3:02 PM <wm-labs-meetbot> Minutes: https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2015/wikimedia-office.2015-12-30-22.01.html
3:02 PM <wm-labs-meetbot> Minutes (text): https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2015/wikimedia-office.2015-12-30-22.01.txt
3:02 PM <wm-labs-meetbot> Minutes (wiki): https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2015/wikimedia-office.2015-12-30-22.01.wiki
3:02 PM <wm-labs-meetbot> Log: https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2015/wikimedia-office.2015-12-30-22.01.log.html

Portion of the full IRC log where @GWicke and I discussed the T119022: WikiDev 16 working area: Content format main session planned for Monday 2pm PST:

22:27:43 <robla> subbu (@ssastry) and I discussed this yesterday, and gwicke and I discussed this today
22:28:42 <robla> my thinking is that this conversation should be dominated by conversation where we grapple with authoritative sources for data
22:31:42 <gwicke> since this is a long-shot / far future topic, I think it would be helpful to balance it a bit with concrete content structure needs and problems people have right now
22:34:23 <robla> I think there's general consensus about making this about the problems right now. the question is definition of "problem"
22:35:06 <gwicke> making HTML the authoritative content format is some ways out
22:35:22 <gwicke> there are a lot of other problems to be solved first
22:36:04 <robla> how far out is making HTML the authoritative source?
22:36:21 <gwicke> a couple of years I'd say
22:36:44 <gwicke> I'm also not aware of any concrete issues that are blocked on that question
22:37:21 <gwicke> if there are any, then it would be good to surface them
22:37:30 <robla> I think there's a lot of confusion and mistrust about this issue, which I'm hoping we can clear up in a face-to-face meeting
22:38:38 <robla> i.e. if replacing wikitext with HTML is a 2 year goal, that implies many short term actions to get there. If never replacing wikitext is the plan of record, that has short term ramifications, too
22:39:05 <gwicke> could you call out those ramnifications somewhere?
22:39:34 <robla> gwicke: are you disputing my statement, and putting the onus on me to spell it out?
22:39:47 <gwicke> you seem to have specific things on your mind
22:39:59 <gwicke> and I think it would be helpful to know what those are
22:40:16 <robla> I don't have specific things on my mind
22:40:48 <robla> I know the general gist of years of discussions about the topic
22:42:28 <robla> gwicke: my question to you: what is your goal for replacing wikitext? 2 years? 5 years? probably never?
22:42:39 <gwicke> the concrete questions are more about representing our content in a more structured way, so that it can be consumed and processed more easily
22:43:09 <robla> what's the question?
22:43:21 <gwicke> there are a few RFCs
22:43:39 <gwicke> <section> tags, navboxes, page components, balanced templates
22:44:04 <gwicke> semantic images
22:45:11 <robla> that's not a question
22:46:06 <gwicke> the overarching question is "how can we make our content easier to consume and process?"
22:46:16 <gwicke> and edit
22:46:36 <robla> yup, that's basically a restatement of the central question in T119022
22:49:01 <robla> to get to the details: the authoritative source for our data should done based on a planned migration to HTML as the authoritative source, or it could be wikitext that has been incrementally improved
22:50:23 <gwicke> how would that affect any of the concrete issues people have right now?
22:50:27 <robla> a 2 year plan for incremental improvement of wikitext (remaining authoritative) looks very different than a 2 year plan for migration to HTML authoritative with expression/conversion in wikitext
22:51:47 <gwicke> the html-only wiki thing was something that was originally discussed in the context of avoiding the dependency on Parsoid
22:52:48 <gwicke> my impression is that interest has waned somewhat since; at least I haven't heard of anybody concretely pushing for html-only wikis in the last year or so
22:53:13 <robla> is there anyone else who has questions about this session or any other sessions on the agenda?
22:54:07 <gwicke> I'm still pondering what the best topic to cover in concent access & apis would be
22:54:41 <gwicke> the RFCs are all relatively specialized
22:56:05 <gwicke> in keeping with the "big question" theme, we could talk about general API challenges & direction, especially considering the push for API-driven frontends
22:56:45 <robla> I think getting clarity on the overall question (and discussion around it) will easily fill the time, and _can_ be productive. I hope we're up to making it work.
22:58:20 <robla> in some respect, I think it's likely to be a continuation of the discussion that starts at 10:30am (T114542)
22:58:22 <gwicke> media is another fairly general area, but lacks definition right now
22:59:52 <gwicke> it's an important topic considering the shifting user expectations towards more multimedia, though
23:00:29 <gwicke> it was one of the top areas brought up in the user survey
23:00:39 <robla> more on this later, but I should probably get going and wrap up this "hour" at close to an actual hour :-)