Community Jitsi improvement requests from the community

[vsnt]

Please add your requests to improve our jitsi system.

[msporny]

During the call today I heard:

• Enable a drop-down in the scribe tool to download the appropriate irc.log from the appropriate group (for the appropriate date).
• Make it easy to auto-complete names in Jitsi (have no idea if this is even a thing).
• Add auto-scribe so that we can go scribe-free (which there are benefits and drawbacks).
• Update Jitsi to fix the "Safari unmuting bug" and the "Firefox last person joined can only hear some people's audio" bug.

[TallTed]

Username tab-completion is not currently in Jitsi, but I logged it last week as a Jitsi Meet feature request. It's gotten no attention thus far, but I'd guess that more people commenting +1 or similar would raise some flags....

[vsnt]

Here's the item for adding a drop down to the scribe menu. https://github.com/w3c-ccg/community/issues/203

[rxgrant]

Get it working in Google Chrome.

[msporny]

Get it working in Google Chrome.

It did for years, and still does in some versions of Chrome on some platforms (e.g., works for me in Google Chrome and Chromium). HOWEVER, Google just released a breaking change on some platforms that requires us to upgrade to the latest version of jitsi. This upgrade is schedule over the holidays (next week or week after).

We have done a test of this upgrade and it seems to work for most people we've tested with (and we're tracking down why one or two people didn't work). It might be that the latest version of Chrome is broken and we'll need to wait for the next update.

In any case, we're on it.

[TallTed]

For those like @rxgrant who are having trouble with Jitsi in Chrome (or any other browser), it may be worth trying the standalone Jitsi Meet wrapper app, available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

It does have some issues, such as recently starting to force updates on users (it silently downloads in background, alerts upon completion, and auto-applies the new version upon next launch; if anyone reading this has the chops to contribute to make this more user friendly, such a PR might get applied; current contributors have not been friendly to this request), but I've found it better than further overloading my own browsers (for instance, my Chrome now has 1959 open tabs).

[msporny]

for instance, my Chrome now has 1959 open tabs

You win. Somebody hand this man a medal. Has The Guinness Book of Records been contacted yet? :P

[rxgrant]

In any case, we're on it.

When I spoke out against Zoom and in favor of Jitsi in October of 2020, it was with the understanding that the systems are based on open source and the code we run in CCG can be made public, so that other public groups can get away from shite software.

I'm not okay with using a proprietary solution that isn't going to improve things for others, no matter how nice DB is in offering it. I don't need a new walled garden.

[msporny]

When I spoke out against Zoom and in favor of Jitsi in October of 2020, it was with the understanding that the systems are based on open source and the code we run in CCG can be made public, so that other public groups can get away from shite software.

Why do you think the system isn't based on open source and the code isn't available? All the code is available under a BSD license:

https://github.com/digitalbazaar/cgbot https://github.com/w3c-ccg/meetings/tree/main/scribe-tool

We run the code above, verbatim, plus a stable version of Jitsi. That's what we run for CCG, there is nothing proprietary in the stack at present and everyone has access to the code. That will change when we do transcriptions (but only for the speech to text bit), as Google Transcribe seems to be the only workable option there and people are suggesting switching to Zoom to get transcriptions (which would then lock us into a completely proprietary solution).

We limit access to the jitsi server to admins (for security purposes). If you'd like to be an admin of the Jitsi server, please make a request to the chairs to add you. I could certainly use the help in managing that system. I'm happy to show anyone that wants to manage that system how it is set up (it's not a complex system to manage... Jitsi was the hardest part to get working in a way that meets the needs of the CCG).

[rxgrant]

Why do you think the system isn't based on open source and the code isn't available?

I don't think that. Do you mean why did I ask you to explain the system a bit better? The reason I'm checking in is because you've got people dropping off the call for multiple weeks while there's supposedly an upgrade, and when I asked for links explaining the system without this extra prodding they didn't arrive.

Thanks for the explanation.
I'm offering to help and will email the chairs.

[msporny]

Do you mean why did I ask you to explain the system a bit better? The reason I'm checking in is because you've got people dropping off the call for multiple weeks while there's supposedly an upgrade, and when I asked for links explaining the system without this extra prodding they didn't arrive.

We are running a critical system here. We need to schedule maintenance windows for when people aren't using the system. History has taught us that a weekend-long maintenance window is sometimes not enough.

If the upgrade goes badly, or if we introduce new bugs mid-flight, people get very agitated and ADD to the already heavy workload.

While the upgrade could go smoothly (we did one just this past weekend that took around 4 hours from start to finish), it also might not. If the system is down, people can't meet, and at present, we have multiple work item groups that depend on Jitsi being up. Yes, there are problems that the latest Chrome upgrade has introduced, but it's not clear if an upgrade is going to fix those. On the test system, it resolved the issues for almost everyone and for those that it didn't, we're tracking down why their systems are currently not working (it didn't work for some until they restarted their browser, or force-reloaded the website to clear the caches).

This system had been working in a way that was acceptable to most in the CG for many months (until Google decided to break some code path that had been working before). I'll also note that we had 30 people on the call this past week, so it's not like people have been unable to participate. So, yes, we need to address this latest Google Chrome bug thing. I'll note that switching to Firefox or Safari seems to fix the issue for those that have tried (and I realize that, ideally, we shouldn't have to ask people to switch browsers).

The reason you didn't get a response immediately when you asked is because we're all very busy. This sort of back and forth is /adding/ to the workload. Yes, we want it to be 100%, and to do that, we're going to have to schedule a maintenance window so we do the upgrade responsibly.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm offering to help and will email the chairs.

Great. The only request of you that I have is this: please don't become one of the people that says that they're going to help, is then taken through training, and then ends up not helping. That has happened multiple times, and while I always start the process off hopeful that people are going to put in the effort, it almost always doesn't pan out. I hope that you're going to follow through, learn the architecture (jitsi, scribe tool, archival, etc.), and help document everything that you learn... that's where we really need the help. This part of it has been improving over the years as new work items have launched mostly thanks to @vsnt's insistence that we do training and documentation.

So, @rxgrant, if you're willing to document the system that we have now to a level that meets your approval, we should start there.

[rxgrant]

@msporny I've reread my message and think I could have been more polite in asking what the situation was. Thanks for your explanation. I have emailed the chairs to ask for access to start some documentation and get an overview of the system administration skills required.

The only request of you that I have is this: please don't become one of the people that says that they're going to help, is then taken through training, and then ends up not helping. That has happened multiple times, and while I always start the process off hopeful that people are going to put in the effort, it almost always doesn't pan out.

Hopefully nobody regrets the documentation that has been achieved. I am going to keep trying.

[msporny]

An attempt at these items have been made:

• [x] Enable a drop-down in the scribe tool to download the appropriate irc.log from the appropriate group (for the appropriate date). This has been done.
• [x] Make it easy to auto-complete names in Jitsi (have no idea if this is even a thing). Confirmed that this is not a thing w/o code edits to Jitsi.
• [x] Add auto-scribe so that we can go scribe-free (which there are benefits and drawbacks). This has been done.
• [x] Update Jitsi to fix the "Safari unmuting bug" and the "Firefox last person joined can only hear some people's audio" bug. This has been done, but Chrome 97 ruined everyone's day, so we need to do a separate upgrade when that's fixed.

I'm closing this issue and opening new ones to deal w/ the auto-transcription woes (the quality is not great, and the community doesn't want Google building voice models on us, so our ability to improve is limited).

[vsnt]

Thanks @msporny. Great job and much appreciated.