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[7:05p] paulproteus: Anyway, web team meeting, let's go!
[7:07p] skyfaller: w00t!
[7:09p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I think we might be the only ones here
[7:09p] paulproteus: I'm sort of okay with that.
[7:09p] paulproteus: Long day....
[7:09p] oday_ left the chat room. (Remote closed the connection)
[7:09p] paulproteus: Hah, bye oday.
[7:09p] paulproteus: Well, we could set the agenda.
[7:09p] skyfaller: ok
[7:10p] _sj_ joined the chat room.
[7:10p] jibot: _sj_ is modally in Cambridge, MA & a regenerate wikipedaholic & blogs at & a cyborg-eating kitten & ourobourable
[7:10p] oday_ joined the chat room.
[7:10p] skyfaller: the 3 things I'm interested in right now are (1) an IRC web portal, (2) Wordpress MU (3) a wiki farm
[7:12p] paulproteus: And the 3 things I'm interested in are (1) sleep, (2) having this homework be done, and (3) reading _The Cider House Rules_.
[7:12p] skyfaller: heh :)
[7:12p] paulproteus: Now that we've discussed this, let's meet in the middle.
[7:12p] paulproteus: (-;
[7:12p] paulproteus: Okay, so CGI::IRC.
[7:12p] skyfaller: OK, can you give me the IRC portal tonight, and can we discuss how we might implement the other things / plan how to do them?
[7:13p] paulproteus: I was going to go one further and suggest you do the IRC portal.
[7:13p] paulproteus: We could in fact just use's!
[7:13p] skyfaller: paulproteus: they're using an external one which broke
[7:13p] paulproteus: Oh.
[7:13p] paulproteus: I see.
[7:13p] â€¢ paulproteus sighs
[7:13p] mllerustad joined the chat room.
[7:13p] jibot: mllerustad is a music nerd and Karen Rustad and a student at Scripps College in Claremont, CA and on's board
[7:13p] paulproteus: Well, CGI::IRC is definitely useful.
[7:14p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Let me see about CGI::IRC right now.
[7:15p] paulproteus: I think putting a link on underneath the IRC channel link makes sense.
[7:15p] skyfaller: paulproteus: actually UF's method of putting it in the sidebar is genius
[7:15p] skyfaller: but there's no reason we can't have multiple links
[7:15p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Tell you what: you make the HTML forms and stuff, and I'll make the backend and stuff.
[7:16p] paulproteus: Right now, I'm not in a very "Think like the user" mood.
[7:16p] skyfaller: paulproteus: yeah, just get the actual software up and running, and I'll make all the hooks in our website
[7:17p] skyfaller: paulproteus: what do you think of allowing people to visit any channel on freenode vs. restricting them to #freeculture?
[7:17p] paulproteus: There are enough CGI::IRC things already that I think that should be okay.
[7:17p] paulproteus: Starting them out in #freeculture makes sense.
[7:18p] skyfaller: paulproteus: defaulting to #freeculture and allowing *only* #freeculture are two diff things
[7:18p] paulproteus: Precisely, and I say the first is good enough.
[7:18p] skyfaller: ok
[7:19p] oday_: anyone else want to help find bug hunt on
[7:20p] skyfaller: oday_: maybe later, we need to get through a few other things first
[7:21p] tannewt left the chat room. ("Leaving")
[7:24p] grahl joined the chat room.
[7:24p] jibot: grahl is Jan Hendrik Grahl. He is the treasurer for Florida Free Culture and an international student at the University of Florida. He doesn't post enough on his blog
[7:28p] freeculture_gues joined the chat room.
[7:28p] mllerustad left the chat room.
[7:28p] freeculture_gues: What happens when you put a geek in front of a web browser?
[7:28p] freeculture_gues: He figures out how to get IRC!
[7:29p] freeculture_gues left the chat room. (Client Quit)
[7:29p] skyfaller: LOL!
[7:29p] paulproteus:
[7:29p] skyfaller: w00t!
[7:29p] w00tzor joined the chat room.
