Having been in the documentation-management mess before I don't think I can
agree that it counts as bikeshedding, at least at the level we're currently
discussing it. Given the amount of time that I spend in other settings
trying to find a required piece of documentation over three (or four, or
five) different internal or external knowledge repositories, I appreciate
it when documentation management is well-considered ahead of time. So I'm
all for this discussion!

I would tend to agree that Google Docs is bad for long term doc management
(in large part due to -- surprisingly from Google -- how bad it is at
search and discovery). But for something like the Newcomer Dinner signups
it's infinitely better than the wiki was, since it totally sidestepped the
lockout problem. This is definitely something that falls into the "choose
the right tool for the right job" problem space. But as Riley pointed out,
I don't think it makes sense to maintain important docs there for anything
but immediate group-editing purposes. For "hard" documentation I think the
wiki is at least adequate, and certainly a better solution than GDocs.

Which raises another question about electronic ephemera and whether we
should/could archive "short-term" documents like this year's newcomer
dinner signups somewhere besides GDocs for better discovery. I'm not an
archivist so I'm not going to do anything but summon that head of the hydra.

-dre.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:42 PM, Riley Childs <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> I would like to note that the documentation discussion here is prone to
> bikesheading, if there are going to be docs I say just start them rather
> then argue about X or Y. We have a wiki, lets use it (maybe get a few more
> people on board to create accounts). We have a significant amount of
> documentation there, rather then reinvent the wheel lets just go with the
> wiki. At this point lets focus on the content rather then "accessibility"
> or "display", because who cares about that if there is no content to begin
> with and as long as structure is maintained we can do that stuff later.
>
> Google Docs are horrid as a long term documentation solution, stay far
> away (we committed to using GDocs to do IT documentation, and that was a
> mistake).
>
> //Riley
>
> Sent from my Windows Phone
>
> --
> Riley Childs
> Senior
> Charlotte United Christian Academy
> Library Services Administrator
> IT Services Administrator
> (704) 537-0331x101
> (704) 497-2086
> rileychilds.net
> @rowdychildren
> I use Lync (select External Contact on any XMPP chat client)
>
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>
> ________________________________
> From: Katherine Deibel<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: ‎2/‎17/‎2015 11:10 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Communications — conference and otherwise
>
> Just one thing to consider in regards to Google Docs: accessibility.
> Google Docs are a bit notorious for being accessible (to screen readers)
> one week and not the next. To be fair, ChromeVox usually works with
> them, but very few people use ChromeVox at all.
>
> A practical approach would be to go with Google Docs but include a "If
> you have trouble editing the Google Doc file, please contact X."
>
>
> Kate Deibel, PhD | Web Applications Specialist
> Information Technology Services
> University of Washington Libraries
> http://staff.washington.edu/deibel
>
> --
>
> "When Thor shows up, it's always deus ex machina."
>
> On 2015-02-17 11:14 AM, Becky Yoose wrote:
> > Cary,
> >
> > I can speak to the signup for the Newcomer Dinner signup - previous years
> > had the signup on the wiki, but this year we decided to try something
> > different for the signup that didn't require an additional account to
> sign
> > up. This should have given Ryan a bit of a break with people requesting
> > wiki accounts last minute to sign up for the dinner. The link to the
> Google
> > Doc was posted in the wiki, under the Newcomer dinner entry.
> Communications
> > to the list and users have linked to the wiki page (though I do count one
> > communication to the group that I directly linked to the Google Doc).
> >
> > If folks did not like the Google Docs setup for the dinners this year,
> > please let me know and I can always bring the signups back to the wiki
> for
> > future dinners. Again, it was an experiment for this year :c)
> >
> > I cannot speak for the Eventbrite pages, but my understanding that
> > Eventbrite came with DLF handling registration finances this year.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Becky
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Cary Gordon <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> This really speaks to the c4l who’s-in-charge-here / nobody is in
> charge /
> >> take the ball and run with it zeitgeist.
> >>
> >> We have one person — Ryan Wick — who carries most of the load for the
> >> website and the wiki. I don’t think that he, or anyone else, takes
> >> responsibility for organizing the content. From here,it looks like
> >> everything is a mix of tradition and fire prevention. Accordingly, this
> >> year we had:
> >>
> >> — The conference web pages on code4lib.org
> >> — The usual assortment of pages on wiki.code4lib.org
> >> — The newcomer dinner page on Google Docs
> >> — Stuff on Eventbrite
> >>
> >> Resulting in a mix of the usual symptoms:
> >>
> >> — No single place to find stuff
> >> — Conflicting information
> >> — Not clear editorial policy
> >>
> >> So, what do we do, and who is this “we," anyhow?
> >>
> >> The conference organizers have control, in theory, but I think that they
> >> are understandably loath to mess with the traditional mix. There is no
> >> place for them to ask a question and get a single, cogent, authoritative
> >> answer.
> >>
> >> Code4lib itself isn’t really a thing, just an us, and we have been loath
> >> to form standing committees, although we have done that after a fashion
> for
> >> scholarships and the Journal. I think that the time has come for a
> Code4lib
> >> communications task force —I love that name — to address the structure
> of
> >> our public-facing resources. Any takers.
> >>
> >> In lieu of blessings from an executive structure, the task force can do
> >> something with pasta to confirm its authority.
> >>
> >> Any takers?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Cary
> >>
> >>> On Feb 13, 2015, at 12:53 PM, Heller, Margaret <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I think Sarah is absolutely right that we should have updated the
> >> conference information page with information about streaming, as I don't
> >> think most people not attending the conference would think to look at
> the
> >> wiki. Even if everyone forgot to do it during the conference that's a
> note
> >> to the future to remember to do it during the conference, and I've
> edited
> >> the page at http://code4lib.org/conference/2015 to give the link to the
> >> YouTube channel.
> >>>
> >>> And thanks so much video team!
> >>>
> >>> Margaret Heller
> >>> Digital Services Librarian
> >>> Loyola University Chicago
> >>> 773-508-2686
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of
> >> Sarah Weissman
> >>> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2015 2:18 PM
> >>> To: [log in to unmask]
> >>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4LibCon video crew thanks
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:38 PM, Francis Kayiwa <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Planning these things is tough work with numerous moving parts. Could
> >>>> it have been posted once we were underway? Perhaps. That said there
> >>>> was 450 odd people who were there none of whom (the author included)
> >>>> thought to send a message on availability of video to this listserv.
> >>>> (I know for certain it was tweeted and re-tweeted)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> I see what you are saying. I realize that logistics are tricky. I would
> >> have probably missed a mailing list message if it had come last minute.
> And
> >> I wasn't checking Twitter in a timely manner for updates on a
> conference I
> >> wasn't attending and therefore wasn't all that aware of the exact timing
> >> of. (Perhaps this is a great time to bump that librarians list to a more
> >> visible position in my Twitter feed...)
> >>>
> >>> And I should say that I'm glad that there is video to watch at all and
> >> grateful to the volunteer videographers that made it happen.
> >>
>