Re: AlaveteliCon workshops: hackers stream

[Seb Bacon]

Hi all,

I just wanted to highlight James' point number (1), to emphasise that
it's not only for hackers.

It's suitable for anyone who would like to leave the conference with a
running Alaveteli instance. If you are thinking about running an
Alaveteli in your country, you should consider signing up. The only
potential problem for non-hackers is that we will be running the
install lab at the same time as some workshops for campaigners
(schedule TBC); so if there's only one of you coming from your
jurisdiction, there may be a difficult choice on the day. But I would
suggest signing up now if you think the install lab is for you, and
then letting us know if you've changed your mind when the schedule is
finalised :)

Seb

On 9 March 2012 17:46, James McKinney <ja...@opennorth.ca> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> As you know, AlaveteliCon will be a mix of talks and workshops. I'm helping Seb organize the technical workshops. This is an opportunity for developers to work on improvements to the software, and also a time for both hackers and non-hackers to learn more about the platform. The three main activities will be:
>
> 1. An "install lab" to setup Alaveteli for new users, with a tutorial on customization and administration. You don't need to be planning to launch an Alaveteli site - anyone who's interested in getting some hands-on experience using the software is welcome!
>
> 2. "Ask an expert". Here's a chance to have a one-to-one chat with an experienced developer to ask questions and get advice. It could be for a site you're planning or running, or you could just be curious! We're looking for volunteers to help fill in these "office hours".
>
> 3. A code sprint. We're looking for tasks that are achievable in a short time. If you're a Ruby on Rails developer but haven't taken a look at the Alaveteli source code, don't worry - we'll get you up to speed!
>
> To get an idea of numbers on who would be interested in participating in each activity, and who wants to volunteer as facilitator, please fill out this very short form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHg2enN4bktRX3hJYUFwaGZSUWg5LWc6MQ
>
> if you don't plan on following the technical stream, it will be very helpful to know, so please fill out the form - checking off a few "No" boxes should take you under 30 seconds.
>
> If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> James McKinney
> Open North
> +1.514.247.0223
> http://opennorth.ca/
> ja...@opennorth.ca
> Twitter: @opennorth

--
skype: seb.bacon
mobile: 07790 939224
land: 01531 671074

[James McKinney]

Thanks to everyone who filled in the technical stream participation form. If you haven't yet, here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHg2enN4bktRX3hJYUFwaGZSUWg5LWc6MQ

If you haven't yet seen or run the Alaveteli software yourself, the install lab will cover the basics of customizing, configuring and administering an Alaveteli site. You don't need to be a hacker to follow along - it's open to everyone!

Even if you don't plan on attending, please fill it out so that we can be confident about the numbers in attendance. (It should only take 30 seconds to say "no" to everything!)

So far, we have 12 people for the install lab, and 10 for "ask an expert" and the code sprint. We only have a handful of volunteers, so if you have experience running an Alaveteli site, please send me an email if you'd like to help out! It's a minimal commitment.

For the code sprint, we have a number of good suggestions:
- private information censoring
- removing the UK hardcoded items when removing private information
- a widget to embed in other sites/blogs for a particular request

And a number of administrator's interface improvements:
- applying the main site style to it
- reviewing for suitable buttons and UI goodies
- integrating some useful inline help
- there are a few suggestions in the issue tracker of things that would make an admin's life easier, e.g. relating to guessing where incoming messages belong

(There was a suggestion to migrate to Rails 3, but I think that will take a bit longer than two afternoons :) Bundler is already in use in the develop branch.) If you like any of these suggestions, please feel free to voice your support. If not, please suggest alternatives :)

Cheers,

James

[Seb Bacon]

On 24 March 2012 02:59, James McKinney <ja...@opennorth.ca> wrote:
> For the code sprint, we have a number of good suggestions:
> - private information censoring
> - removing the UK hardcoded items when removing private information
> - a widget to embed in other sites/blogs for a particular request
>
> And a number of administrator's interface improvements:
> - applying the main site style to it
> - reviewing for suitable buttons and UI goodies
> - integrating some useful inline help
> - there are a few suggestions in the issue tracker of things that would make an admin's life easier, e.g. relating to guessing where incoming messages belong
>
> (There was a suggestion to migrate to Rails 3, but I think that will take a bit longer than two afternoons :) Bundler is already in use in the develop branch.) If you like any of these suggestions, please feel free to voice your support. If not, please suggest alternatives :)

Working on the admin interface was my suggestion, so naturally I support it :)

At the moment it's very plain, and just making it a bit prettier (by
applying a version of the main site stylesheet) would make it feel
more friendly.

It's also quite basic in functionality and there are a few things that
would make an administrator's life easier. For example pages with a
lot of correspondence on them can be massive to download and should be
paged somehow. It should be possible to streamline some of the most
common operations (moving some types of requests from the holding pen,
for example) into one-click actions. Ideally we would have one of the
experienced WhatDoTheyKnow admins on hand to advise us on what the
quickest wins might be :)

Thanks

Seb

[James McKinney]

Hello all,

For the install lab, we'll have fresh installations of the Alaveteli software for each participant to use, customize and explore. If you plan on keeping your installation after the conference and have access to the necessary technical skills, we encourage you to install the software yourself. You'll find guides on how to do this here:

https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/blob/develop/doc/INSTALL.md

https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/wiki/Alaveteli-ec2-ami

Everyone participating in the install lab or "ask an expert" may want to read the "Getting started" guide, as it might make you think of some good questions to ask: https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/wiki/Getting-started

Finally, for the developers participating in the code sprint, we encourage you to get a local copy of Alaveteli running on your machine. There's a "Developer's guide" which includes a step-by-step guide to getting Alaveteli running on OS X: https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/wiki/Developers-guide We'll also be around to help you get everything set up at the conference.