[7:29p] paulproteus: â€¢ paulproteus grins
[7:30p] w00tzor: w00tziness
[7:30p] w00tzor: hm... things are behaving a little weird
[7:30p] w00tzor: I saw my message after yours
[7:31p] w00tzor: but it seems to be OK now, the delay went away
[7:31p] fco_guest01 joined the chat room.
[7:31p] paulproteus: I just fixed images.
[7:31p] fco_guest01: I mean to say, I just fixed images.
[7:31p] w00tzor left the chat room. (Client Quit)
[7:31p] w00tzor joined the chat room.
[7:31p] fco_guest01: Anyway, the IRC protocol doesn't guarantee ordering.
[7:31p] fco_guest01: (Look in the upper-right corner.)
[7:31p] w00tzor: yeah, order isn't important
[7:31p] w00tzor: oh, thank you for fixing the images!
[7:31p] fco_guest01: I wonder if I should get Joi to set the reverse DNS to something more interesting.
[7:32p] w00tzor: I'm sure that was what was causing the delay
[7:32p] fco_guest01: I think we'll be changing IPs in a short while anyway.
[7:32p] skyfaller: reverse DNS?
[7:32p] w00tzor left the chat room. (Client Quit)
[7:32p] fco_guest01: *** w00tzor [] has joined #freeculture
[7:32p] skyfaller: ah :)
[7:33p] fco_guest01: See, it'd be nice if it said w00tzor [].
[7:33p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Does that cover what you need?
[7:33p] paulproteus: I presume you'd just make a separate <form> that POSTs to the same thing this one does.
[7:33p] paulproteus: (Is there a bug for this?)
[7:34p] skyfaller: paulproteus: yes, there is a bug, and yes, I think this closes it
[7:34p] fco_guest01: URL?
[7:34p] fco_guest01: Never mind, got it.
[7:34p] skyfaller: now I'm going to test it out by trying to change UF's IRC thingie to point at this
[7:35p] paulproteus: You have access to their web server!?
[7:35p] skyfaller: paulproteus: no, just their Wordpress install
[7:35p] paulproteus: Oh, hah.
[7:36p] fco_guest01: Good enough for me, I suppose.
[7:36p] fco_guest01: I updated .
[7:36p] fco_guest01: There's something eerily reasonable about using IRC in a web browser if I'm mostly switching between web apps anyway.
[7:37p] skyfaller: heh :)
[7:37p] fco_guest01: Like, getting that URL was easier than normal: Ctrl-tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Shift-Tab, Ctrl-V.
[7:37p] fco_guest01: Usually it involves looking and clicking.
[7:37p] skyfaller: :)
[7:37p] berkman left the chat room.
[7:38p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Okay, while you do that, I'll think about the web hosting.
[7:39p] paulproteus: There's no reason we couldn't offer "full-service" web hosting, shell accounts and everything, except my time, I think.
[7:39p] skyfaller: dammit, the information isn't contained in the Wordpress theme, so I can't change it... neither can I download their script
[7:39p] paulproteus: Just use their HTML.
[7:39p] paulproteus: <form ...>
[7:39p] skyfaller: I know, I also wanted to update their borked form :(
[7:40p] poningru joined the chat room.
[7:40p] jibot: poningru is claims to be a descendent of the Earl of Curry
[7:40p] paulproteus: poningru, Hey, you!
[7:40p] skyfaller: poningru: do you have access to the FFC website?
[7:41p] fco_guest01: poningru: skyfaller and I have been working on , and we want to use it to fix uf.fc.o's broken CGI::IRC thing.
[7:41p] fco_guest01: nile: Maybe you care, too.
[7:41p] skyfaller: fco_guest01 = paulproteus 
[7:41p] fco_guest01: A likely story!
[7:41p] skyfaller: grahl? do you have access to the FFC website?
[7:41p] paulproteus: Anyway, skyfaller, can we talk about the farm stuff?
[7:42p] skyfaller: paulproteus: yes, let us
[7:42p] grahl: skyfaller: i do not
[7:42p] paulproteus: â€¢ paulproteus grins at having IRC appear in two windows, both visible
[7:42p] â€¢ paulproteus grins wider!
