New events workflow

[datapythonista]

At the moment, the process to create new events to python.org is as described next:

• Events are sent to events@python.org with all the information
• A moderator reviews it, and if appropriate, the event is manually created in a Google calendar
• A cron job exists that pull the events from the calendars into the website

This can be made more efficient, by changing the workflow to:

• Events are created using a form, or imported from trusted sources (e.g. certain meetup.com groups)
• The events have a flag "Pending approval" that make them not visible
• A dashboard exists where moderators can approve events with a single click
• Once an event is approved:
  • It becomes visible in the website
  • It is exported to the appropriate Google calendar
  • An email is sent to events@python.org

To implement this new workflow, next tasks are required:

• Add a new "Approved" flag to the Events model (TICKET PENDING)
• Create a form in python.org to submit an event (TICKET PENDING)
• Create a dashboard that lists pending events, where a user with permissions can approve them (TICKET PENDING)
• Create a command to export an event to a Google calendar (TICKET PENDING)
• Create a command to import events from meetup.com (TICKET PENDING)

[datapythonista]

@berkerpeksag, @malemburg, I created this ticket with what we discussed, please feel free to add comments if I misunderstood anything, or if you think we can do better than what I described.

Once we're all happy with this, I'll create individual tickets for each task.

Thanks!

[malemburg]

This won't really work, since for review we have to have easy
access to email for feedback to the submitter to fix submissions.
The job subsystem is a good example of the web based review
system not really working in practice.

I would prefer to keep the approval workflow via the mailing list
and only have the subsystem on python.org make this more admin
friendly. We could, for example, add a link to the email to
trigger the addition to the calendar.

It's not a good idea to make the events tables on python.org
the main source of truth - this should always be the calendars.

[malemburg]

Some more feedback from emails...

Regarding the events: We are managing these using Google Calendars
outside the python.org website. The website just pulls the entries
from those calendars in using a cronjob.

Since the Google calendars are much better to integrate elsewhere,
it is probably not wise to add events directly and only to the
python.org website database.

Now, as for automatically adding events: this will not be possible,
since we have to review events listed on the website before switching
them live. We do have to do some quality control on these to make
sure the events are placed on the right calendars, we don't get
lots of commercial training events listed or other abuse for commercial
interests.

What would help is a form on the python.org which takes the
event listing as required by us and sends us an email to the
events@python.org ML. Most of the work goes into asking
people to submit the data in a usable format.

You see our submission email template for the required fields:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEventsCalendar#Submitting_an_Event

I haven't tried this yet, but perhaps adding the calendar entry
as iCal attachment to such emails would simplify things as well
(I'd have to check whether adding the events using drag&drop is
doable).

... and in a later email:

An optimization which goes from the website to the calendars
would be nice. I currently do this manually using the standard
calendar I'm using anyways.

The form approach would help get the moderation more streamlined.
One detail that's important: the generated email to the events
ML needs to have the original sender address as From address
or at least CC.

[datapythonista]

Thanks a lot for the great feedback @malemburg.

The form that generates an email with a link to directly add to Google calendars sounds like a good option too. Not sure if Google allows creating events from a link, will do some research.

I'll do some research on the jobs section, I didn't know this was tried and it failed.

What it comes to my mind too, is that on the dashboard to approve the emails, we could also a way to reject the event with a reason, and to notify the submitter, so she can fix the problem.

The only thing I don't understand, is why do you think it's better to use Google calendars and not the python.org website as the primary source of data?

[datapythonista]

Here there is an example on how to create an event using a url:

http://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&src=japd5d7d7afkvcih60u1kl6ifo%40group.calendar.google.com&text=B.B.%20King&dates=20090522T193000/20090524T003000&details=&sprop=website:www.mountainwinery.com&location=The%20Mountain%20Winery,%2014831%20Pierce%20Road,%20Saratoga,%20CA%2095070

I couldn't find official documentation, but the parameters are described in this blog post: http://useroffline.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/making-google-calendar-link.html

[mariocj89]

Options on further automating the creating of the event:

Generating iCal

The event can be an iCal which could be generated using a library like https://icalendar.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage.html#overview

Sadly, we cannot do just drag and drop, but you can either of:

• Go to Settings->Calendars->Import
• Configure the calendar to be managed by your desktop client and then add the iCal (Quite easy)

Alternative: Using Google API (probably not worth it given previous comments)

There is an official API to google calendar. It has a client in Python and can be hit directly via HTTP as well.
See examples on how to create an event here. It is actually quite well documented.
This might be a good option as well.

Tasks

We could then do the following:

• Create a form in python.org to submit an event (This will just send a mail with the info)
• Generate an iCal given the details (Improvement to the previous task so the ICal is attached)
• Import and fill the fields from Meetup?
• Linking the events on the web with the even in the Google Calendar (Might be possible at the time the event is imported)

@malemburg @berkerpeksag @datapythonista what do you think?

If you agree I can try to get the issues ready before the event (4 days to the sprint!)

[lorenanicole]

While I'm not the one doing the work, I'd love to say I love this suggestion!

[datapythonista]

@mariocj89 personally I'd like to use the python.org database, but if @malemburg wants to keep Google calendar as the primary source, I think the simplest would be:

• Create a form for events in python.org, as you say
• Generate an email to python-events@python.org, but simply with a link like the one I added in a previous comment
  • When clicked, it creates the event in the Python events Google calendar, if you've got permissions
• There is already a cron job that imports the events from the Google calendar into the Django models of python.org, so nothing else would be required.

I don't understand why Google calendars should be the primary source, but I think this better makes the job more efficient for two different reasons:

• When submitting an event, people will have to format the event in the right way. And we can have validations, for example:
  • Maximum number of characters in title
  • Standard way of encoding the type of event, so it can be used in automated ways
  • Using APIs to check that the address is right
• Instead of having to copy the details from the email to a Google calendars new event, it'll be just two clicks (the link in the email, and the accept in the new event in Google docs)

If I'm right, this is what @malemburg proposed.

Then, besides that, we can implement a django command that looks for Python events in meetup, and sends a digest (weekly?) email with the links of all the found events. So, they can be added in the same way. Peter Inglesby from PyCon UK already has a script that does something similar for their newsletter, so we can reuse that.

For the sprint, I think we can also make the list of events nicer in python.org, so far not much information is displayed, and we could add links to the event, a map...

Does it makes sense?

[MarkMangoba]

+1 in enurmating these fields in a form format:

• name of the event:
• type of event:
• focus on Python:
• approximate number of attendees:
• location (incl. country):
• dates/times/recurrence (incl. time zone):
• link (in HTML format): name of the event

We should keep Google Calendar as the primary source as mentioned, https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEventsCalendar#Submitting_an_Event - we have people embedding calendars and it is currently in use. I agree with @malemburg on this.