can follow up22:44
newz2000Thanks a lot for your time22:44
knomenewz2000, SiDi, i did22:44
SiDialright, you're very welcome :)22:45
SiDia last comment though22:45
knomeheh, np ;)22:45
SiDion u.c's main page, in the sexy js22:45
SiDiwhen you put the mouse over netbook or server, there is no "Find out more" text for the desktop one22:45
SiDii dont know if its intentional but it doesnt look fine since the others are granted this text when not hovered22:46
SiDimy 2cts  :p22:46
newz2000I doubt we'll fix that22:46
newz2000but I'm always happy to hear your comments. :-)22:47
SiDiwell, im a perfectionist and an idealist :p22:48
SiDiit doesnt help in real world22:48
SiDithere are news job offers on your webby, hmm22:49
SiDigood night ;)23:17

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