[7:42p] grahl: skyfaller: any problems? i can call people to destroy the intarwebs
[7:42p] skyfaller: man, so is JC really the only person with access?
[7:42p] grahl: or at least gainesville
[7:42p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Basically, how can we be most of use to chapters?
[7:42p] skyfaller: grahl: your website is borked, I wanted to fix it
[7:42p] paulproteus: And let's compromise that against how minimally I can have to do things.
[7:43p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I don't think we need to give people full shell access and stuff
[7:43p] skyfaller: I want to give each chapter a wiki, blog, and mailing list
[7:43p] paulproteus: Is it okay with them if the wailing list is @fc.o rather than @them.fc.o?
[7:44p] grahl: sadly, all members w/ commit access are drunk. i'm german so i'm still standing/sitting
[7:44p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I'm sure it is
[7:44p] skyfaller: it's just a question of whether it ever gets confusing or not
[7:44p] skyfaller: e.g. if you have 40 "discuss" lists, one for each chapter
[7:44p] paulproteus: â€¢ paulproteus grins
[7:45p] skyfaller: what is the intelligent naming convention?
[7:45p] paulproteus: Well, I hear on the Internet, there's this domain name system.
[7:45p] paulproteus: I also don't think most users have as deep a grasp of the DNS as I do.
[7:45p] skyfaller: grahl: good job being German :)  Can you write down something for the others, so they can fix it when they're sober?
[7:45p] paulproteus: grahl, Oh, was today the copynight? (-:
[7:46p] grahl: skyfaller: that sounds like a challenge..but they could just delete it, so it wouldn't be as fun
[7:46p] grahl: paulproteus: yes
[7:46p] paulproteus: grahl, We're talking about fc.o offering (simple?  limited?  full?) mailing list and web services to chapters.
[7:46p] skyfaller: grahl: not sure what you're saying, but OK
[7:47p] paulproteus: One question is, if we offer mailing lists, will it be confusing if people email $ and are also on
[7:47p] grahl: paulproteus: are there really chapters  who need that?
[7:47p] paulproteus: grahl, skyfaller really think so, at least for web.
[7:47p] skyfaller: mailing lists are more easy to get at schools
[7:47p] grahl: the subdomains are quite sufficient, imo
[7:48p] paulproteus: The subdomains are nice 'cause they're approximately no work for me.
[7:48p] paulproteus: But skyfaller thinks we can offer more value.
[7:48p] â€¢ paulproteus hands the microphone to skyfaller 
[7:48p] skyfaller: grahl: it's worth noting that your website is not hosted on campus, it is donated by a random alumn
[7:49p] skyfaller: *the webspace is donated
[7:49p] paulproteus: What if you don't have random alums?
[7:49p] paulproteus: Then you rely on random *national* alums like me!
[7:49p] skyfaller: exactly :)
[7:49p] paulproteus: Or random strangers like or
[7:49p] skyfaller: paulproteus: doesn't offer the plugins that I'd want, or wikis
[7:50p] skyfaller: and LJ isn't as open source
[7:50p] paulproteus: Agreed.
[7:50p] grahl: isn't it more of a problem of not having enough chapters than infrastructure for them?
[7:50p] skyfaller: grahl: not really, we have over 30 chapters
[7:51p] skyfaller: many of them are just disorganized or insufficiently tech-savvy
[7:51p] skyfaller: which I count as a victory, because that means they're not all uber-geeks, we're spreading out
[7:51p] skyfaller: into other demographics
[7:52p] grahl: it surely sounds good
[7:52p] fco_guest01 left the chat room. ("CGI:IRC (EOF)")
[7:52p] paulproteus: Oops.
[7:52p] skyfaller: basically, I think is a shining example of how a chapter website should be done, and I'd love to be able to offer every chapter something similar pre-packaged
[7:52p] paulproteus: Oh, well.
[7:53p] skyfaller: so we just hit a few buttons, and *poof* they have a website
[7:53p] paulproteus: Let me think of how we could do it.
[7:53p] skyfaller: maybe we could even build that into the chapter registration form!
[7:53p] skyfaller: that would be genius
[7:53p] paulproteus: That's just freaky.
