Okay, let's get started. So, you're on gallery mode so I can see all of you, there you are. Mick and I wanted to call you all together here because most of you are about to embark on your adventure to go to the camp and collect data there. And if you're not, then you are planning to do so in the future. And we've had various conversations with you. So you're kind of all in different stages right now with where you, where you're at with the journey. But we thought it would be valuable to run through the process of a camp saying we want to collect data, all the way to the data being collected and being shared with the network. Step by step and different parts will be relevant to different people but we thought it would be great to run through it systematically so that we have it recorded and can use it as well for future reference. We're also going to run through the different tests and answer any questions that you have. So, that everyone's clear. We have created, well in the process of creating videos of Mick at Camp Mama Adama in Portugal doing the tests, but they're still being edited right now. So we hope to have those with you ASAP but here is a chance today for us to go through the tests and answer any questions anyone has about about them. And then lastly, we're going to discuss how to create a place online where all of you can regularly chat together, interact so that when you're doing data collection at the various camps and you have a question.  So yeah, that's essentially our agenda. So to begin, Mick has created this framework of how many tests are there Mick. It's growing but it's at 13 we are now. Some are testing the same indicators. Yeah. They have been, Mick, you want to talk a bit about the development process, how you came to create them? Sure, yeah. Yes, I don't really know. Was everyone who is here in principle in the seminar last week as well? Not everybody. Okay, well, most of the tests I built on actually, they were already in the original version of the framework and were a bit tweaked and improved from the experiences that two people had last year. I will share maybe just my screen. So you know what I'm talking about. Can you see a table of contents? So here we can see there's quite a lot of indicators and they are relevant to different camps in different ways and I mean, many, many are already used in different frameworks. So we considered Allen Savory's framework. We considered also framework developed by a permaculture research institute. So there's obviously a lot of great stuff already out there and really ready to use. And we've been integrating this in the context of ecosystem restoration and Roland and Fran are here today as well. They've really helped to focus on biodiversity metrics. Of course, this is a very challenging indicator because every ecosystem is so unique and there's various ways of serving biodiversity and this including it in a common framework is challenging inherently. But maybe we can dive into the biodiversity indicator as well because this was a question also last week and we think it's really interesting and cool and we want to have it incorporated at the camps. Yeah, so I don't know if everyone had a chance to go through the different tests and maybe already select together with the camp managers, which tests or which indicators you want to be monitoring. So what we've done in the framework for this year is really, we started framing these indicators as a toolkit that camps really can use to monitor progress of their work, of their restoration efforts, and they, they can do so by selecting these relevant or the indicators that are relevant to their ecosystems. And at the same time we also obviously want or would like to see a global picture of what is happening. So there's a few, a few indicators and this will be become more clear when you receive the new version of the framework there's a few indicators that we would like to measure everywhere biodiversity is one of them. And also carbon sequestration and we have soil compaction which we did you see already the often deal with certifying ecosystems and compacted soils. It's, it's something we would like to look at everywhere. And otherwise, our recommendation is that camps decide on a set of indicators for five years and then engage in monitoring and collect data collection for those five years using those indicators. So there's both the set that we want to measure everywhere and also the set that each camp will decide based on our resources, financial resources but also manpower. And this is also things that are, I mean to make sense to measure here in our ecosystems, earthworms are not present everywhere. There's different, there's different indicators that are more relevant in, in some locations than in others and from this perspective of, or I would say from a remote perspective in terms of interacting with camps. It's quite difficult at this stage to say, these are, these are the indicators that are relevant for your sites. So we really engage in dialogue with people who are going to collect data and the camp managers to, to discuss what's, you know, what, what can be camp relevant indicators. Let me just, here maybe it's relevant to pick up on this chart that I also showed last week. I'm going to rise in with them with this idea of the context specific stuff and when we, when we start from a vision and the camp has defined what are the degraded ecosystems they are hoping to change. And then they can establish certain restoration goals and objectives. The Society for Ecological Restoration in their framework they work towards a reference ecosystem after establishing a baseline study. Here maybe in more simple terms we, we just would like to see illustrated what are the things or even your own guesses of how you can affect change in those ecosystems. And so what are the things you're trying to change is it's you're trying to bring more water infiltration in the soil then you're going to try to plant some perennials in some pieces of land and in other pieces of land just apply mulch. Whatever that is you, you can, you start identifying oh yeah these are the things that I want to do and these are the things that could help me measure, measure progress of my work and check whether I'm on the right path to achieve these restoration goals. But we realize as well, and this is why, why I felt this chart needed to be created that not every camp really necessarily starts here and many camps will have started doing stuff planting trees and maybe now already at the stage of making sense of what's happening. And so my recommendation would be, of course engage in monitoring and look critically at what's being done and whether it's effective and working or not. And so from there that can also be still integrated in the site map. What is happening where what are the kind of expected outcomes that you're trying to achieve and what's what are the metrics that will help you assess whether you're, you're working towards these outcomes. Yeah. So just to summarize that basically the framework with the tests have been created in a sort of menu format so that there are some ones that we probably will call common indicators that all of the camps should measure against because those are the things that when put together we will be able to present to the world and say, the camps movement is increasing biodiversity the camps movement is, you know, there are like a few key indicators that we would like to present as for the movement as a whole. And then there are others that are for you to choose from depending on your vision for the land, your bio, your context, etc. And the indicators that are kind of added extra ones, we will continue to develop so that by the end of it, what we're hoping is that every camp will have its own framework that is relevant to, to that camp specifically. So once that process has been done, then you, as a camp manager, you would tell us, okay, we have the capacity as a team to do this data collection ourselves or we would like some support from a data collector. And, and once we know that we can go out find someone who wants to become a data collector, give them training, they then travel to the camp. Stay there, do the data collection. I've missed a step. Find the data collector, then decide which tests you want to do and create a budget based on how much the tests will cost. And all of those documents like the budget template, etc. We can send you if we haven't done that already. And then this is an opportunity for the ERC foundation and the camps to collaborate on financing those those materials that will then become the property of the camp for for the rest of time. We have decided that we will buy as as the ERC foundation, we will buy the penetrometers and the data loggers, which measure soil compaction and surface temperatures. And the reason for buying those two is that we want to try and get a discount from the manufacturers buying them in bulk so that we can send them out and also the data will be a lot more valuable and interesting if the same equipment is used because it makes it comparable across all of the different sites. And those two things are the most expensive and they come to around 500 euros. So, that's essentially the process. I don't have any questions on that. I know a lot of you already know this. So sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I want this recording to be useful to future camps and data collectors too. I know that some of the Camp Pachelan and Camp Visley have already gone through this process. And if you haven't yet gone through this process, Fran and Roland, Nancy and Frank, we can talk about that in the coming weeks. Does anyone have any questions about the process before we move on to the tests themselves? Or even maybe it's also interesting to hear say from Daryl how this ties in with your experience so far. You've made a budget now. Did you manage to select first the indicators that are relevant for monitoring or you assumed you wanted to do everything for your baseline study? How is that unfolding? I think it's a well, of course, you know, we're committed to supporting the movement. So we want to obviously do the tests that are being recommended for all the camps. I mean, for starters, I think for us, it's really relevant the soil compaction, which is a big issue. We really think they'll be extremely valuable to monitor that and water retention. Those are the two biggest opportunities I think we have to kind of make some changes in addition to increasing the, you know, planting trees and just cooling things down, creating a better microclimate for, you know, changing, for dealing with the hotter, drier summers that everybody's experiencing in this region. So yeah, I think that's pretty much it. I mean, I'm not sure does the you indicate on the outline, which of those tests are the ones that you want everybody to do? Is that sort of in its own category? In the version that's going to be published, that will be emphasized, but this is pretty fresh also coming from our end distinction and it became clear that this is something we wanted to do during the Yeah. So yeah, if you could just put those in one beginning paragraph, these are the ones to start with, you know, that would be helpful. So