[WikiFM] Sprint on the last weekend of September: a sprint?!?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli <riccardo at kde.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> some people of the italian team ventilated the idea of having a 3 days sprint
> on WikiToLearn just before the courses start, so 26-28 September or something
> like that, to concentrate on preparing it for the herd of students that we are
> (or should be) expecting. ;-)
>
> Given the fact that we have a big nucleus of contributors in the area around
> Milano (for purely historical reasons), I was thinking to hold it in a place
> close to here, maybe in the mountains, but still in a 2-3 hours by car radius
> from Milano. There would be about 4-6 core contributors participating to this
> meeting, and it would be really good, both for the internal community and for
> WikiToLearn.

Sounds like a great idea, although it is rather short notice. For that
reason, you probably will have to keep it local. There isn't time to
ask for and get funding, etc.

Is there some place that 4-6 people can meet, hack, and possibly cook,
eat, sleep? Someone's house? Many productive sprints have been in
somebody's house, even if a person or two has to sleep in a nearby
hotel/hostel.

> However, while I value in-person meetings and the enhanced productivity that
> they offer, one of the key reasons why Free Software projects work is that
> they make everyone welcome and nobody feels excluded from "the office" or
> wherever people meet "in private". I also understand that sometimes national
> teams need to meet... nationally, to work on a certain localized content, but
> I also know how a KDE sprint feels and how much that is important to be what
> we are. :-) And, since we will likely also talk of software and
> infrastructure, I wouldn't like to leave out anybody interested.

This is the first one, so go with your gut, and invite those 1. who
can come, and 2. are already productive.

> I would really like to do something, but I wouldn't know how to frame it,
> since it's really a bit different from how I was used to do. For this I ask,
> Valorie, Jeremy, and larger, international community... what do you think it's
> best? Call this an unofficial meeting? An Italian meeting? A meeting and stop?
> Ask e.V. for some funding and fly somebody from overseas? Have some kind of
> press reporting? We have the opportunity to meet often and productively, how
> would you frame this (and possibly other similar) kind of event without
> separating the community in first and second class?
>
> Please, put on the table your thoughts! :-)
>
> Bye,
> -Riccardo

I would call it "the first WikiToLearn Sprint" and spread the word
around a bit, now and after. It's good to get it onto
https://sprints.kde.org/ for record-keeping reasons, and perhaps
publish a nice Dot story after with a photo and short discussion of
what was accomplished. If you need a bit of money for food and drink,
write to the board list ASAP with an estimate of what you need.

Press reporting is cool if it's easy and you have friendly reporters
(student newspapers?). Otherwise the Dot or even just a few nice blog
posts is good. Tweeting some before/during the sprint is always cool
as well.

If the sprint works well, then plan more, with a bit more lead-time.
If not, learn from your mistakes, and plan more anyway!

Best of luck,

Valorie

-- 
http://about.me/valoriez