[Noisebridge-discuss] Access to the calendar?

[Josh Myer]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 01:31:14PM -0700, Ani Niow wrote:
> The calendar currently on SWARM looks like it only displays the date and not
> what's happening on that date, maybe that's why it fell into disuse. I'm
> liking the extensibility of the Kenyu73 one and am really surprised that we
> don't have one like that already. Google Calendar is cumbersome and it
> depends on one person to grant privileges which is an unnecessary burden

FWIW, there are currently 8 people who can add people to the calendar,
and, when they add them, those peole can add people to the calendar.
In fact, yesterday, there were only 6, and Skory added two more admins
this morning.  It does suck that you need to have a google account to
use it, but that's pretty common for most web services out there.

I honestly don't use gCal for anything but the noisebridge calendar.
The only reason I have a google account is to use gReader (and, more
recently, gCode, because there isn't a reliable and responsive SVN
hosting provider out there).

It would be great to get something on the wiki, but I'd be hesistant
to use it because no one seems interested in committing to being the
wiki maintainer.  For instance: the occasional requests for new
filetypes on the wiki, which never get handled.  Personally, I would
move the wiki over to PBwiki or some such, and put the files up in
dropbox or some other service.  There's something to be said for
externalizing maintenance, even if it comes at the cost of some
flexiblity.

> IMO, especially when we have an entire wiki at our disposal, not to mention
> not everyone (like me) uses Google calendar.
> I'd be willing to take the reins and experiment with it if I can get access
> to install the plugin, hint hint...

Not to pick on Ani, but the fileserver/jukebox experience should serve
as a cautionary tale here: without some form of responsibility, things
won't get fixed.  When things fail, infrastructure people depend on
disappears for a while, and it needs to be restored.  Using a free
external service puts the niggly bits of restoration on the provider
(even though it's free), who is likely to take care of it, even when
they're really busy with other projects.  And then there's the
less-niggly things, like adding new users, updating events, etc, which
can be done by just about anyone (since the service is for Normals).
This is part of why I've been handing out admin privileges to the gCal
like candy: it distributes responsiblity for the non-technical
maintenance, so I'm never a bottleneck.
-- 
Josh Myer  650.248.3796
  josh at joshisanerd.com