we really will focus on those for sure. While everybody's here because I don't think we're going to be able to do everything during the next three to four weeks. You know, we'll be waiting on some of the equipment and some other things but we want to focus on doing the ones that are the most important. And then, you know, we can add in from there over the next few months. Yeah, we will. This is part of the plan in the new sections of the framework. When do you plan? I know it's evolving, which is really good. I appreciate all the hard work you guys have done. Mick, when do you hope to have the new version finished and sent out by Ashley for me, it's we, it's pretty finished because I'm not wanting to include the new indicators in there and I've already done the tweaks. But we need to figure out some some things, mostly about the frequency. I think the expected rate of change of some indicators I think will influence also what we want camps to be measuring every year and or what we would like to see happening at camps every year and how that is done. But there is some open questions there still I would like to discuss with the team on Monday. And then I think it can be published. Okay, based on that. I think that Danila and the VSELA team and also Richard are going to be setting off on this journey, starting from next week. So it would be good for them to have it when they begin. Yeah, I think alternatively what what is possible is even after this meeting, the framework with all these elements we've just discussed can be shared with all data collectors and the camps who want to do their online or their studies in 2021. Because regardless of these questions how frequently we're going to measure these things in the first year. So particularly this year for many camps, it's it's very relevant to measure a wide range of indicators. Yeah, even if you only measure again in three years time say, we know it's, it's takes quite a while to to affect the compaction of our soils or change the soil organic carbon content in some ecosystems. But it would be good. Every camp could already know how to measure that this year and you could receive the guidance for this straight away, and then we define the other bits. Yeah, I think the frequency of how many times the tests are done over the next five years we can think on a bit further whilst people go ahead and get started this year. And see Igor's got his hand raised. Yeah, I have a question regarding the last change I think we added some tests about biodiversity was the only a bit because I somehow fail the costs, because we submitted the budget, and as they were not in the last version. Yeah, I just a curiosity how would it affect the budget or you mean for the biodiversity, the nocturnal. It's in principle, if you have a wall or bed sheet, it's not going to to shift the costs at all. Maybe you have to buy string but it's likely that you already have this. You added something. Oh, no. No, maybe I didn't see in the last time that I check it, because the test about the insects was already in the framework, but I saw today there is one about the fauna. And would that be done by the team in there or there will be a specialist, because for example I don't know what type of planes would be growing at Camp Visele, for example. Yeah, we. So, in this coming version there will be more resources and tools also suggested to help you with identifying plant species. But also really clear guidance on how you can, you can document and look for, maybe not even look for but just document any, any unexpected encounters you have with biodiversity and with with animal species in this case. So, Roland and Frank can probably also say something nice about this, but you'll have a quadrat and you, this will be static over time that's the idea. So, in different years you visit the same, the same area and you walk through it in a systematic way. So you don't, you don't add more factors into the equation of biodiversity. And then you, you are also shown how you can document this, you know, with, with the time, maybe the weather conditions also, even temperature if you're able to record these things. And then we, again, it's an experimental thing we, we still don't really know how we will be looking at the state across different camps and what kind of indices, maybe we can, we are able to calculate. It's body for the biodiversity test. So I would see them also as a way of simply engaging with local biodiversity and, and just maybe quite anecdotally for now just realizing what's, what's out there and how it is improving in the, in the beginning stages of the camp. And yeah, we don't really know time wise how quick we can, we can, how quickly we will be able to see changes, but it's, it's an evolving indicator as well and, and this is what we want to also make really tailored to the specific camps. And another ongoing project is to, is to work with a few camps to really figure out what's, what are specialists and generalist groups of species and, and how we can assess the quality of the habitats being improved at the camps with them as indicators. I think Igor's question was about new biodiversity tests that have been added since we sent the version of the framework that he has, but I don't think anything has been added. There is, I don't really know which one you had shared Ashley, but we have, and it's also in the training videos I demonstrate how you will do it, but the nocturnal insect sheet test Igor, I don't know if you are talking about this one. In any case, any of the biodiversity protocols we have is, there is no crazy logistics involved or costs, because one involves a quadrat, you are likely to be able to build this yourself whatever you find yourself collecting data, or you will be putting up a light, a bed sheet which is really cool in between trees or any other structure you have available and just shining light on it. So, yes, you will have to think of, of a light bulb and, and a way of doing this for a few hours, but this is, this should not be, you shouldn't, I don't think you need to be very worried about any budget around this. Okay, cool. So that leads us on nicely to talking about the, the tests themselves. So we're thinking, there'll be two ways of doing this, either we systematically go through every test, and describe it to you, and then you can ask, ask or answer questions, or we ask you, are there any tests that you are unsure about in any way. Because I'm imagining you've all read, you've all read the document with the tests on it. Is that correct? I sent them to all of you. Pablo, have I not sent them to you yet? Yeah, exactly. I was, I was just asking how, how can I access the framework. I had a document, but it's like a how to guide with 13 pages. Is that the framework? Did you find that from the website? Yeah, exactly. Okay. So there is one right now available. We have a crowd funder on and one that is just describing all the tests and doesn't yet touch on this difference between common indicators and camp specific indicators. I'll put the link here in the chat. Okay, perfect. And yeah, I think it's a good idea. We will do this anyways. After the meeting, I will share the, the latest documents with, with all the tests in it and, and yeah, everyone is on the same page and also all the other resources that the file with the budget and yeah, I think other than that, we only have something to make a budget for preparing for monitoring at camps and, and the frameworks from which you can select the tests. Eventually you will also have access to different PDFs, different files for each of the indicators you want to be collecting so that you don't have to take a 30 pager in your pocket with you when you go out to the fields. So we're talking about all of these different versions of the framework, but basically there was one version that was written last year, which is the one that's still on the website now and then there's the new version that Mick has written. It has the tests themselves haven't changed since I've sent them out to you, only the only things that really need to be added are like extra little bits and pieces of guidance and advice around the tests. So you don't have to worry that you now have an outdated version you haven't seen the new version and you're going to collect data next week and you don't know what the new tests are. That's not, that's not happening. So, yeah, are there any tests that anyone would like us to clarify on that you feel a little bit unsure about because I think going through every single one step by step if you've already read them. It's going to be time consuming and maybe not the best use of our time right now and you'll have the training videos with with Mick showing you how to do each one. Yeah, I just wanted to maybe ask for just a little clarification on the lab test that we've actually got a guy coming from our regional agriculture chamber. They offer that service and he's actually coming out here to get some soil samples and I just was wanted to really make sure I tell them the right. That's what we're really trying to do here correctly. And the way I understand it so far it's we're trying to get test organic matter percentage of organic matter and carbon, is that the main things.  We would like to measure. The test that the lab should conduct is called loss on ignition. I'll write that in the chart should be in the framework to. And we're supposed to get individual tests from our various areas that we've chosen to monitor right so if like I'm going to measure five areas that'll be five separate tests. Five separate soil samples. Usually the labs even tell you how how they want you to sample the soil. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, that's good that's that's pretty clear. Thank you. Thank you. Nice Terrell I don't know if this is possible, or affordable whatever. But if, if the tests happen at the same lab. Every time you, you are going to be monitoring for soil carbon, because otherwise we've seen it come from different labs may give even different decimals and this will make. Yeah the interpretation slightly more difficult. Yeah. Well it seems to me it's it's that's and will continue to use it it's a service offered by the local, you know, and they, they do a lot of other things that we may engage with them to as far as consulting for farm development and all kinds of all kinds of interesting things so I think once we establish that relationship that'll be an ongoing long term. Yeah. That's great I think that's exactly what can help camps also formulate and answer some research questions will be local institutions and and universities as much as possible possible to engage those. