annezazu 5:10 pm on September 23, 2024
Tags: hosting ( 8 ), performance ( 353 )

Proposal: Create connections between Performance Team and Hosts

This post offers a proposal to create a private slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel (#performance-hosting) where members of both the Performance Team and relevant representatives from hosting companies can come together to share information impacting the performance of sites, test relevant PRs, and have a quick feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. for any performance regressions in new releases. This builds on the current private #security-hosting channel that’s already in place and has proven to be an area of collaboration.

Background

In talking to folks last week at WCUS alongside @harishanker, it became clear that in some cases hosting companies would benefit from a more curated and focused space for contribution that aligns with areas where they can make the biggest impact. In talking with folks, the following areas came to mind: performance, infrastructure, support, and security. This was a repeated topic in all conversations and, in these conversations, the #security-hosting channel came up as an already functional pathway.

Format

Create a new private slack channel for #performance-hosting that includes members from the Performance team for monitoring and engagement alongside relevant members from hosting companies. This is private in order to allow for more sharing and it’s centered around performance in order to provide a curated path for contribution, bringing in folks from the Performance team to engage directly.

What will this group work on?

Below are some of the ideas that were shared in the conversations. See these are starting ideas and not entirely encompassing:

Share anonymized data around plugins that are impacting sites the most in order to do outreach to them with performance suggestions, see what we can learn from them to improve CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and update the plugin checker for anything that might be missing to help future contributors.
Share common user configuration to provide better tests for real world performance situations, rather than solely relying on lab metrics.
Test performance PRs early.
Create a tight feedback loop after releases for any performance degradations.

Why performance?

It’s clear there are a specific areas that hosts are best equipped to make the biggest impact and contribution, including performance. At the same time, the Performance team is a strong team with a clear roadmap, sponsored contributors, and a dedicated space already. In my time in the FSE Outreach Program, I found out how critical it is to create a space that’s managed, maintained, and specific. This checked all the boxes and I anticipate there will be more areas that will, like Support.

Why a private channel?

In talking to folks, a private channel came up as a safer space to share information. I am not personally opposed to a public channel but I want to recognize the reality that for folks in the hosting space, it felt advantageous to have private.

What do you all think? Please share by October 9th, 2024.

Please share your thoughts below. While there was an appetite for this idea when talking to folks in person, I want to know what blockers there might be and whether there are reasons not to pursue this, especially from the Performance team who will be impacted by this.

#hosting, #performance

annezazu 5:10 pm on September 23, 2024

+make.wordpress.org/performance/
+make.wordpress.org/hosting/
Chris Reynolds 5:18 pm on September 23, 2024

The only concern I have about it being a private SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel is how folks opt-in to joining the channel or the channel gains visibility when it’s not a thing you can search for (speaking both selfishly and to the need to document a process). And then, the converse is true, too — if a member is _no longer_ associated with a host, what are the risks/cleanup processes involved in if those users still being a member of the private channel? I assume that there’d be no proactive vetting process for kicking folks that have moved onto other teams/employers, so what’s the worst case scenario for those folks remaining in the channel (and how does this compare with it being just public in the first place)?
Aaron Jorbin 5:53 pm on September 23, 2024

I think there needs to be a very high bar for private channels. Security has a private channel with hosts since it would harm the community for that information to be shared in public. What is the harm of releasing the information that is being shared in this proposed channel?

As is always the case when the topic of private channels comes up, I turn to what Karl Fogel wrote in “Producing Open Source Software“:

Making important decisions in private is like spraying contributor repellant on your project. No serious contributor would stick around for long in an environment where a secret council makes all the big decisions behind closed doors.
Peter Wilson 3:45 am on September 24, 2024

I agree it would be beneficial to the project for the performance team to work with hosts in a dedicated channel.

I share concerns about making it private rather than public for the reasons Chris and Aaron have covered above.
annezazu 8:15 pm on September 24, 2024

On the comments about private channels, I do want to note that that came from direct feedback from hosts and modeling the current private security hosting channel. I’m a realist and also want contributions here. In my mind, there could be a norm to default to public as much as possible in the #hosting channel with the private space for anything that feels more sensitive but still in a place to share.

