The Full Process

[jonthegeek]

I'm logging the full process as a checklist, so we can keep track of what parts we've implemented (or formally decided not to implement).

Adding new books:

• Someone requests a new book. I think it makes sense for this to happen via the Slack, so I (or another approved approver) can talk out any complications with that particular book. Although honestly a UI which creates a post might be the best of both worlds, so we can make sure we gather all the necessary info.
• An approver adds the book to a spreadsheet, with required information (url, probably some copyright notes, and then an approval/denial, basically; also establish an "official" abbreviation here for repo, channel, and redirect). I want to include unapproved books in this list so we don't have to reinvestigate (unless there's a new version or something).

COMMENT -

bookclubber/R/app_server.R

Line 120 in 85490d0

approved_books <<- c("r4ds","advanced-r","feat","ggplot2","r-packages")

is where the admin can manually add the books (for now). We can choose to keep this or have the admin(basically you) read it from another sheet in the same googlesheet, should we add more information about the book

• New approved books should probably be announced on Slack, with a call for facilitators. This could be automated but I'm not sure that's useful (but leaving the checkbox here for the official decision).
• Create a github repo for the bookclub notes. This has to happen once, but maybe shouldn't happen until a club officially launches?

COMMENT - Will keep these 2 in the the parking lot for now.

• Set up a redirect from r4ds.io to the bookclub notes.

COMMENT - Need some more discussion with you.

Adding new clubs:

• Someone signs up as a facilitator in the app. They choose a week when the club can start, and choose their weekly times.
• We exclude times when other clubs are already running (with a 1-hour buffer between clubs to avoid overlap when one runs long and someone joins the other 10 minutes early).
• We announce the new club in the appropriate channel, and share that message in #book_club-announce
• We also share the announcement in the thread or threads about that book in #book_club-requests. Automating this would be hard so I'm pulling it off into its own line.
• The announcement links to the app with the book pre-selected, only showing times that the facilitator is available. Note: These need to translate to the user's timezone.
• The app should have a deadline for when the time will be chosen + posted, so users don't dawdle.
• Once the time limit has elapsed, choose the time that fits the most schedules. This could theoretically happen automatically, thus the separate line for it.
• If a large number of attendees can't make the chosen time, and there's a time when at least 3 of them can attend, message those people to see if any of them would like to facilitate. (go to the first step of this block)
• Create a recurring Zoom meeting for the club.
• Announce the club in the appropriate channel + #book_club-announce.
• Set up the Slack reminder 10 minutes before each weekly meeting.
• Disable sign up on the app for that club (it would go into "needs a facilitator" mode for that book?)
• Also create a sign-up form for presenting to the club. A google sheet is fine for now but...
• This (sign up to present) feels like it could be a shiny app that updates the README.md or something.

Running clubs:

• Monitor the repo, raising flags when there's a PR to merge.
• Shortcut for the above: Maybe add me as a watcher when the repo is created?
• Sometimes clubs want to change the time mid-club. Provide a mechanism for that so they don't just treat it like it's nothing (cuz it can impact other clubs)!
• Download videos + chat logs and delete them from Zoom (to avoid running out of space). I don't think it's a good idea to auto-share these publicly (in case someone showed something they don't want others to see; let's give them time to tell me that). Maybe there's a way to copy it to my dropbox using IFTTT or zapier or something? Although I do think my folder for these is at least semi-public right now, might need to think about that.
• Share chat log to the channel. Again this probably should include an approval step so I can delete obviously sensitive material before sharing (and to make sure they aren't sharing illegal download links and such). It might be possible to make it push-button and easy, though.
• Edit videos. For the foreseeable future this has to be manual, although I could imagine auto-posting to YouTube but without publishing, and then using the YouTube editor (need to play with this to see how it works).
• Post edited video to YouTube (but see the previous step, maybe this actually comes first?)
• Announce published video in the appropriate channel.
• Delete video from dropbox or whatever.
• Add video link to chapter notes.
• Add chat log to chapter notes.

Ending clubs:

• Add a note to the channel announcing that the club has finished (or update/repost an existing note), with links to the club videos. This note should be pinned.
• Add club videos to pins in channel.
• Update wording in README.md on repo to make it clear the club is done.
• YouTube Studio > Customization > Move playlist from Active to Past.

(this probably isn't done but I don't want to lose it)

[jonthegeek]

I'm checking these off as I write separate issues for them.