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even if it's not about the specific indicators because you've, you may be only grab those when you're actually trying to do them. Any of the other bits on on a preparation level. Do you think you are. You know how you can decide on the exact spots where you will do these tests. I think that the section on sampling design clarifies some of that for you because this was something completely new in this in this framework or the idea of the of the time frame and how often you will be. I'll go back and review that I mean I've gotten a general idea of the areas I'd like to test just from being on the land for the last seven months and noticing some of the different characteristics, both an elevation and and you know floor on soil compaction and dryness plus looking at what were our plan and what we intend to do in the future as far as, you know, planting and farming. Does anyone else have any questions about selecting the sampling sites. Is that clear to everyone. Can I get a yes or no some sort of response from you. Hey Ashley. Yeah I was I was wondering I haven't read the document because I just received link, but I was in the website with the instrument inside the budget, the budget list. I didn't see any GPS equipment or anything and I was wondering. And also a question for me if the exact location latitude and longitude for the sampling. Is it important or not so that every time you take the sample you take it in the same spot, or you're going to do it with just a marker I don't know what road or something, or how is it. It's a great question. We recommend usually physically marking whatever you're sampling. And if we really would love every time to also record a coordinates that that would change the game I think for future data collectors. But yes we don't know if GPS if these equipments are available everywhere and we don't want to include it in the budget list. Also the smartphones are, it seems better and better able to pin your exact location although this really depends on the kind of regions that you are in. So, yes, it's something that I feel also after this year we will be able to to get clarity on whether actually we should also get, and maybe even the same GPS equipment for every camp or not. But yeah, I think creating a basic map just using Google Maps where you stand at the point where you are sampling from you drop a pin and label it. There could be some sampling site one or S one whatever you want to call it would be really valuable and really quick and easy to do. And I think that's that's what Campbell to plan has been doing right. They collected data last year. So they have a Google map that's then shareable and where you just prep is everyone familiar with how to create a pin on Google Maps. Yes. Yeah. I think if everyone is able to do that, then that would be a good thing to do make what do you think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. I just know it's, it's not going to work so well everywhere. Yeah, I don't know it's going to happen this way but I, I can imagine it doesn't work that well everywhere I had problems with it myself on an island on dunes trying to find the pins I had placed again, because, yeah. I mean this was some years ago but maybe Google, Google's Google map and pin system has has improved in the meantime. So we will have to see how it goes. It will be very interesting to hear how it goes and obviously physical physically marking where the spots are is definitely the first thing to do and should definitely be done. Don't rely just on on technology to find our again. Maybe in the future if the road is still there then with a better equipment that you can just take it and then I know you are we're thinking about, for example, Crowder lap and stuff like that which uses satellite images. If the road is still there we can then in the future just market with the GPS and then and then still work with the data. But yeah, thank you. Okay, so it seems like everyone is familiar with sampling sites seeing as no one told me that they weren't. So, can I have a yes or no. Yes. On on on the tests themselves. Are there any that that we would need us to go through. I'm just going to test your action. I don't think I got a previous email. Rihanna. Yeah. Yeah, so I think it should be fine but I haven't had the chance to read them. This is the first time I'm seeing them. Well, yeah, if that is the case then we can have another chat about that later on. Has anyone read through the framework and has thought all that I don't understand that. I think Igor raises hand first and then Sylvia in the last conversation we had about the framework. I remember someone, I don't know if a Sylvia, but someone from Camp Auti Plano mentioned about the increased water retention of the soil that because this test is a bit like weather sensitive, because they kind of recommend some conditions. Some amount of rain for a couple of days. It's kind of the recommended. And then, yeah, maybe, but we didn't have the time to go through. What was their experience so I think it would be more a question for them, how they did collecting it last year, and if they were able to find these conditions or how they managed to go around it. Yeah, I didn't do the water and filtration test myself. So Sylvia, one of the volunteers that were here at the time. But it was more the fact that it was really time consuming, because it was slowly letting water infiltrating in the soil. And it's indeed, as you were saying, it's better be done after the rain so when the soil is not completely dry because otherwise you have a crust on the top layer and then it's infiltrating. I don't know for us everything it's a bit like we plan things and then the weather doesn't help and then you have to do it on another day. It's just how it goes. You can indeed try and find the best conditions but sometimes you just do. And actually I was going through the results earlier and there's a few results that seem really weird to me I don't know maybe it's also we didn't get exactly what we what we had to get to. But the other real problem was the oven. So we just solar dried the soil samples that we got out of it. But I think in the end, in that sense, I think it shouldn't be a problem in terms of outcome. So this is about the water holding capacity test just to be clear on that right. It's not. Yeah. I believe we have in the framework now also a little bit on on that on the timing when when it's when it's best to do it. So ideally it's after there has been some rain. If there is no rain. This involves watering the soil before before you do the tests and it's indeed we've seen also from an experience in Portugal. It's quite time consuming and also it's not so nice because there's not that much water in these ecosystems. So this is why we also we also include an alternative test for the water holding capacity test. You can actually when you're measuring soil compaction if you don't have the penetrometer. So as you're doing the bulk density test, you can you can measure both following the same process so you can you can get you can calculate the water holding capacity of your soil or the amount of water there is retained in your soil, because the soil sample goes in the oven for both of the tests and you can also calculate the bulk density of your soil which is an indicator of the compaction. And now some ways. And there's also a water infiltration tests. We're trying to to work out how it's best to to monitor this over time and yeah it's, it's quite a standard protocol, but it involves a lot of watering and it's a bit sophisticated we we have to see how this again works out in some of the others. It may even not make so much sense if the, the place is always soaked or yeah. It's, it, we wish we had more answers also more guidance on some of these things but it's really experimental journey for all of us in a way. Yeah, we hope we hope it's now a little bit easier at least in terms of timing we are defining pair tests, both in description of each of the indicators we say something about when the test is ideally done. And also in the summary table in our overview will have a column showing in what season this should be done and also differentiating between different biomes when possible. This will also help us of course to measure the same things on the more or less the same moments in different camps, which, which will be cool for intercamp comparisons and aggregated data. So we did you still have a question that you wanted to discuss. Yeah, mine was about the remote sensing for land surface land cover. Can you tell us more about it because I just feel like it could be some very complex. Just tell me about it. It's not a single question or a single answer one again. It's, yeah, it's something I incorporated because I think many restoration projects measure land cover change so this. This is basically from above assessing how the canopy structure is changing or how how the vegetation is changing. And what you are actually measuring the kind of indices you will be using. It's quite open in the framework with the purpose that camps can find out how it can serve them because nowadays you can with Google Earth engine and cross a lab very soon restore platform. You'll be able to see these changes also throughout the past and how this has evolved. So it's more of a prompt to to engage with that as well and it's I think I can I can share screen for those who are not looking at that test. So there's a bunch of references that that can that link you to global data sets and websites that are using the same data sets and you can measure. Yeah, you can overlay the polygons of your camps on these through these platforms quite often and you can see, you can then distinguish there between the different zones of your camps and also the different landscape trades and and then see how that is evolving over time and maybe it allows you to to understand the trends also a bit seen from space and yeah it's not it's nothing that we really expect camps to be all measuring it's something it's something that is available and it's nice because it's largely open source and camps can make use of that if they find it useful and also if they want to see how their restoration work ties in with with the wider landscape and maybe how it fits into landscape restoration efforts. That's the main idea of looking at land cover change also as with all the indicators that come from AI and satellite imagery we we are a bit on hold we want to know how camps can help this platform. Restore which arises. Yeah, alongside with the partnership with cross the lab between cross the lab and the ecosystem restoration camps foundation. We will. Yeah, we're eager to know how the camps can help to calibrate their measurements and predictions. And so we we don't specify so much yet how how to use these these tools because maybe it's a whole different protocol that we will be sharing soon based based on the information that we will be getting from crowd the lab. And, yeah, this is an evolving, an evolving conversation with the remote sensing indicators and also the data. I wouldn't feel to now it's not very urgent because it's, it's something that you'll have, you can decide on the interval you want to be assessing and you can, you can look in December you can look at how it was in May or in June of course. So it's it's not something that that has timing, since it is sensitive to timing. And hopefully, what we are expecting actually to to see also in the future is that through uploading the polygon files into a platform like restore ecosystem restoration camps will receive an overview. A few ecological insights, based on the data from cloud the lab or the algorithms and the all sorts of equations that are being developed. Also through ground ground validation. So it's