[7:53p] paulproteus: Symlinks to a shared mediawiki install.
[7:53p] ryanfaerman joined the chat room.
[7:53p] paulproteus: Lyceum would be easy to script to do this, too.
[7:54p] paulproteus: I'd probably have to manually jab at the Apache config, but only in a trivial way.
[7:54p] paulproteus: Right now, there are three different ways subdomains can be handled.
[7:54p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I'll never understand why Lyceum is better than Wordpress MU, but if that's what you'll install for me and maintain / update then I won't complain
[7:54p] paulproteus: â€¢ paulproteus grins
[7:54p] paulproteus: I can try playing with Mu later.
[7:54p] paulproteus: Every time I've tried it, it's been completely, utterly broken.
[7:55p] â€¢ paulproteus ponders, Who knew I'd be in the web hosting business?
[7:55p] skyfaller: do Wordpress plugins work on a per-blog basis in Lyceum?
[7:55p] paulproteus: iirc you can enable them on a per-blog basis.
[7:55p] paulproteus: Now I remember: Yes, they do, but you can also have system plugins, which are a separate thing.
[7:55p] skyfaller: right
[7:55p] skyfaller: same with WP MU
[7:55p] skyfaller: just asking, b/c that's a key feature
[7:56p] klepas joined the chat room.
[7:56p] klepas left the chat room. (Client Quit)
[7:56p] jibot: klepas is Pascal Klein, a pixel junkie-cross-college student who enjoys working on desktop artwork and writing words using free software tools. He currently resides in the bush-capital, Canberra, Australia and has a bit of a site at and a shared one at
[7:56p] skyfaller: ... that was a short visit
[7:56p] paulproteus: Hah, thanks jibot.
[7:57p] paulproteus: Ooh, with this I could cause more wikis to be created in the world with FancyCaptcha enabled by default.
[7:57p] paulproteus: That makes me feel good.
[7:57p] skyfaller: :)
[7:57p] skyfaller: I'm not familiar with it...
[7:58p] paulproteus: If you add more than (e.g.) 2 links to a mediawiki page, you get asked to solve a CAPTCHA.
[7:58p] poningru left the chat room. (No route to host)
[7:58p] paulproteus: And another one bites the dust.
[7:58p] skyfaller: ah, interesting
[7:58p] klepas joined the chat room.
[7:59p] paulproteus: "another one" being poningru, not some spammer or something.
[7:59p] skyfaller: ;)
[7:59p] aphid: we're finally important enough to have regular trolls on the listserv
[8:00p] paulproteus: Hey, aphid, if had offered your ucsc chapter hosting, would that have been nice?
[8:01p] skyfaller: ... I think the UCSC chapter could still use hosting
[8:01p] skyfaller: if they still exist
[8:01p] aphid: yeah, probably.  we ended up hosting on the metavid server, which was no big deal for us but not everyone in every chapter has their own on-campus linux box
[8:01p] aphid: we had a meeting last week.  half alumni but still a meeting :D
[8:01p] skyfaller:  => error
[8:01p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Oops, then I probably suck.
[8:02p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Make a wiki page we'll call a specification, and then I'll change it to suit my plans and if we agree on it, I'll build it.
[8:02p] paulproteus: And let's track this with a bug.  That okay?
[8:02p] paulproteus: This is a big project, and truly deserves using the tracker for once.
[8:02p] skyfaller: paulproteus: doesn't it deserve multiple bugs?
[8:02p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Well, let's track the spec with one bug.
[8:02p] paulproteus: Unless it deserves more, in which case it'll get more...
[8:02p] skyfaller: ok, sounds good
[8:02p] skyfaller: what should the page be called?
[8:03p] paulproteus: Hosting ?
[8:03p] paulproteus: Linked-to from the Web team page.
[8:03p] skyfaller: oh, I was just going to link from today's meeting
[8:04p] paulproteus: God, I'm glad Mudbag still works.
[8:04p] paulproteus: And I'm really glad no one except me is going to break it.
[8:04p] skyfaller: :)
[8:04p] paulproteus: skyfaller, works btw.
