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MITMeeting2023

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P. L. Lim edited this page May 30, 2023 · 75 revisions

Spring 2023 Astropy Coordination Meeting

Running notes

Logistics

Hosts: MIT
Dates: May 2-4, 2023
Venue: Boston, MA, USA
Timezone: Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4), same as New York City

Travel to Boston - Air

Logan Airport (IATA-code: BOS) is served by a large number of US and international airlines. Direct flight are offered to most major US and European airports. Several smaller airports exist in the Greater Boston area, but connecting from there to Boston is usually less convenient.

Travel to Boston - Train or Bus

If traveling from the East Coast, Boston is well served by Amtrak trains from the "Northeast Corridor" (NYC, Baltimore, DC) and by many different bus companies like Greyhoud or Megabus, as well as a number of independent operators from NYC.

Transport to MIT

Public transport in Boston is provided by the MBTA. From the airport, the "Silver Line" is a bus leaving right outside the Terminal. (Travel starting with the Silver Line from the airport is free, a measure introduced to reduce congestion at the airport terminals.) Stay on the bus to the final stop (South Station) and transfer to the Red Line (inbound to Alewife) for two stops ("Kendall/MIT").

Both the MBTA and Google Maps offer a journey planner that has up-to-date timetables for all train and bus services in Boston.

A taxi from the airport costs about 50$ (15-20% tip are expected in the US). Taxis prefer cash, but also accept all major credit cards.

Popular US ride and ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft operate in Boston and will service (pick-up and drop-off) the Boston Logan Airport. The fees are typically ~$25-35 for single rides but can fluctuate due to the demand at the time. The option to automatically share a ride with other Uber/Lyft users will significantly reduce the price. In order to access these rides, you must install the app on your phone and have access to the internet. Creating an account through the app and registering your credit card is required for service since the drivers will not take cash or credit.

Getting around in the city

In recent years, cycling has also become a lot more popular and many new bike lanes have been marked to increase safety, see Google maps for a map of bike routes. In particular, there is a very nice bike path along the Charles river. We want to point out two companies for providing bicycles:

  • BLUEbikes offers a bike share service for $10 per day (including any number of rides < 2 h during a 24 h period) or $20 per month (including any number of trips < 45 min). There are two BLUEbikes docks near/at BU. The bikes are not lightweight, though.
  • Urban Adventures offer a variety of bikes for rent that they will deliver to your hotel. They are more expensive (for their hybrid city bikes, the listed price is $40 for the first 24-hours and $25 for each additional day, Monday-Friday), but include helmets, locks, bike lights, and flat kits. They also offer city tours.

Mailing List

No dedicated mailing list. If needed, use the astropy-dev mailing list but prepend "Coordination Meeting 2023:" before the actual subject line text.

Lodging

Cambridge has many hotels which tend to be relatively expensive. MIT discount available for several local hotels, but information on the discount codes cannot be posted on a public website and will be distributed to participants by email.

A few suggestions are below:

  • [Closest, but also by far the most expensive area.] Kendall Square is the closest area with hotels; about 5-10 min walk from the meeting location. It sits between MIT's campus and a biotech labs; it has an MBTA red line station, bustles during the day and there are restaurants around, plus the city of Boston is just a few minutes of a scenic walk across the Charles river. Hotels in the area include: Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Cambridge, Boston Marriott Cambridge , and The Kendall Hotel.

  • [Much cheaper area, but at the cost of slightly longer distance.] Lechmere is an area that currently re-developed around the new MBTA green line station; about 15 min walk from the conference location through a residential neighborhood or 5 min on an Uber/Lyft. Both the new development at Lechmere and the established neighborhood around "Cambridge Street" between Lechmere and the meeting location have breakfast places, restaurants, and corner stores to grab something on the way. Hotels in the area include: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Boston - Cambridge, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Boston Cambridge, and Hampton Inn Boston/Cambridge. All three are along a highway, but that look is deceptive; as long as you walk 100 ft away form that street to the North there pleasant parks and to the South you get into real residential areas with playgrounds, shops etc.

  • [More scenic area, between the other two in price.] Located between the Science Museum and the River, about a 15 min walk from the meeting location: Kimpton Marlow Hotel, The Royal Sonesta Boston

Meeting Location

MIT, building NE-83, is a little northeast of the main MIT campus. See this Google Maps link. There is a plaza in front of the building (you can see it in the Google Maps link) and the entrance is from that plaza. The entrance is between "Mamaleh's" and "BonMe", two restaurant in the same building. There is a big "300" right above the front door. Go into the main door and take the elevator to the 5th floor. Card required for access.