it's going to be. Yeah, I don't know how accurate in the first years, but it should should become automated at some point who I see a hand. Hello, it's my hand, by the way, is that and could be an opportunity to add some photos that maybe we can take the photos at same angle and same altitude. That's why maybe we can add this opportunity to our assessment for this method because, okay, we can get all these information as an image wise from the satellites or maybe somebody's has a drones then they can easily take the picture of this area. But at that time, all the time, while we could easily see whole things from the space as a bird's eye view. That's an opportunity, but at the same time, maybe we can consider to take the photos with our phones or something like that. In every time in every same point and same angle, then we can collect the whole photos like a time time lapse, maybe we can. Yeah, I think it's a it's a great idea and it actually correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it was described also in the former version of the framework. And yet, I haven't really written it out this time because of that but I think it would be indeed great if every camp could have a picture station or some frame and people can take a picture in the same season year after year. It's a really good example of a test that is really easy to do every year and will show great, great evolution. Yeah, fixed point photography is something that all camps, all restoration projects of any kind would benefit from doing because it's a really easy visual effective. Wow, sort of impact way of showing change. I mean, a lot of us are probably here because we've seen the before and after pictures of the list plateau. And if, if every camp could have its own sort of wow impact photo before and after images, then it will really help us prove that what we're doing is is working. And then the data can take people more in depth about exactly what they're seeing behind these amazing photo changes. And it's really straightforward to do just pick somewhere on the landscape that has a point of reference. So say there's a, there's a tree or there's a church spire or there is a mountain or something. You, you mark the point where you took the photo from with stick in the ground or something that's not going to get eaten or knocked over by the weather. And then once a year at the same time of year, take a photo of the same place with that point of reference that marker in the same place in the shop. If you look over the photos in the future, you can see, yeah, that's the same place because I can see that tree is in the same position. And maybe something to add to the list of even in the protocols so that we at least it would be really cool if every zone would have points like this. So you can see the evolution say over food forest. Yeah, over time. Good idea. Yeah, you add it in Mac. Awesome. You go. Did you have another question. I just thought about it now could be also interesting for some. Please. That can't get the coordinates or don't use the technologies somehow have it on Google Maps but to have this picture of the, yeah, of the place where the symbols were collected in the last time. I think I missed the question. My connection might be bad. I think it's mine here. So it was just an idea of the same idea for the picture being applied for the places where we collect the samples. Yeah. Yes, so many. So some some tests. I know, for instance, at Alti Plano soil compaction was being measured in different points, but in the same management areas in different years. For some of the tests we are now. Well, we are specifying when that's needed that the sampling areas is static over time. So, for example, for a biodiversity survey. It's likely that you'll have, you'll be watching over the same. I don't know 10 by 10 meters year on year. So that will. Yeah, there will be a fair pair indicator but it's, it's, it should be clear in the description of each test and also the sampling design in general. So we are, we can, I'm happy to show that now I don't know if there's any other questions but there is data sheets where you'll be logging your data and in there. We also have a few columns to really define where where you've sampled. And so when you're adding your measurements from different years, you link that with the same coordinates and the same sampling locations. So we see if there are any more questions about any of the tests and then suggest that we have a quick break because we've been talking just for just over an hour already. And I think when we're on zoom we forget that we also need to have breaks and so that we're not zoning out. So are there any more tests related questions before we have a quick, maybe 10 minute break and then come back and talk about how to record the data and and report Danila. I have also one more question about remote sensing indicator like 13 about carbon registration, registration. And you wrote something about elementary equations and for those I just read shortly the document that you're linked into like you need for instance the tree height or also the crown width and how exactly can like other apps that measure that for instance or Yeah, actually, they don't know this was was this in the PDF we just shared with you. Yeah, I think the last version that sent us. Yeah, exactly. So this, this is well very easy answer I would say, don't worry about it for now as well. I was doing an internship in the forest ecology and forest management department and so this is very applicable when you have trees capturing carbon, but also we, we are not going to be measuring, at least not in quantitative terms. People who are going to the camps to collect data will not be measuring carbon sequestration, because it's a very other than the soil carbon, which is going to happen at labs mostly, maybe we're also looking into a different method, but it's not ready to be published. It's quite complex to really be able to measure with these elementary equations, the amount of carbon that we are capturing. And so, I don't know I don't think we are engaging with that at this level at this point yet, but again cross a lab is also wanting to offer insights into the amount of biomass that is growing on the land. You can, you can see this in a different zones. And this is through ground validation or calibration of their models. This, this will give at some point camps, an amount of carbon that is being sequestered in living or above ground biomass. But, again, the protocol to validate this maybe so, maybe so specific to the platform that, yeah, maybe it doesn't make sense to now focus on such an indicator and develop a protocol ourselves. We don't want to be measuring it in two different ways. So, for now, don't, don't, don't worry too much about it. And again, it's another one that is not timing sensitive current sequestration and the vegetation. Yeah, we're waiting for crowd for labs to share with us their way of validating what their software is is telling them, if that makes sense. Okay, any other questions about the tests? Can you give me a nod or a no or a yes? What's what are you saying? All nods, all shakes. I'm getting confused for nodding and shaking. Okay. Fab, shall we come back in five minutes? Just have a stretch, have a drink, go to the bathroom, etc. And then we can talk about how to record the data, how to report it. And what we want to do so that we can all chat as the data collection happens. So I'll see you back at quarter past the hour. Enjoy. See you soon. Okay, welcome back. Just going to make a little note of who is here. So we know who has received this info. Now it's a test of my ability to remember everyone's names. Is everyone here? We're still waiting for a few people. Igor, Richard, Niraj, are you there? Yes, I'm back. Yes, I'm here. Well, hard to tell. Richard, are you there? Yes. Okay, I'm here. I have a video, of course, I don't have such a good connection. Yeah. Okay, well, it's good to know that you're there. The next section of this conversation is to talk about reporting and then how we can all chat during the process, if that's desired. So maybe Mick, you'd like to take the floor. Sure. So first, maybe before reporting, maybe we can, I just like to share with you what you will have to upload the data. And now I have to choose the right thing to share. So this is kind of a master sheet with different indicators. And again, the tabs, I believe these are called tabs and spreadsheets underneath will differ per camp. So you will be able to keep the ones that are relevant to you and remove the ones that you're not using. Overview, I thought it would be, yeah, would be nice to just keep on including here the indicators that you can choose from, as we expect these to to grow. And you can select, you can select or just to keep a good overview what you will be measuring over time. And maybe you can even stretch this already make a plan for your 345 for a whole monitoring cycle. And then, obviously, we, we would like to know what's what made you define the different zones of your camp or the different areas you will be monitoring. So here you can include when you start data collection, what are the different areas you'll be studying and what are the interventions that they place there or how is the ecosystem like there, depending on the criteria that we're used to define those zones. And then, for each of the tests, the decomposition rate in this case, you will identify with the codes that you've used and we describe this in the protocol how to create tags and unique codes for each of the tea bags in this case. And then you can upload this into this data sheet, as well as the coordinates. In this case, I think it will be enough to just have the coordinates of the plot where the tea bags are they won't need the exact coordinates because you will be seeing the codes above the ground. And it's just a systematic way of keeping an overview and then, as we were talking about, we see we have a sample here. Sorry, this should be in the coordinates, then next year people know exactly okay, I will measure the weight of this tea bag with this code ABC in this location. Then there will be another column when the baseline study is conducted, you can, you can in this case be measuring the difference in the weight or the amount of the amount of tea that was decomposed, which is obviously the results that from this data sheet, you will be able to use or start to interpret in your reporting. There is a, there is a little example of how you can report on the data that you will be collecting. However, it's, it's not updated with all the indicators that we have so, but we trust also, you know, reporting. And it's going to happen that camps will encounter certain things and maybe even use a completely different set of indicators if they are, I don't know, taking more measurements from the lab, for example, or relying more on remote sensing. Our invitation is to, to write up a report and to document that so not only in terms of numbers and and the quantities sometimes it's this this also works with some qualitative data, but also just to write about it and also in that way. Give a place to your, to your experiences as, as data collectors at the camps and also as