[8:05p] skyfaller: oh
[8:05p] skyfaller: :)
[8:05p] paulproteus: "works": lib/config.php:156: Notice: Undefined variable: accept
[8:05p] paulproteus: God, this is one of those wikis where double-clicking edits.
[8:05p] paulproteus: That always freaked me out.
[8:05p] skyfaller: eek!
[8:05p] skyfaller: sorry for the false alarm
[8:05p] paulproteus: Anyway, that's all good, I just checked up on it.
[8:06p] skyfaller: they still only have a wiki, not a blog
[8:06p] skyfaller: and I'd like the wiki to spawn with some appropriate default pages
[8:06p] skyfaller: to make it start out looking something like UF's wiki
[8:07p] skyfaller: newbies will have no idea how they want to structure their wikis, so providing a default structure would help them tremendously
[8:07p] paulproteus: Agreed.
[8:08p] skyfaller: and prevent them from being disorganized crapholes, like wiki.fc.o :P
[8:08p] paulproteus: Hah, very well...
[8:08p] skyfaller: I'm seriously going to reboot our wiki someday and give it some real organization
[8:08p] paulproteus:
[8:09p] paulproteus: I should look into .
[8:09p] skyfaller: grahl: is the calendar thingie on FFC's website actually useful to its members?
[8:10p] skyfaller: paulproteus: actually I decided it was a dumb idea
[8:10p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Oh, then say so and close it as wontfix!
[8:10p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I think what I really want is a web interface to the IMAP server
[8:10p] paulproteus: You're going to live with IMAP, or what?
[8:10p] paulproteus: Right.
[8:10p] skyfaller: paulproteus: the problem with POP/Gmail is that you can't see what has and hasn't been replied to (or read)
[8:11p] paulproteus: Precisely.
[8:11p] paulproteus: Glad you realized that too.
[8:11p] paulproteus: Well, I can give you a webmail interface, but then there's the password flying around problem.
[8:11p] skyfaller: what do you mean?
[8:11p] paulproteus: I could give it SSL, but I couldn't give us a "trusted" SSL certificate without paying some money.
[8:11p] paulproteus: $15 a year or something.
[8:12p] grahl: isn't cacert enough for us geeks?
[8:12p] skyfaller: paulproteus: actually, I guess if you could actually do that bug and forward things to Gmail, it wouldn't hurt to have that backup
[8:12p] skyfaller: forward => copy
[8:12p] paulproteus: skyfaller, /me nods re: forward => copy
[8:12p] paulproteus: Do you know anyone who actually uses cacert, grahl?
[8:12p] skyfaller: but I just don't intend to ever tell people about that Gmail account or use it :)
[8:13p] skyfaller: unless our server explodes
[8:13p] paulproteus: My PGP key is in the strong set, and I don't even know any such people.
[8:13p] paulproteus: It is a good idea to have some sort of emergency plan in the case of explosion.
[8:13p] paulproteus: I was joking with the guys, "Imagine if there's a big fire, and Joi's lab burns down, and he no longer has any things, only money."
[8:13p] skyfaller: LMAO!
[8:14p] paulproteus: That's about what they did, too. (-:
[8:14p] paulproteus: So anyway, sure, I'll do that right now, and document it.
[8:15p] skyfaller: paulproteus: hooray!  When you've successfully done it, could you kill the POP server?
[8:16p] paulproteus: - $15 SSL
[8:16p] paulproteus: (per year, like domain names)
[8:17p] paulproteus: BTW, you may recognize - they're the ISP used to rent from to resell it to downhill battle.
[8:17p] paulproteus: Probably still are.
[8:17p] skyfaller: LOL!
[8:20p] skyfaller: paulproteus: maybe if we get some grants we'll be able to buy some of those?
[8:20p] Lam_ left the chat room. (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
[8:20p] paulproteus: skyfaller, We'd only need one anyway.
[8:20p] skyfaller: ok, one of those :)
[8:20p] paulproteus: And maybe when I have an income I'll have $15 to spare anyway. (-;
[8:20p] paulproteus: I mean, I'd of course prefer a grant buy it.