Rooms: We will mostly be using the "Great room" and the "Skylight lounge" (connected, but with a removable wall in between).

WIFI: Eduroam and "MIT GUEST" wifi are available. If you institution takes part in Eduroam and you have the required certificates installed (check your institutions instructions), you can connect with no further setup. Connection through "MIT GUEST" will display a splash page on your browser, where you will have to register with either a valid email address or mobile phone number.

Building access: Unfortunately, there is no way to obtain visitor access badges. Call Moritz (contacts provided to registered on-site participants) and he'll come down and let you in.

Request for financial assistance to attend in person could be made to the Astropy Finance Committee.

The SOC/LOC decided not to pre-plan excursions or tours, but visits might be organized spontaneously.

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Remote Participation

Dial-in info sent to registered participants. Please contact SOC if you did not receive it.

☕ Morning check list for moderators:

  1. Host to make all SOC members co-hosts.
  2. Moderator to remind everyone to:
  • Use "raise hand" ✋ when they need to speak or ask questions.
  • Mute ❌🎤 when not speaking.
  • Help out with crowd-source meeting notes.
  • For fleeting discussions not suitable to be recorded in meeting notes, Slack is preferred over Zoom chat.
  • Be patient as we figure out any difficulties that might occur.
  1. Moderator should not be shy to enforce time limits on speakers and sessions. Unfortunately, there is no good way to do this other than interrupting the speaker verbally.
  2. Host and co-host to help people with breakout rooms, as needed.
  3. On the days when this is applicable, moderator needs to remind everyone in breakout rooms to regroup at the end.

Slack

To join Astropy Slack workspace: http://joinslack.astropy.org/

#meeting2023-general and #meeting2023-logistics

Other non-meeting specific channels are also available for use in the workspace. New meeting specific channels can be created as needed; please name them #meeting2023-... for ease of discoverability.

Slack is not a place to keep permanent records. You can also join using matrix at #meeting2023-logistics:openastronomy.org or #meeting2023-general:openastronomy.org where the whole history of the room is searchable.

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Attendees

If you are not on this list, but plan to attend, please contact SOC. Note: This is the initial sign-up, not a record of actual participation.

  • Hilal Ahmad (remote)
  • Tom Aldcroft
  • Laud Bentil (remote)
  • Larry Bradley (remote)
  • Carlos Henrique Brandt (remote)
  • Clara Brasseur (remote)
  • Simon Conseil (remote)
  • Matt Craig
  • Kelle Cruz
  • Nadia Dencheva
  • Tom Donaldson
  • Wilfred Gee (remote)
  • Adam Ginsburg (remote)
  • Steven Gough-Kelly (remote)
  • Perry Greenfield (remote)
  • Moritz Günther
  • Sebastian Gurovich (remote)
  • Derek Homeier (remote)
  • William Jamieson
  • Bahman Karimi (remote)
  • Marten H. van Kerkwijk (remote)
  • Pey Lian Lim
  • Stuart Mumford (remote)
  • Aarya Patil (remote)
  • Timothy Pickering
  • Adrian Price-Whelan (remote)
  • Thomas Robitaille (remote)
  • David Shupe (remote)
  • Roy Smart (remote)
  • Nathaniel Starkman
  • Ole Streicher (remote?)
  • Erik Tollerud
  • Eero Vaher (remote)
  • Benjamin Weaver

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Agenda

Ideas were collected at astropy-project#255.

The rough daily schedule will be morning talks and discussion, afternoon hacking each day.

Crowd-source meeting notes (link will be provided) is the main Google doc for writing down meeting discussions and breakout/sprint results. You may document a specific topic in much detail in a different Google doc, but please link that back in this main document and please make your doc group viewable and editable.

All times are approximate and in US Eastern Time (same as New York City; local time for in-person attendees). This is an informal meeting with a focus on discussion and participant-organized topic setting. The times in the schedule are to be taken a guidelines for people connecting remotely, not a strict time slots and include discussion. So keep talks short! Coffee breaks will be inserted and flexible times, depending on how the discussion evolves.