participants in the restoration work through monitoring. You can then report based on on these, on these values that we will be putting in here, but it's not what I'm trying to say it is don't don't look at it as a necessarily as a scientific paper in which you have an introduction and you're trying to really then define the methods and use the data that you'll be having here and trying to make complex statistical graphs and it's, it really is. It's a place where the data is is very important on the one hand, just to be able to monitor and see how the work is progressing. So reporting side of it the way you will be writing the, the, your findings as data collectors or camp managers will can be very can be unique and will also receive some of your creative inputs there. But maybe we want, I don't know if what do you think of a data sheet like this. It's, it's something. It's worth noting that this is not intended to be the ultimate system of storing data. So the foundation is, is working to develop a data warehousing system and will be really open sourced and also easily accessible for for the wider community. But in the meantime, we will be using these data sheets to just have the data in in a place and these data sheets will be long. You will be fine. You will be able to find them in your own camp specific folder with all the resources that you need for monitoring this year and who knows this next year if the data warehousing system isn't ready but it should be ready after this year. Also here I think it's, yeah, it's not, it's not very great use of the time to, to really go into the kind of things you will be putting in for each of the tests, but should you have any questions or any ideas around this. Okay, we can have a little conversation about that. Recording data and how do you how you think, whether you think this is going to work out well as well at the camps, maybe camp managers have more ideas on this. We assume, because camps are camps involved with the ecosystem restoration camps foundation that they have access to digital devices and it shouldn't be a very great challenge to to upload the data, but we're also thinking it's possible that people take just on hard paper they can note the variables and the different things they will be measuring on the field. So at the beginning of the day, and then at the end of the day when they have the screens or the internet back on, they can upload this into the database. So it depends on what you also have to to collect the data if you have an iPad, it's obviously much more convenient than than a phone or a tablet something that's a bit larger. And it also depends on. Yeah, but we will have to see how it is goes in practice if if you really don't need internet for this on the tablets and these other Google Drive applications for your smartphones. But this is this is for now is what we what we thought of for for recording the data and also uploading it into the common database of of ecosystem restoration camps. So the idea is that you can either print the spreadsheet tables and fill them in directly into the printouts. You can download the Google Drive app on your phone, and then just upload the data directly into the spreadsheets on your phone, or you can get a notebook and write, and then kind of draw the tables with the columns and the headings, and and then type up the data into the into this tables later, whatever works best for you really and we'll be sending you the links to where these spreadsheets live before you go. So, yeah, does that all make sense. So any other any questions about that. Thanks for your thumbs up. I have one question that. Hi, Ashley. I have one question that can we use. There are different tools or apps like cobo toolbox where we can have online offline data, we can collect and, and then there's an option it can be transformed into Excel seat as well. So, where there's an issue of network, we can use cobo toolbox, you, it's an open source open source app, so we can check it out. Okay, that sounds good. Here I am using for some of the survey, you can just check it out. Google toolbox. Okay, nice. I've never heard of that. That sounds like a cobo toolbox. Sounds like a good, good alternative when camps don't have internet, but do have digital devices. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, so now that the discussion about how to record the data has been had. Part of the data collection officer role is to write a short report on your experience after you have found out what the results are. And the time we've written a template for how to put that for the headings to use when you're writing the report. But it's a sense, I mean, I can probably find it right now and show it to you. I think that would be a good idea. I'm a bit of a fiend when it comes to making folders on the Google Drive and then I can't remember where I've put things, but I found it here. So this is how it's laid out. I'm monitoring an evaluation. If it's a baseline report, right, baseline, or if it's just a standard test, then you don't have to fill that in. You can just have a report, but I think it's interesting to know whether it's a baseline or not, or maybe depending on what year you're on, you could write the year number there, but year one, year two, year three. And then the camp you're working with and the date that you've written the report. And then the table of contents is basically an introduction to what it is that you were doing. So I have been working on the baseline study for camp XYZ. I've also text about the camp. So explain what the camp is is doing in terms of restoration and who who's involved, etc. So you see, I've got the comments here. These comments are basically descriptions of what you should write in each section. So I've made it super super clear. And then there's the different, the different tests. So basically, how did the test get implemented? What exactly did you do? What were the results? What were the challenges that you had in doing that test? And how would you suggest it's improved in the future? So basically a section like this for every indicator. And then just a conclusion of summarise how the data collection went, what the results showed, what went well and what didn't go well, and what could be improved. And if you're waiting a little while on some of the test results to come in, for example, the results to come from the lab test, you don't have to send this report immediately and just wait until you have all the results before you send it. Yeah, and then we'll have a really clear picture and these are these sorts of reports we can then share with the other camps and with the rest of the movement as well so that everyone has a place where they can really understand what it is that you discovered. So yeah, when it comes to sending these round, I'll make sure that you all have a link to where this is saved on the Google Drive and where the different data tables that Mick just showed you where they're saved as well. Yes. Are there any questions about reporting? It really doesn't have to be long or in depth, you can just keep it really brief. We just want, we want an idea of what happened there because otherwise we won't know. Yeah. So that brings us on to how we're going to all communicate with each other when we're doing the data collection. Is there a desire for you to all be able to chat and share your experiences? Can I get a thumbs up, thumbs down? Yeah. So what would you suggest is the best way of you being able to share little comments, photos, videos? I think WhatsApp is great but not everyone uses it. The options I can think of are a Slack channel, a WhatsApp group, or just an email thread. What are everyone's thoughts? What would you prefer? So, yeah. So I would say a WhatsApp group sounds great to me. That's pretty simple. Okay, so we have two votes for email. One for WhatsApp. Maybe it would be quicker and easier for you to all just write in the chat what you would rather than we can tally up the votes. Two votes for email. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine for WhatsApp. WhatsApp seems to be winning. One, two, two votes for Slack. Three votes for Slack. Are there any strong feelings from anyone that they really hate WhatsApp and they don't want to use it? Because that seems to be the winner. There is no feeling. I have kind of brick. That's why I couldn't reach up to WhatsApp. I'm happy with that for probably the last long 10 years. That may be who uses WhatsApp, but of course for everybody what it will be suitable, it's okay for us. Okay, cool. Igor says that he usually doesn't have his phone with him, but you will be with Danila and Lucas and they will can hopefully share your experience for you, Igor. You as a little unit. I would be happy to create a WhatsApp group for you all. And I can also create an email thread. And you can decide which you would rather use. I'm sure that both will probably be checked. I don't have all of your phone numbers though. So maybe you could just respond to the thread that I sent out. Oh, I've gone all very much. Hello. My voice went weird for a second. Yeah, just email me basically with your phone number. And I will create the WhatsApp group. I know Richard's heading off tomorrow. Very exciting. Danila and Igor and Lucas, when are you going to be arriving? Yeah, I will start tomorrow and arrive during first of May. Yeah. Awesome. Nancy and Frank, when are you starting? What's the date? June 1. June 1st, cool. I think also Fran and Roland, are you doing it in June? Yeah. Okay, great. I know that Campbell Diplano is going to get started in the next week or so. And Ahu and you're also going to be starting soon? In one month, yes, we are right now in the stage of planning. And also it's a high season for us now. We need to catch the train before the weather gets hot. So we have our plantings and everything first ready. And then we will move on it. Cool. Nice. And Michelle, also you're going to get, you're starting the process now on you with finding the right materials and creating a budget in Bolivia. Yeah, we are making that on right now. And I think that maybe we will start with this in one week or maybe two. And hello to your cat. Hi, well, I just want to say that I am completely delighted with the number of you that are here and how committed you are to going to camps and collecting this information. I think that once we have it, the case for the power of the movement will be all the stronger. And I'm just sitting in my house and Devon not going anywhere. And I really wish that I could travel to a camp and do this too.  Thank you all for coming. Is there anything else that anyone wants to talk about? Before we close. No. Okey-dokey. Well, I'll see you all on the WhatsApp group then. Have a wonderful time at the different camps. Thank you so much.


