Proposed IRC Channel Logging Policy Change

News: Proposed IRC Channel Logging Policy Change

4.2 years ago by

Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k

United States

Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k wrote:

Hello all,

We would like to change the logging policy for the #galaxyproject IRC channel:

Starting later this fall, the #galaxyproject IRC channel will be logged online in a format that can be searched.

Currently, this channel is not logged anywhere. This change will only be made if the community agrees that a searchable online log would be an improvement. If you have thoughts or comments on this proposal, then please post them to this Biostar thread. In two weeks' time (around September 17, 2014), we'll summarize the discussion and publish a decision.

Proposal Details:

Starting sometime after community discussion ends (and assuming that discussion is favorable):

At least two weeks before the change:
1. Warnings will be added to the IRC channel information and on the wiki, that the log will be publicly archived as of the given start date.
2. The policy change will be announced on Galaxy Biostar and the Galaxy-Dev and Galaxy-Announce mailing lists.
On the launch date
1. The IRC channel (and the wiki) will be updated to clearly state that the IRC channel is publicly logged.
2. Announcements of the change will be posted to Biostar and the mailing lists.
3. IRC postings from the announcement onward will start showing up in the public log.
4. The IRC channel log will be included in the Galaxy search engines.

Why now?

The project's IRC channel came up at the GalaxyAdmins BoF meetup at GCC2014, where it was lauded as both a great resource, and cursed because it is not archived anywhere. An action item from that meetup is to propose this change.

The Galaxy Team

irc news • 2.0k views

ADD COMMENT • link •

modified 4.2 years ago • written 4.2 years ago by Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k

Hello all,

Just a reminder that the window for comments closes in a week. As of right now, it is looking like this will happen.

ADD REPLY • link written 4.2 years ago by Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k

4.2 years ago by

Eric Rasche • 20

Texas A&M University

Eric Rasche • 20 wrote:

I believe during some IRC discussion a month or so ago, it was mentioned that it might be nice to add a filter of some sort (e.g. prepending messags with !nolog) to allow users to indicate that they'd like specific lines of chat to not be logged.

ADD COMMENT • link written 4.2 years ago by Eric Rasche • 20

We talked about this in more depth and a counterpoint to this was that it's just unnecessary complication and that if anything actually needs to be private, it should probably be communicated via some other method to interested parties.

If there is a strong use-case for this, and people would really utilize the feature, we can certainly revisit and implement it easily enough.

ADD REPLY • link written 4.2 years ago by Dannon Baker ♦ 3.7k

Ah, good to know! That's a fair rationale.

ADD REPLY • link written 4.2 years ago by Eric Rasche • 20

4.2 years ago by

Bjoern Gruening ♦ 5.1k

Germany

Bjoern Gruening ♦ 5.1k wrote:

I don't mind if the channel gets logged, but which problem we want to solve with this? For me IRC is fundamentally different from a QA site. Questions and Answers should be posted to biostar and we should encourage people to post their questions here. If you got your answer on IRC, please post them to biostar. I'm not sure logging IRC will make it easier to find solutions. For this we have several wiki pages, Galaxy Admin pages ... this should be used and we should make this crystal clear and point the people to the resources.

ADD COMMENT • link modified 4.2 years ago • written 4.2 years ago by Bjoern Gruening ♦ 5.1k

You make an excellent point I hadn't personally considered. I think for most questions this is and will continue to be the right spot to ask them - but some questions are more interactive and many conversations aren't explicitly questions and can be useful. And in fact if the IRC logs are posted it will be easier to copy these long IRC conversations and post them here or high light them here with a link.

I think there is an openness concern here as well - I will be happy when these conversations are publicly available (without extra effort). This is an open source project and I feel the project should be trying its hardest to open everything up and eliminate secret/hard to access conversations. IRC logging is only a very small step in that direction - but I feel like it will be a good one.

ADD REPLY • link written 4.2 years ago by jmchilton ♦ 1.1k

4.2 years ago by

Peter Cock • 1.4k

European Union

Peter Cock • 1.4k wrote:

I have no idea how easy this is, but I would suggest having an official IRC bot periodically post on the channel reminding people that the chats are being logged and include the archive URL.

Maybe hourly in the first couple of weeks, then reduce this to every few hours (so that regardless of which timezone you are active newcomers should see the message every so often)?

ADD COMMENT • link written 4.2 years ago by Peter Cock • 1.4k

IRC channels have topics, which show every login. When the channel starts to be logged the topic will announce it to any new user. Current topic:

Topic: The Galaxy Project, high powered genomics for everyone - http://galaxyproject.org | Use now! http://usegalaxy.org | NOTE: There is a proposal to publicly log the channel, please see Proposed IRC Channel Logging Policy Change

ADD REPLY • link modified 4.2 years ago • written 4.2 years ago by Martin Čech ♦♦ 4.9k

Perfect :-)

ADD REPLY • link written 4.2 years ago by Peter Cock • 1.4k

4.2 years ago by

Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k

United States

Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k wrote:

Hello all,

Thanks for your input on this proposal.

We will start logging the #galaxyproject IRC channel in an online archive at some point this fall. Look for more details and an announcement once we have set the date,

The Galaxy Team

ADD COMMENT • link written 4.2 years ago by Dave Clements ♦♦ 2.5k

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