Day 0: May 1, 2023 (pre-meeting social)

Coordinate via Astropy Slack #meeting2023-general

Day 1: May 2, 2023

Moderator: Pey Lian Lim

  • 08:30 AM - 09:00 AM: In-person attendees arrive, coffee, building access
  • 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Welcome (Moritz Günther), State of Astropy (Kelle Cruz), State of Finance (John Swinbank)
  • 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Roadmap: Annual review and discussion of items (Clara Brasseur)
  • 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Discussion: Governance of contracts (Moritz Günther)
  • 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM: Lunch + voting for afternoon break-out/coding
  • 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM: Break-out/coding

Day 2: May 3, 2024

Moderator: Tom Aldcroft

  • 08:30 AM - 09:00 AM: In-person attendees arrive, coffee, building access
  • 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM: State of Infrastructure (Pey Lian Lim), State of Learn (Kelle Cruz)
  • 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Reports from funded projects
  • 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Discussion: Spectroscopy (Tim Pickering)
  • 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM: Lunch + voting for afternoon break-out/coding
  • 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM: Break-out/coding

Day 3: May 4, 2023

Moderator: Matt Craig

  • 08:30 AM - 09:00 AM: In-person attendees arrive, coffee, building access
  • 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Changed: Affiliated Packages (from proposed breakout topics)
  • 10:00 AM - 10:30 PM: Discussion: Tasks for Community Manager (Kelle Cruz)
  • 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM: Future direction of Astropy (astropy and Astropy) and funding. How do we stay hip? General discussion on mindset and ideas about community, funding, proposals, not technical roadmap. (Erik Tollerud)
  • 11:45 AM - 12:00 PM: Discussion: Location for next year Coordination meeting
  • 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM: Lunch + voting for afternoon break-out/coding
  • 01:00 PM - 05:00 PM: Break-out/coding

Running Notes

On Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sBImbw1p4mM3VYWGQJDRbj2N3uqP5Ed_Wfb8BDjJj2o/edit

Possible breakout discussion topics

Governance:

  • Roadmap
    • Updates for the next year.
    • Is roadmap even used by Finance Committee wrt how to distribute funds? If not, what needs to change?
  • Governance of contracts

Core:

  • APE 2 (deprecation policy), APE 21 (no more LTS), and What is considered a public API? (they are somewhat related and should be discussed together)
    • Is the new APE for "public API" ready by now?
    • saimn is interested in this, so try to make this happen on May 2 or May 4 if possible.
  • astropy.units and other implementations, see NEP42 and astropy/astropy#13460
    • Had been discussed but gotten nowhere. If this a useful discussion?
    • Might be most useful if mhvk is there.
  • Merge regions into astropy? (Need larrybradley and/or keflavich)
  • ruff: Do we pause new checks? Do we enforce it? Is it going to stabilize soon? In dev telecon, people voiced losing interest in large number of ruff PRs, which is not a good sign.

Coordinated/Affiliated Packages:

Community:

  • What do users want from us?
  • Return to GSOC and/or Seasons of Docs?
  • Tasks for community-manager wrt community engagement
  • Participation issues
    • How can we better support and encourage Project member's attendance and participation in conferences like ADASS and EuroScipy 2023?
    • How we can support the rest of the planet that is not in the USA or Europe, particularly large markets like India, China, Japan, etc.?
  • Update/revise Code of Conduct

Possible hack session topics

Core:

Coordinated/Affiliated Packages:

  • astrowidgets(need mwcraig, eteq, and/or pllim)
  • Can we use sites.json in astrofrog's acknowledgement generator or combine both? (Need hamogu)
  • ReadTheDocs (RTD): We could aggregate the docs for astropy and Coordinated Packages using subprojects. This way the docs for Coordinates Packages are tightly integrated with astropy and easily discoverable. This needs an RTD admin to participate.
  • Affiliated Package reviews: Can we automate some of the criteria checks? This would also help in the re-review because we certainly do not have the resources to manually re-review 40+ existing affiliated packages.

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Local Restaurants

Plentiful choice in the area, see Google Map and the given links there. The list below lists the closet (i.e., < 50 ft) from the venue.

  • Cambridge Brewing Company: Beer and bar food, burgers, ... Order the beer tower. Great outdoor seating.
  • Smoke shop: Meat. Not for vegetarians. Great outdoor seating.
  • Mamaleh's: Jewish deli
  • Bon Mi : Vietnamese (takeout only, but seat outside on the plaza). Order ahead online to beat lines at lunch time (Select "One Kandell Square" as location for take-out).
  • State Park

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Code of Conduct

This meeting will be governed by the Astropy Code of Conduct. Our goal is to keep ours a positive, inclusive, successful, and growing community. We hold our community members, especially our core developers and project leaders, to a high bar of inclusive behavior.

Please report violations to any member of the SOC or Ombudsperson.

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SOC

  • Tom Aldcroft (CfA | Harvard & Smithsonian)
  • Matt Craig (Minnesota State University Moorhead)
  • Wilfred Tyler Gee (Subaru Telescope)
  • Moritz Günther (MIT)
  • Pey Lian Lim (STScI)

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LOC

  • Moritz Günther (MIT)

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