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Dawn, this morning on Investor Talk, you clarified to our audience that lithium is used for more than just EV battery materials. Can you expand on that, please? Yeah, one of the main uses from the past has always been in high-strength glass ceramic products. And the way they like to introduce lithium into the batch formulation is using the high-purity lithium-aluminum silicate mineral petalite, and it's actually the mineral that corning used to invent corning wear and cook wear, which was one of the first examples of high-strength glass ceramic products. But that's a business that's been growing and growing now, and there's more and more innovation on other types of high-strength glass ceramic products. And I see it being potentially used in electric vehicles in the future as well, as part of the light weighting of the electric vehicle by using it in the windshields. So it's going to be more and more innovation and more and more demand for minerals like this that have the high-purity requirements to meet the needs of the manufacturers. And we don't have one in Canada yet, but it'd be nice to be able to attract one of the manufacturers here now to take advantage of our natural resource wealth and abundance of these types of resources that can meet their needs on future glass ceramic products. If you were an outsmith, you had an announcement on this just yesterday. Would you like to expand on that? Yeah, well we've had other expressions of interest and I finally got an off-take commitment firmed up with one major international glass ceramic manufacturer. They didn't want us to disclose who they were and where they're located, but they're a big player that has been one of the innovators on new types of high-strength glass products, including one that's high-strength flexible glass soft and it's amazing stuff. You can bend it but you cannot break it. Amazing. And now there's other interests because of the lack of supply. So all the major manufacturers are reaching out asking us to when we can send a sample. Don, you were all over the press last week with your the historic Canadian Korean signing that happened with LG Energy Solutions and Avalon was one of the three companies they had elected to make a deal with. Can you tell us more about that deal and congratulations? Yeah, well basically we've been getting the message out on our vision for creating the lithium battery materials refiner in Thunder Bay and that would be an ideal location to serve the needs of companies that are now going to set up manufacturing facilities in southern Ontario. And as you're probably aware, LG are planning to set up a battery manufacturing facility in Windsor area and so it'll be very easy for us to be able to create the supply for them to help them get started there. And that's one of the things the government has been promising is that they will support creating the critical material supply chains in order to attract these manufacturers to set up and take advantage of the access to them here in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. I know your schedule is incredibly intense right now. Critical minerals are all over the news and you've been a leader in that sector for as long as I can recall. In fact, our company was created as a result of an interview with you in 2008. So Don, can you tell us what we should anticipate in this next coming quarter other than what appears to be a pattern for you, which is news every week? Tell us more. Well, we'll probably be able to get more news flow out as we do more and more agreements with end users and then hopefully we'll also get a deal finalized with LG and maybe one of the EV manufacturers to support our aspirations on getting the lithium battery materials refinery established in Thunder Bay and get the deal closed on acquiring the site for it. So we can get that ball rolling and that will be a very significant news event when we get it out. For those of you out there going, oh my goodness, I need to know more about Avalon advanced materials. Please go to their website or send us an email and we'll send it over to their team. Thank you Don for joining us today. My pleasure.


Thank you. So welcome everyone for this talk though, that's a bit of an update on the community analytics. We've been working on the past few years, but first I will let Christelle introduce ourselves. So my name is Christelle, I'm a computer engineering student and I'm majoring in data science. I'm currently doing data science internship at Inyoka Consulting and this is my second internship at Inyoka. My first one was in 2019 and I was working on Cumden with Kevin and that's how I got to know KDE and Cumden as well. So as for me, so I'm one of the old-timers in KDE, that's what they say. And so I started using it in the 90s and only started to contribute a few years later. Then I fell in love with the community and I've been helping around with KDE lives and then KDE frameworks and also community stuff which includes the setup, helping the setup of the KDE manifesto. And so this effort about community data analytics which we are going to talk about today and as Christelle mentioned, I'm part of the Inyoka AutoCulture family where we are doing services around software and I live in Toulouse still. I'm going to move from there. All right, so let's start with that particular talk and so what happened previously, right? So you're used to that, always a bit of history with me. And so let's start with that guy and his ridiculous dog and he's been taking over an idea from Adrienne Degout which was named the green blobs back then and he brought something named Gidwiz and made the blobs blue. So he did a few interesting talks for us, his dear polydems in our community. He kind of retired in 2017 and now he prefers to have fun with his dog apparently. So that's when I came in the picture. I basically thought Gidwiz, why I asked him first if he was fine with that and so on and gave me the code and I expanded it quite a bit. So I reused mostly the Gidwiz in code but then most of the dependencies I swapped with something else. So I changed for pandas, for the data processing, network X for the graph analysis and bokeh for the actual output which gives us, as we see in this talk, better visualization. I also added some ways to clean up the data with rules which is important for identifying people for instance when people are not necessarily consistent in the way they commit, the name they used, then a bunch more visualizations and the big advantage of bokeh is that we have more interactivity in the visualizations. So unfortunately that's a PDF so we won't be able to see that today but otherwise I mean you're able to zoom in and out and plan and everything which makes it much easier to actually explore the results. So a few examples of what we do so you might have seen that on my blog for instance. So that one is one of the simplest ones to understand right that's basically week by week the commit count and the number of unique committers which gives you an approximation of the team size each week right in the community and so you can see that evolve over time and then get a trend. Then we got the activity plot which is the one truly inherited from Paul and now it's basically yeah colorful because we have more thresholds for the for the activity so each line is a contributor and then each column is a week and then you get a color depending on how active you've been and the last thing that all the contributors are sorted by the first commit date which is interesting because this way you see people coming in the picture right so you get that envelope there which gives you an idea of how much you're recruiting and then so that the envelope I'm talking about that red dot and then inside of this area the denser it is the more attention you get right because that means the more people who came in actually contribute for a long while otherwise you get like here like a one shot and then the person disappear right and then we also have the contributor network so for that one we basically plot a network to get an idea of who collaborates with whom and that's based on when we're looking at the commits that's based on the assumption that if they touch the same fire there's a chance of some communication happening at some point so that they don't step on each other toes and so we basically draw a line between those two persons and that one is the hardest one to read so that the centrality for a particular person because as soon as you can do plots like this you can tell if a person is very central in the graph or not right so we color coded the notes so that one is fairly central for instance but that's a picture at a given point in time now if you rinse and repeat that for I don't know every week or every month you can see for a particular person that value evolve and that's what we are plotting there so the blue line here that's basically the centrality of that particular person which happens to be Volker Kraus who is in the other room right now so that the centrality of that particular person over time and so you can see that he can be fairly central and then a bit less right and correlated to this we show also the activity so that is the number of commits everything is normalized though so that's why it goes all the way to one and zero and one thing we have realized that if the team is small and you have a lot of activity then you get fairly central quickly right so we also show the team size because that you can draw conclusion of that blue curve only at periods of times where the team size is somewhat constant so around here we can draw a conclusion but in there right it's kind of shrinking so we cannot draw any real conclusion about that spike right or or that one but there we can start to do some conclusions so that's a quick recap of things I've been talking about in the past and then there's kind of an open question is that just a fun puzzle Kevin right where you do this well it's definitely a fun puzzle I won't lie but not only right because that that's a way for us to show also if a community is healthy because of the activity level right as I mentioned we see if we recruit people if we if people stay around or not right if we have a large or small burst factor for particular teams we can also see the team structure we can also see team splitting which I didn't quite explain here but I wrote a blog about that and there are also actually professional uses I've been using that for instance for framing technical projects at customers when they wonder yeah what should I pick as a dependency right some of the reasons for picking something are technical some of them are more because of the community and also interestingly you can audit the actual customer code with this kind of tools and you find some funny facts sometimes so that's yeah what I said pretty much right so especially for the code editing it makes it easier to explore the project history also to evaluate the developer's turnover right inside of a team at a customer and that also helps you find out how the team is structured right and who owns which part of the code for instance and who works with whom this kind of answers you can get and that can be yeah fairly important for customers and you can identify the key people on a particular project I mean if you start looking at those graphs after a few hours or a few days you basically know everyone on the project all right and with that so we're going to expand the view and I'm going to let Christelle continue with this okay so what's new what's new is that we've added data sources so it's not only about the code commits anymore we find that the code