[8:20p] skyfaller: yeah... FC.o needs some income
[8:21p] skyfaller: we still have some money, but I hate to spend any of it b/c I don't know how it will be replace
[8:21p] skyfaller: *replaceed
[8:21p] skyfaller: argh
[8:21p] skyfaller: typos suck
[8:21p] skyfaller: paulproteus: would you come to a meeting about getting the national organization rolling again?
[8:22p] paulproteus: An IRC meeting?
[8:22p] skyfaller: sure
[8:22p] paulproteus: Sure, if it was organized when I could be there.
[8:22p] paulproteus: Which these days is just about anytime.
[8:22p] skyfaller: dammit, Elizabeth is sick... I don't want to bug her, I guess it's getting kind of late there
[8:22p] skyfaller: do you suppose it's safe to call her?
[8:23p] skyfaller: e-star: are you there?
[8:23p] paulproteus: Not terribly safe, no.
[8:23p] skyfaller: yeah, I guess it'll have to wait
[8:23p] skyfaller: I hate being on the west coast, it makes calling the east coast so inconvenient
[8:23p] skyfaller: I never have time during the day and people have to sleep at night
[8:23p] e-star: skyfaller: hello
[8:24p] e-star: skyfaller: yes?
[8:24p] skyfaller: e-star: howdy!  I wanted to talk about meeting times for discussing nat'l business
[8:24p] skyfaller: if we can get a few times that you, me and Asheesh could make, that would be a good starting point
[8:25p] skyfaller: e-star: go to and look at me, Karen and Asheesh's schedules
[8:25p] skyfaller: (ignore Eli)
[8:26p] skyfaller: and pick a few times where you are free and we aren't busy
[8:26p] skyfaller: also, if you have a calendar, it would be really great if you could upload it
[8:26p] skyfaller: paulproteus: actually, could you pull Eli for the moment?  comment him out or something?  He's not active nationally right now
[8:26p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Gimme a sec.
[8:27p] skyfaller: I was mostly curious whether we could make his Google calendar thing work
[8:27p] skyfaller: and we could :)
[8:27p] e-star: skyfaller: no gcal
[8:27p] e-star: sorry
[8:27p] skyfaller: e-star: do you use iCal or Sunbird?
[8:27p] paulproteus: Or Evolution!
[8:28p] e-star: skyfaller: no!
[8:28p] skyfaller: e-star: really!  how do you keep track of your schedule, then?
[8:28p] e-star: skyfaller: brain
[8:28p] skyfaller: you've memorized all of your appointments?  that's kind of scary
[8:28p] paulproteus: Can you apt-get that?
[8:29p] skyfaller: e-star: alright, regardless of whether you write your schedule down anywhere, could you look at and find times when you and us 3 are available?
[8:30p] e-star: skyfaller: well, i write them down sometimes, but just as text
[8:30p] e-star: heh
[8:30p] e-star: okay
[8:30p] skyfaller: Thursday is a writeoff for me b/c I'm flying to Florida...  I might be able to do a conference call but I'd prefer IRC, so let's not do Thursday
[8:31p] skyfaller: I don't have any commitments Fri-Sat-Sun
[8:31p] paulproteus: skyfaller, look good to you?
[8:31p] paulproteus: Can we call that a wrap and have you paste a log?
[8:33p] skyfaller: paulproteus: sounds good to me... can you send a test e-mail to the 3 accounts that you are copying?
[8:33p] skyfaller: nevermind, I'll do it
[8:34p] skyfaller: paulproteus: but you're pretty sure that copying is working and POP3 is turned off?
[8:34p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Yes, try emailing and POP3ing.
[8:34p] paulproteus: I emailed one account already.
[8:34p] paulproteus: I don't remember which.
[8:35p] paulproteus: I didn't check that copying worked, now that I think about it, only checked that local delivery worked.
[8:36p] skyfaller: paulproteus: I just sent 3 test e-mails, I don't think copying is working... Gmail hasn't received anything yet
[8:39p] paulproteus: skyfaller, Sweet, let me look into this better. (-:
[8:39p] skyfaller: e-star: any thoughts on meeting times?