[Airship-discuss] [ptg] ptgbot HOWTO

[Thierry Carrez]

Hi everyone,

In a few days, some contributor teams will meet in Shanghai for our 6th 
Project Teams Gathering. The event is organized around separate 'tracks' 
(generally tied to a specific team/group).

Topics of discussion are loosely scheduled in those tracks, based on the 
needs of the attendance. This allows to maximize attendee productivity, 
but the downside is that it can make the event a bit confusing to 
navigate. To mitigate that issue, we are using an IRC bot to expose 
what's happening currently at the event at the following page:

http://ptg.openstack.org/ptg.html

It is therefore useful to have a volunteer in each room who makes use of 
the PTG bot to communicate what's happening. This is done by joining the 
#openstack-ptg IRC channel on Freenode and voicing commands to the bot.

Usage of the bot is of course optional, but in past editions it was 
really useful to help attendees successfully navigate this dynamic event.


How to keep attendees informed of what's being discussed in your room
---------------------------------------------------------------------

To indicate what's currently being discussed, you will use the track 
name hashtag (found in the "Scheduled tracks" section on the above 
page), with the 'now' command:

#TRACK now <what's currently being discussed>

Example:
#swift now brainstorming improvements to the ring

You can also mention other track names to make sure to get people 
attention when the topic is transverse:

#ops-meetup now discussing #cinder pain points

There can only be one 'now' entry for a given track at a time. To
indicate what will be discussed next, you can enter one or more 'next'
commands:

#TRACK next <what will be discussed and when>

Example:
#api-sig next at 2pm we'll be discussing pagination woes

Note that in order to keep content current, entering a new 'now' command
for a track will automatically erase any 'next' entry for that track.

Finally, if you want to clear all 'now' and 'next' entries for your
track, you can issue the 'clean' command:

#TRACK clean

Example:
#ironic clean


How to make your track etherpad easily found
--------------------------------------------

We traditionally use an etherpad for each track, to plan and document 
the topics being discussed. In the past we used a wiki to list those 
etherpads, but now we publish a list of them at:

http://ptg.openstack.org/etherpads.html

PTGbot generates a default URL for your etherpad. If you already have 
one, you can update the URL by issuing the following command:

#TRACK etherpad <URL>


How to book reservable rooms
----------------------------

In Shanghai we will have some additional reservable space for extra 
un-scheduled discussions. The PTG bot page shows which track is 
allocated to which room, as well as available reservable space, with a 
slot code (room name - time slot) that you can use to issue a 'book' 
command to the PTG bot:

#TRACK book <slot code>

Example:
#release-management book Ocata-WedA1

Any track can book additional space and time using this system. If your 
topic of discussion does not fall into an existing track, it is easy to 
add a track on the fly. Just ask PTG bot admins (ttx, diablo_rojo...) on 
the channel to create a track for you (which they can do by getting op 
rights and issuing a ~add <TRACK> command).


For more information on the bot commands, please see:
https://opendev.org/openstack/ptgbot/src/branch/master/README.rst

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)