commits are not capturing like everything about projects so we thought about adding new sources like like merge requests issues and mailing lists and that's where that's pretty much what I did during my internship so come then was a bunch of python scripts it was a couple of scripts for like centrality and activity and all that and well my work on it was essentially to make it more user friendly and easier to use so we turned it into a pipeline which makes it easier to handle and to reproduce results and all of that so it works like this you have come down which is the library and you can use it to do all sorts of things you can parse repositories and then you get a pandas data frame that you can use with certain files and with pretty much options so we don't have to just use it with activity you can use it with network and then parse it once and then you can display it with like with the different with different characteristics and all of that so what are the new data sources we have mailing lists so mailing lists are pretty pretty common way to to to discuss things and bugs and reports and all of that in teams and was it was pretty widely used in developer communities a couple of years ago now it's it's more now there are different ways that to to discuss things but it was it was pretty common so we thought about adding that it's pretty much it's not very common anymore so we might not use it in practice but but it's pretty interesting to look at the history we also have github githlab discussions which are issues and merge requests and we thought that'd be interesting uh because this is where the discussion around code happens and this this this allows us to look at things that we didn't look at before at how people how central people are to like to contributing differently and not just code and this leads to a new metric which is the responsiveness like how much how responsive a team is so eventually we potentially this will allow for aggregate aggregated views so for example we can we can combine commits graphs and merge requests graphs to have a fuller idea and things like that to have to have a better view of the community a better idea image uh I also forgot to say I'm sorry that it's not it's not it's not easy to map the commit authors to githlab users so so that's something we're pretty we're still we hope to work on but we eventually want to to get to a point where we can combine all sorts of views for different data sources so uh what about our data set here where we're talking we're going to talk about like what's happening with the community so we have a data set that we're going to analyze and what is it so it's it's constituted of of all the kde repositories so yeah all 950 plus of them and even the ones that are un-maintained because we think they offer pretty interesting insight and well we're using the we're using the the feature income then that allows us to to to program some rules and then apply them to to to our data while processing them so that's the rule set and this allows us to handle big offenders that have names that commit from different names like Laurent Montel for example commits from Laurent Montel and Montel Laurent and we with rule sets we can we can we can we can we can we can make sure that this is going to be the same person that's committing and this this helps us reduce biases in our statistics so when it comes to KDE as a whole uh well this is an update this is the activity the all-time activity of commits commits only so a couple of points are pretty much stand out like there's Laurent Montel that's been active ever since 1999 he's right here so we zoomed in previously and we saw his name right here and he's been pretty active ever since 1999 he's got orange colors right here so that's that's more active than than the average and then we have inflection points like one right here and one right here and these inflection points point out to faster recruiting after 2010 right here and faster recruiting in the last couple of years but we we have less retention like yellow here is less dense so people are are not staying they're not always contributing but it's getting better and here it's more dense so the people that joined in the last couple of years are still here and as from 2017 uh well this is the zoomed in graph this starts from 2017 and and we thought there there are some people that have been active contributors and like we'd like to mention them i'm sorry if i'm going to butcher their names i i don't intend to but here we go there is Agatha Caco there's Ahmad Samir there's Alexander Lano there is Alexander Stepic or Stepitch Camilo Higuito, Carl Sean, David Redondo, Devin Lin, Han Young, Jan Blackwell, Jonah Bruckert, Mevan Carr, Nade Graham, Nicholas Fala, Noah Davis, Sharaf Zaman, Vlad Zahorenti and Bukar Ahmed and well you guys are pretty like are pretty active contributors and thank you for your work so what about merge requests this is the activity for merge requests and it's obviously obviously more recent we have less history here we start at around 2018 so the KTE moves on to GitLab pretty recently and we don't have GitLab merge requests from before that so that's it's pretty obvious but there's some things we can we can we can learn like uh here there's an inflection point so so people have been more active on merge requests we see people appear like Xavier Huggle and Michael Johnson they're pretty active on merge requests so uh why didn't we there there's an interesting question here we didn't spot them on commit activity but we're spotting them here so so that could be related to the fact that they're more they're more active discussing code but not necessarily contributing it and that's for example another another position in the open source community where you don't necessarily contribute a lot of code but like guide the development of features and things like that and when it comes to the team size excuse me here we have the the the entry count in blue and then you have the team size in orange and this is the peak that was the Nokia peak that's in 2010 so I I think this is when Nokia bought Qt so that's that and then we have a bit of stabilization right here and then it picks up again so in 2019 2020 we have the entry count that clearly picks up then we have a trend that's pretty positive for for the number of developers that are active the number of contributors and well for for merge requests we clearly have um we we clearly have like a growing trend but the thing is we don't have enough data to to to have a more precise or intelligent insight so so what we really get from this graph is that we need more data and well as as for the new metric for merge requests this is the response of where in orange we have the response time in hours so here is a lot of hours for for response time and converge not much uh so responsible are becoming more reactive to merge requests which is a pretty good sign uh it took some time but but we're there and then you have we have the blue shape right here this is bars that that pretty much that represented the stock of unanswered merge requests so we can see that it's growing and that could be due to the fact that it's the recent in 2021 uh but that's that this is the the stock of unanswered merge requests now it's important to know that the history of the history for merge requests goes a bit before the instance existed which is counterintuitive because before the instance existed how can we have things like that well this is because Caden Caden got important with all of its history and well it's been excluded to to produce this this plot okay and um this is the network for commits so uh this shows the centrality of users as Kevin previously explained so we have some users that that are very central so the top be Alexander no Nicholas Fallon Carl Sean and Heiko Becker and they're pretty central their their node is like in black or very dark purple and well uh for merge requests we also see there are people that are very central and you see the same people that come back like Nicholas Fallon we also see Adam Alexander Ahmed Samir and Alex Paul something that's interesting is that Laurent is nowhere to be seen we see him we see that he's very very central for the net for the commits network but he's he's not very central when it comes to get get lab merge requests which pretty much shows a couple of things uh first is that he he's he's contributing code but he's not necessarily discussing features that he's contributing with a lot of people so he could be uh developing things in his corner and well the the for example uh changing changing the search for coding or changing certain loops writing them another way uh but the other thing that we can see is that uh commits on their own aren't enough to really tell if someone is central to the community but then let's zoom out a bit uh this is the the the subnetwork for a credit this is where credit enters the scene and we have right here a person that's very central and this person is hella ramped the who answers a lot of merge requests and and pretty much is very active within credit and onto Kevin all right so let's continue with this um so obviously what we've been seeing with crystal uh that's the community as a world right but then sometimes you also need to look at sub parts right to make sure that you're not mistaking you know the forest for the tree um and so we looked at two other examples you try to see there were other phenomenons we could spot in there uh so one of them is Katie frameworks so basically we did everything then focus on frameworks and then we'll have a focus on Krita because we've seen that interesting fact with the subnetwork there um so for the all-time activity so I'm sorry because this one with the colors unfortunately it's slightly harder to read than the previous one because there's a bit less density in yellow right but if you look closely you see that the profile is very similar to the world kd right there are two inflection inflection points though which don't match the ones we've seen for the world community because there's one which is before um 2010 and which is likely the kd 3 kd 4 transition where a lot of people uh it's actually fairly sharp right uh well a lot of people actually jumped in to help with that transition in kd lives and we'll so see another one around 2014 that's actually uh the year that we released the first kd frameworks five for the activity and we could yep for the activity we can also zoom in like we did and so I did a zoom there where we are basically focusing on the main recruits around that period which I actually managed to get on the same graph but one of the top one at the bottom no meaning to that but that's pretty much so i'm at the same year getting very active and alexander luno as well so from 2018 and 2020 right and then we have the old-time activity but for the match requests and we see to what the top you might see that there's gives that feeling of a thicker line but that's not a thicker line it's actually two lines which are very active around the same time and if you look at who that is that's pretty much david for and ham at samir right so you can see that they're talking to each other quite a lot right because they seem to send messages