Skip to content

ADDING_VIDEOS.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
153 lines (111 loc) · 5 KB

ADDING_VIDEOS.md

File metadata and controls

153 lines (111 loc) · 5 KB
Raw

Adding Conference/Meetup Videos to RubyEvents

This guide provides steps on how to contribute new videos to the platform. If you wish to make a contribution, please submit a Pull Request (PR) with the necessary information detailed below.

The videos file represents talks that have happened at the event, whether they were recorded or not.

There are a few scripts available to help you build those data files by scraping the YouTube API. To use them, you must first create a YouTube API Key and add it to your .env file. Here are the guidelines to get a key https://developers.google.com/youtube/registering_an_application

YOUTUBE_API_KEY=some_key

Adding a New Conference Series

Step 1 - Create the Series

If you do not already have an event series, create a new folder for your series and add a series.yml file:

mkdir -p data/my-conference

Create data/my-conference/series.yml:

---
name: My Conference
website: https://myconference.org/
twitter: myconference
youtube_channel_name: myconference
kind: conference  # conference, meetup, retreat, or hackathon
language: english
default_country_code: US
youtube_channel_id: ""  # Will be filled by prepare_series.rb
playlist_matcher: ""    # Optional text to filter playlists

Then run this script to fetch the YouTube channel ID:

bin/rails runner scripts/prepare_series.rb my-conference

Step 2 - Create Events from YouTube Playlists

If your conference videos are organized as YouTube playlists (one playlist per event), run:

bin/rails runner scripts/create_events.rb my-conference

This will create event.yml files for each playlist found. The script skips events that already exist.

Multi-Event Channels

Some YouTube channels host multiple conferences (e.g., Confreaks hosts both RubyConf and RailsConf). Use playlist_matcher in your series.yml to filter playlists:

# data/railsconf/series.yml
name: RailsConf
youtube_channel_id: UCWnPjmqvljcafA0z2U1fwKQ
playlist_matcher: rails  # Only matches playlists with "rails" in the title

Step 3 - Extract Videos

Once your events are set up, extract the video information:

# Extract videos for all events in a series
bin/rails runner scripts/extract_videos.rb my-conference

# Or extract videos for a specific event
bin/rails runner scripts/extract_videos.rb my-conference my-conference-2024

Step 4 - Review and Edit

Review the generated files and make any necessary edits:

event.yml - Verify:

  • Event dates (start_date, end_date)
  • Location
  • Description

videos.yml - Each video entry must have:

  • speakers: Array of speaker names (required - videos without speakers won't display)
  • date: Date the talk was presented in YYYY-MM-DD format (required)

Example video entry:

- title: "What Rust can teach us about Ruby"
  event_name: "RubyConf 2025"
  published_at: "2025-10-12"
  description: "A presentation about Rust and Ruby"
  video_provider: youtube
  video_id: "abc123xyz"
  speakers:
    - "Jane Doe"
  date: "2025-10-11"

Custom Video Metadata Parsers

The default YouTube::VideoMetadata class tries to extract speaker names from video titles. If this doesn't work well for your conference, you can create a custom parser and specify it in event.yml:

# data/rubyconf-au/rubyconf-au-2015/event.yml
---
id: PL9_jjLrTYxc2uUcqG2wjZ1ppt-TkFG-gm
title: RubyConf AU 2015
metadata_parser: "YouTube::VideoMetadata::RubyConfAu"

Removing a Talk

bin/rails validate:all flags any talk id that disappears from a videos.yml, because a vanished id is usually an unrecorded rename and production still knows the talk under the old id.

  • Renamed? Keep the previous id on the renamed entry as old_id, so its record gets migrated on the next seed. bin/rails talk_ids:backfill_old_ids writes it for you.
  • Removed on purpose? List the id under removed_talk_ids in the event's event.yml:
# data/kaigi-on-rails/kaigi-on-rails-2026/event.yml
removed_talk_ids:
  - "dave-thomas-kaigi-on-rails-2026"

Troubleshooting

'Psych::Parser#_native_parse': (): found unknown escape character while parsing a quoted scalar at line 10 column 19 (Psych::SyntaxError) - something is malformed - run bin/lint for a clearer error formatter.mjs:29 const isValueString = typeof value.value === 'string' - make sure your speakers and dates are valid values

Submission Process

  1. Fork the RubyEvents repository
  2. Setup your dev environment following the steps in CONTRIBUTING
  3. Create your videos file in the appropriate directory
  4. Run bin/rails db:seed (or bin/rails db:seed:all if the event happened more than 6 months ago)
  5. Run bin/lint
  6. Run bin/dev and review the event on your dev server
  7. Submit a pull request

Need Help?

If you have questions about contributing events:

  • Open an issue on GitHub
  • Check existing event files for examples
  • Reference this documentation

Your contributions help make RubyEvents a comprehensive resource for the Ruby community!