Best,

James

[Rowan Crawford]

I would happily "bootstrap up" the admin interface and generally evangelise compass/sass as part of that. :)

rowan

[James McKinney]

As a quick follow-up, we'd like the install-lab participants to walk away with a working copy to show to colleagues and friends at home. If that interests you, but you don't have experience with servers, here's a quick-step guide. There will be people at the conference to help you get set up, but we encourage people to get a head start if they can.

1. Sign up for a free Amazon Web Services account: http://aws.amazon.com/free/

You'll need to enter a credit card, but Amazon's free tier has generous limits, which you are unlikely to exceed if you're only using it for demonstration purposes. You may need to confirm your account before the next step, which you can do by accessing https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/registration/index.html

2. Once you're signed up and confirmed, follow this link to access the administrative interface: https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home?region=us-east-1

You can also get here by clicking "AWS Management Console" under the "My Account / Console" tab at the top-right of the screen, switching to the EC2 tab, and setting "Region" in the left-hand sidebar to "US East (Virginia)".

3. Click "Launch Instance" then "Continue" to use the Classic Wizard. On the "Choose an AMI step", click the "Community AMIs" tab and enter "ami-2bfb2b42" into the search box. Click "Select" once the AMI appears. On the next screen, "Instance type" should default to "Micro". Then, click "Continue" three times.

4. Create and download a new key pair to advance to the next step.

5. Create a new security group. Under inbound rules, select and create rules for SSH, SMTP and HTTP. You should see your three rules in the right-hand table. Then, click "Continue" and "Launch"!

There are a couple more commands you need to run before you can use your new Alaveteli instance. If you select "Instances" under the "Instances" group in the left-hand sidebar, and then select your new instance, you'll see an address like "ec2-23-20-237-136.compute-1.amazonaws.com" in the bottom window. You can send that address and the key pair that you downloaded in step 4 to either Seb or myself and we'll complete the setup for you. If you happen to know SSH then you can run these commands:

ssh -i path/to/keypair.pem ubu...@your-instance-address.compute-1.amazonaws.com

sudo su - alaveteli

cd ~/alaveteli

git checkout master

git pull

./script/rails-post-deploy

Then, visit your EC2 address and you should see Alaveteli! Add "/admin" to the URL to get to the admin interface (it is not secured in the demo). If you have any questions or stumble into any problems, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Cheers,

James

[Seb Bacon]

Great notes, thanks James. For future reference, I've added them to
the wiki: https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/wiki/Alaveteli-ec2-ami

Seb

[Seb Bacon]

On 25 March 2012 12:44, Seb Bacon <seb....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 24 March 2012 02:59, James McKinney <ja...@opennorth.ca> wrote:
>> For the code sprint, we have a number of good suggestions:
>> - private information censoring
>> - removing the UK hardcoded items when removing private information
>> - a widget to embed in other sites/blogs for a particular request
>>
>> And a number of administrator's interface improvements:
>> - applying the main site style to it
>> - reviewing for suitable buttons and UI goodies
>> - integrating some useful inline help
>> - there are a few suggestions in the issue tracker of things that would make an admin's life easier, e.g. relating to guessing where incoming messages belong
>>
>> (There was a suggestion to migrate to Rails 3, but I think that will take a bit longer than two afternoons :) Bundler is already in use in the develop branch.) If you like any of these suggestions, please feel free to voice your support. If not, please suggest alternatives :)
>
> Working on the admin interface was my suggestion, so naturally I support it :)
>
> At the moment it's very plain, and just making it a bit prettier (by
> applying a version of the main site stylesheet) would make it feel
> more friendly.
>
> It's also quite basic in functionality and there are a few things that
> would make an administrator's life easier. For example pages with a
> lot of correspondence on them can be massive to download and should be
> paged somehow.  It should be possible to streamline some of the most
> common operations (moving some types of requests from the holding pen,
> for example) into one-click actions.  Ideally we would have one of the
> experienced WhatDoTheyKnow admins on hand to advise us on what the
> quickest wins might be :)

Following up on this, there are a few things in the issue tracker
tagged as "admin", some of which are relatively low-hanging fruit [1].

There are also the next bugs I had earmarked for the next release, a
few of which are fairly easy with a bit of help [2].

Seb

[1] https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/issues?labels=admin&sort=created&direction=desc&state=open&page=1
[2] https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/issues?milestone=13&state=open

[Richard Taylor]

Hi,

Something I'd like to see, which might be of the right kind of scale to make progress on during a workshop, is:

https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli/issues/209

Adding an ability to take material down in a more finely grained manner, eg. individual messages (or even attachments) rather than whole requests. Also to show that something has been removed and explain when and why - though the detailed explanation could come in an annotation.

Having this feature in Alaveteli would help encourage good practice in running the sites - being as transparent as possible when removing material and helping us to remove as little as possible following a complaint / takedown request.

There's my pitch for you!

Regards,

--

Richard - WhatDoTheyKnow.com volunteer