If it’s public or nothing, I worry we will end up with nothing based on the convos I had.
Weston Ruter 5:11 pm on September 25, 2024

Private makes sense to me as it could further reduce the number of members to a curated list to those which are actually on the Performance team as well as those who are actually employed by hosts. (Although this adds adminadmin (and super admin) overhead as pointed out by Chris.) This could reduce noise and make conversations more targeted. I wouldn’t want it to get discovered by users having performance problems on their host or other users evaluating the performance of different hosts. Alternatively, it could be a public read-only channel except for the members who were invited?
Pascal Birchler 3:26 pm on September 26, 2024

There was no need for such a channel thus far but I can see how it would be useful for some joint projects involving both hosts and the performance team. But those don’t exist yet.

So I would really just start with an MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia of having a joint meeting in a public channel, either #hosting or #coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.-performance. After that, if the need arises, we can still create a private channel for sharing sensitive information. But we should use public communication as much as possible.

In short, I don’t think we need to formally put anything in place. The two teams can just put their heads together and start in the public channel, and go from there.
Joe McGill 4:25 pm on September 26, 2024

Hey @annezazu, thank you for kicking of this discussion and for trying to create connections like this when you see opportunities for collaboration between teams, it’s super helpful!

I agree that closer collaboration between hosts and the performance could help us identify opportunities to fix performance problems in the ecosystem affecting a large number of sites based on real usage metrics, which would be a great thing.

I also think that you’ve identified some great use cases where the teams could collaborate to create automated tooling and processes for testing the performance impact of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. changes on real hosting infrastructures early and even help provide guidance to many hosting companies about how to configure systems to better optimize performance. I got that feedback directly from some folks in at WCUS and we had someone suggest the same in the #core-performance channel just today.

All that said, starting with private slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel feels like a solution in advance of a well defined problem to me. Instead, I’d like to see those teams identify some specific initiatives we have the desire and capacity to work on together and consider creating a new channel (private or not) only once it’s clear that a separate communication channel is needed. And even then, I would want privacy to be a really high bar, since most of the conversations should not require a private channel, IMO.
wesrapyd 12:05 am on September 27, 2024

There is considerable merit in developing closer relationships between the host and performance team … however I’m unclear as to the particular benefits of making that channel private.
Improving coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. performance in theory benefits all hosts equally so it feels somewhat strange to want to hide conversations in that space behind a firewall.
Any specific sensitive conversation could be taken to a private one on one.
Clarifying the message and methodology for the channel would be important to lock down
But delaying getting this conversation started should not be put off any longer than it has already been
Brett Dunst, SCMP 8:48 pm on October 1, 2024

We’ve discussed it at DreamHost and would love to be involved. Private or public doesn’t matter a whole lot to us. It does feel as if there’s a potential for some overlap here with #hosting.
Felix Arntz 7:54 pm on October 7, 2024

Thank you Anne for kicking this off. I would welcome a place for closer collaboration between WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. (Performance) Team members and relevant employees from hosts.

I see both sides of the argumentation for whether or not a potential channel should be private.

On the one hand, I agree with Jorbin’s take that performance should not require secrecy like security does, since there is no technical risk involved in having performance conversations in the open.

On the other hand, your reply “If it’s public or nothing, I worry we will end up with nothing based on the convos I had.” makes sense as well, we need to meet hosts where they are, or at least find a middle ground. While a public channel wouldn’t be a technical risk, it could be a reputational risk, since public conversations could be taken out of context by someone to publicly shame a host that e.g. they’d have worse performance than another host, simply based on a specific conversation about a performance issue. I could see how this concern may turn away hosts that prefer a safe space to talk about such issues with trusted community members.

I think Pascal’s idea of first starting with a public chat involving folks from the interested hosts would be good, and from there we could decide what’s the best next step and location for such conversations.

Welcome!

Communication

Proposal: Create connections between Performance Team and Hosts

Welcome!

Communication

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