around the same time um then for the old-time team size uh we see very clear ramp up uh for frameworks five right both in activity and team size um and we also see an exhaustion phase right uh around here and that's pretty much why we worked a lot kd frameworks five then it's released and then there's a deep in activity right everyone tries to recover and then it ramps up again um and clearly it's be picking up quite a some some pace since a couple of years um open questions there but it could be actually the development model of kd frameworks five right before that was kd leaves then we changed the development model kind of uh paying off uh that ramp up that could also be uh the preparations for kf6 which are ongoing right now so again that uh increase and that could be actually both right so then you get a compound effect uh right for that we cannot say much right clearly for this kind of stuff we need more data at that point uh for the responsiveness similar profile uh then the whole community uh we see it's very slow at the beginning and then it picks up um it kind of converges but but there's slower responsiveness though uh on average uh it's three days to a week on average and uh on average on the community it's yeah more around two or three days for the network so we get the strontality top five again uh for the commits so Hamasami fredrich pospo alexander lono laura montel nicola feila right and no david four right here i'm surprised there uh well because you see david four more in the top five for the merge request right uh we have the same effect around uh laura montel again that's because laura commits in plenty of flies so with the assumption of touching the same file you collaborate right then he shows up in the previous one but he's not very active on the merge request actually discussing stuff uh he's doing i mean a lot of cleanups which are very important but then it's not really part of the decision making uh which happens in the merge request so it doesn't show up but then we see david four showing up again so he's all very much managerial now right all right and now quickly because we don't have that much time left uh zoom on clita itself right so david community right support and now just a team for particular software um so that's interesting again if you look at that one so the profile kind of similar a bit but it seems to recruit faster on average than the world of kd right so it recruits faster that being said right if it's out to read that because here we don't have that much density so it seems to have um faster recruiting on average to the world of kd but at the same time the price of that maybe is to have a lower retention right so there's a lower retention on average than the rest of kd if we go for the focus on the recruits from the past a couple of years that's mostly ioin agata kako chara for the man and they flew for the merge requests uh clearly dimitri kazakov and a la ramp they're like top of the game right so that clearly the decision maker uh among uh among that team uh again we see the not no kia peak because that was very much a big thing for crita back then uh when it was part of caligra um and since then though so they are the peak their stabilization phase but clearly it's growing uh and it started to grow a bit earlier um than kd as a world after the no kia peak but then that team growth is uh is a bit slower there there's more uh increase on the on the count of commits right yeah more data please right so we'll do that again in a couple of more years and that might be more interesting uh they're interesting with crita though is the all-time uh responsiveness on the merge request so it's similar to the kd community for the for the responsiveness we see it's slow in the beginning and then it converges which is normal right adaptation to a new tool being introduced um one thing they do super well though is they're very tidy on the unanswered stock right because they are virtually no stock what's registered they are that just the last weeks right of the story so that's normal that you have stuff which is unanswered uh of their recent uh one thing we spotted though which is surprising to us and we have no good explanation for this is that one uh we see that it starts to converge right but then there's this yeah peak uh in 2020 it's unclear to us why uh and if someone has an insight about that it's very welcome i would like to know actually uh why they could have been this phenomenon for the network so centrality top five dintrick as a cough i've been wrong at a ramped shaft that man and you're in on him uh names that we heard before uh on the uh match request though uh we see volterra appearing uh who is not on the on the commits so apparently a bit more in the conversations and a bit less in the volume of commit status all right so we're almost uh at the end i i had to go a bit quickly on that part to give some time for uh this and then uh the conclusion uh so there's a name i mean there's a name that we heard quite a bit except in the part of on critter uh in the community so with hamad samir right who's been fairly active uh we see him i mean registers at the world community level registers on kd frameworks um and so we thought that could be a good case even though the plot is not super interesting in a way but that was a good case to um try with the uh with the centrality uh metric which i was talking about earlier so as a reminder you should basically trust so that you should basically trust only one these plateaus okay so the data before that because of the team size is still growing you cannot really draw any conclusion on that part that plot has been produced uh with the kd frameworks merge request dataset okay and only that part and then we can see with the uh orange line which is the centrality level we can see that basically hamad is like just shooting right through that ramp up of the team and whatever happens uh with the team and the activity it's just growing and growing in the centrality uh so i think that's actually a name we should count um we should count with uh if he keeps at it uh like that uh is el bent on being very very central to kd frameworks in particular all right and with that i leave you with christelle again for the conclusion so when it comes to the metrics we've noticed that it's um we actually think that it's interesting to have the conversation during code reviews not just the contributors of the code but also the merge requests and all of that because it allows us to capture a bit how people behave in general what's the role and especially for senior developers and how they evolve we see david for that it has assumed a more managerial position whereas uh uh loren motel is contributing code and then making cleanups and all of that so it's very it's two different it's two different approaches it's a very senior developers and and it's it's it's something that we've only been able to see we've combined two views for metrics well as i said commits are on their own probably aren't enough to really evaluate someone's centrality and well a single metric well there's too much bias single so so it's important to have to look at generally how the community behaves and well as for the community it has a complex history with a couple of decompression phases they're visible but it's healthy overall recruiting is going well and well retention picks up in the last couple of years first the projects um they have their own trends but they're pretty close to the whole well at least where we've looked but but as a whole the community is very healthy and finally git lab seems to be very big for kde mrs are picking up and well we look forward to to a couple of more years later we'd have more data and then maybe look at more insights and finally what's what's in the card for us for come then uh we believe there is some work that still needs to be done on on the responsiveness plot and well we'd like to find ways that to match git lab accounts to commit authors to be able to combine different views for commits and merge requests that would be interesting as i said before and finally maybe even have a way to customize weights and activities and network edges so maybe contributing a whole new feature would be something that has a bigger weight than contributing something that's very minor so that's it for us thank you for listening and um any questions hi thank you very much uh for this talk we have five minutes for questions and we have questions coming in right on time i can i can i can read you uh those so david redondo asks in the chat we thought that heiko becker was maybe in the top because he does the version increases shouldn't such commits be excluded since they somewhat distort the picture want to give a shot at it instead of oh i go with that uh were you did you say i should give it a shot yeah do you want to answer that or i go for it oh you can go for it that's okay all right uh so yes uh one of the reasons uh so definitely uh that's definitely something where you want to actually exclude those it was easier i mean because we had stuff like this right but that used to be under different accounts or that used to be uh via the account of a boat doing this right i remember for instance david for doing this kind of release work and you don't see the commits coming really from him so then they have a very well known name which is boat name and for those boats we actually have exclude uh rules in his case that's actually harder because you don't want to remove him completely from the picture as well so you cannot just say well that's him so we just shoot his commits out and we don't display them uh so definitely yes that's used with the picture that makes things a bit harder um because you cannot survive between these two activities fairly easily right okay thank you uh we have another question again from david redondo for the git lab stats i think it would make sense to keep in mind that only some projects moved to it in the beginning and then the bulk did only start using it later yes uh that's what we tried to show right when you see that big break in the trend uh that's actually what we were trying to point out right you would see that in the beginning it was just ramping up and then suddenly you see like everyone that is coming in right um so yeah that definitely shows okay and last one do you think also from david redondo by the way do you think it's possible to extract certain roles from the data for example querying for developers who do more of a managerial role like uh david for i'm not sure i got the question correctly so i i think just looking at the data can you i don't know have a query that segregates uh people into managerial roles and another or different roles that you even didn't think about yet um i think that's doable to make scripts which actually detects right based on some profile um in that particular case that's in a way easy right um because there's a strong disconnect between the centrality when you look at the commit and the centrality uh when you look at the match request right so if you compare those over time and you see that diverge in some direction then you can say clearly the role of that person is changing right as a level trend stays parallel you cannot say much