November 7th, 2024, Advisory Committee with CS&S

Community Day-to-day project operations
1

Attendees

  • Kena Mayberry - Interim Chief Operating Officer CS&S
  • Linda Green - Director of Fiscal Sponsorship CS&S
  • Esther M. Jackson - Advisory Committee
  • Julie Faure-Lacroix - Advisory Committee
  • Antonin Delpeuch - Advisory Committee
  • Martin Magdinier - Project Manager

Discussion

Intros

This is the first call with Linda Green Interim FSP Director. We did a round of introduction.

Funding update

Wikimedia grant

  • Related conversation Grant Opportunity: Wikimedia Community Fund:
  • The application will likely not be accepted as OpenRefine may not be eligible for this grant (regional support fund)
  • The application was understood as focused on development instead of maintenance/already developed
  • Esther suggests reaching out to the program officer to set up a call to learn more! I think they will have the capacity to meet later in the month after this round is finished
  • It is not clear how the Wikimedia Foundation will fund technology programs in the future.
  • The next round of the General Fund is in March 2025. . We may reapply then.

Futur Funding

  • OpenRefine is funded through 10/1/2025
  • Martin needs to resume work with Lila Jane Mabe (LJ) regarding the funding pipeline.
  • Martin to schedule a meeting with LJ.

Hiring

  • Job posting PR #395 - easier to read version as Antonin is transitioning out of OpenRefine
  • Martin suggested updating the job description for a developer advocate/evangelist role?
    • Antonin feedback:
      • important to get a community management role in the profile
      • But what type of people apply to those jobs
      • Can that person can merge PR? Because this is an important part of Antonin's role today.
    • Martin sees a risk the advocate brings too many new contributors and overwhelms the core team.
  • Next steps: Connect with Jamille for thought partnership related to HR/Governance/New Hire reporting structure

Martin's contract ends Dec 31, 2024

  • What’s CS&S timeline for renewal?
    • CS&S would get the contract dates, draw up the new document and would be routed for electronic signature
    • Martin is closing RefinePro that the contract is with; will need updating
  • Martin to propose a new budget and SOW
    • Still in development; working on this

Governance

  • Next step for Martin after hiring is to document the current governance structure based on the discussion with the community.
  • Antonin off-boarding the AC before March 2025 to be discussed in the coming weeks.
2

Thank you for the timely (same day!) posting of minutes. I do notice even when I don't comment.

I know there are several recent important threads which I haven't commented on. I apologize for the radio silence. I've been on deadline with another project. I'll catch up on them all, but this seemed most important, so wanted to start with it:

Hiring- Job posting PR #395 - easier to read version as Antonin is transitioning out of OpenRefine

  • Martin suggested updating the job description for a developer advocate/evangelist role?
    • Antonin feedback:
      • important to get a community management role in the profile
      • But what type of people apply to those jobs
      • Can that person can merge PR? Because this is an important part of Antonin's role today.
    • Martin sees a risk the advocate brings too many new contributors and overwhelms the core team.

I don't know if there's a separate thread about this, but, if not, I'd suggest that one be created to draw people's attention to an important topic, rather than having it solely buried in minutes.

Part of the reason that I haven't commented is because it seems to me to be a much bigger issue than just a job description. I don't have a ton of visibility into this, but, as far as I'm aware, all technical contractors have been supervised by Antonin and, in turn, Antonin provides technical management/supervision for himself. If he is leaving the project, which I'd be sad to see, it will leave a much bigger hole than just finding a part-time technical contributor.

At the CZI meeting in Boston, I offered to Martin that I'd be willing to help interview candidates. Hopefully other members of the core dev team will be willing to help. What I didn't offer was ongoing technical management of a contractor and it's not clear to me where that will come from.

As for some of Antonin & Martin's specific concerns above:

  • Can that person can merge PR? Because this is an important part of Antonin's role today.

Sure, once they get approved but that won't happen on the day they sign their employment contract unless they already have commit rights.

  • Martin sees a risk the advocate brings too many new contributors and overwhelms the core team.

The role should be structured so that any community manager / developer advocate is not only bringing in newbies, but also moving existing contributors up the ladder so that they can mentor newbies, review PRs, etc. We should strive for a pyramid of talent with a diversity of levels in addition to all the other types of diversity that we strive for.

Ideally, the new hire would not only help develop the community, but provide a role model for how to grow into and contribute to the community. As Antonin's recent monthly report highlighted, we're below critical mass on core contributors who review PRs. Albin and I previously stated that we thought there were just a handful of contributors which Martin disputed saying that there were dozens. We need to get these dozens to come out of the shadows and contribute in a way that moves the project forward. If they are a mirage, then we should bootstrap with the new hire and our existing core.

Tom

3

Here it is Seeking Input on New Developer Role for OpenRefine

thank you for the help in the technical assessment of the candidate.

I think we are all in agreement on this point.

Thank this is helpful in refining the position description.

When I mentioned a dozen more contributors, I included the trainers, documentation, and support provided on the forum. Regarding code contributors, this is only a handful indeed and we should plan accordingly.