Heads Up: Direction On The Way (important)

Heads Up: Direction On The Way (important)

Edited by another user.
Last edit: 22:22, 23 February 2010

OK, so I've just finished IRC with Philippe. He has promised to post on this page. He'll tell us where we should direct our attention. I told him we were all feeling a bit lost.

He realises he'd overlooked this page for a while. The IRC log should soon be up here, which you should find useful:

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=IRC_office_hours/2010-02-23

The following document appears to be key right now (and I'm told the parts that pertain directly to the WMF are "set in stone")

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan_2010-2015/Priorities/en

Part of ongoing work is to consider what now needs to be OWNED by a) chapters, b) individual projects and c) individual contributors.

Philippe is keen that proposals don't get lost or forgotten (though I might add that there must surely be some where one would wish exactly that would happen) so part of ongoing work will be maintaining momentum by (individually or as groups depending on the proposal) taking them forward.

Certainly I can see some things that I could propose on my own project that don't really need WMF or chapter support; they would instead just require me to gather support on en:wp and if people like the idea(s) then they'll happen.

~~ User:Bodnotbod - I failed to log in again. Grrr.

89.168.121.321:15, 23 February 2010

Thanks for getting to the bottom of things, Bodnotbod. This is helpful, although I'm sure people will have more questions.

From a community health standpoint, a lot of our recommendations could be achieved (in theory) without the foundation. Usability features and social networking features require some real investment. But volunteer recognition, stronger volunteer roles, and better dispute resolution processes could all be championed from the bottom up. The problem is a lot of those things never get championed, because there is resistance. Not the kind of fundamental resistance that conflicts with the mission -- like paid-only editing, or other occasional suggestions that are hugely unpopular. But we know how hard it is to build consensus on Wikipedia, and even a highly committed group of 10-20 editors could block something from happening.

Commitment at the foundation level goes a long way. Not "ram it through from the top down" kind of commitment. But the commitment to say "listen, we're going to do this. We want to work with the community so all the concerns are addressed, and so that we avoid any pitfalls. But we're going to move forward, because the status quo is not an option."

Randomran22:43, 23 February 2010

Actually, I am afraid the problem is that big project communities would reject all our proposals right away if put on vote, and we need to think what do we want to think about this (just impose them by the will of the Foundation, try to convince the communities first by carefully explaining what we suggest, or just put on vote).

Yaroslav Blanter22:06, 28 February 2010
 

Yep, 100%. Some of them would be blocked catastrophically. Others would be blocked narrowly, due to campaigns and tactics. Some amount of commitment from the foundation is essential. But we also have to recognize that Wikipedia prides itself on its openness, so there has to be *some* room for community feedback (even if it's just on the details of implementation).

Randomran00:36, 1 March 2010
 

Play the openness card to the maximum because there will be always people going against a proposal because they feel left out of the discussion process even if that their faults to not join in. Philippe did a lot to advertise our discussion but as always that won't be enough for some editors. Strategy wiki Cabal/Conspiracy anyone?

Use each Wiki context to illustrate the need to implement recommendation. The most blatant example is the "Improved consensus-building processes" that is an answer to the current English wiki BLP RFC which is a total disaster as a consensus-building process regardless the final compromises.

KrebMarkt09:27, 1 March 2010

Probably as soon as we have some compact text it should be advertized in all communities again, translated and discussed.

Yaroslav Blanter17:32, 2 March 2010
 
 

Yes, the sense I'm getting from Philippe and Eekim (though I hope they will challenge me if I'm speaking out of turn) is that much of what we've created here is supposed to be taken forwards by the community.

Personally, when I joined this process that wasn't my expectation at all. I thought it would go something like:

1. The community throws in all their ideas. 2. The community picks the best ones (with "best" including criteria such as achievability, affordability, desirability, etc) 3. The WMF looks at them and picks ones it feels it can work with. 4. The wider community (ie people who never looked at Strat wiki) would be exposed to them to much cheering/booing, probably through postings by Jimmy, Sue et al in prominent on-project announcements. 5. Ideas implemented with WMF blessing/funding/communications and volunteers supporting the implementation.

Well, I appear only to have been right up to part 2. However, I don't feel too bad about that. We were all learning something here; I'm not aggrieved that I misunderstood. I think I have some valid complaints but I'll keep hold of them for now.

So my current thinking on what I'm going to do personally:

1. I really want to do some analysis on the recommendations we have VERSUS the WMF's published priorities document which I linked to above. That's to say; what matches? What did they ignore? What did they explicitly reject? I will start doing that tomorrow. I expect I will have questions for Philippe and Eekim following that exercise.

2. Bring myself up to speed with the Movement Roles Task Force which I'm led to believe has ongoing activity but is something I haven't even looked at yet.

3. I'm going to try and establish contacts for ongoing work for 'social features': I know everyone's not keen on them :o) But they do at least seem to have made it onto the WMF's 'priorities' document so I feel I can find allies for it. I have absolutely no technical insight into how Mediawiki works. However, I can see a route forwards that would be minor changes to the current software as I see it. I want to talk to tecchy types about my ideas and just see what they say; find out if I'm on the right track; find out if they've already been brainstorming.

4. Keep an eye on Strat wiki overall as Eekim has stated on the Village Pump that he wants to see more input on the wiki from WMF staff; I want to be able to interact with them if and when they show up.

I think that'll keep me going for a week.

I'm curious to know what you're planning to do Random as I'd like to keep in touch on here; I'd feel very lonely on the wiki without seeing your name regularly.

Bodnotbod22:29, 24 February 2010

Hi BNB,

1 and 2 are spot on; 3 you might replace with "a Strategy group of community members (say, starting with this task force) looks at them and picks ones that the community can work with." ; 4 is a good idea, and we should plan the next wave of strategy-related announcements (but this requires good crisp suggestions from 3); and 5 you should replace with "Ideas implemented and owned by community members/volunteers, with WMF blessing/support."

This is for strategy for the entire movement.

One of the three strategic priorities for the Foundation is to better support and invest in innovation, including new types of community projects; expanding the sorts of blessing/support currently provided through chapter grant requests -- which gets at parts of your 4 and 5. But there's a lot going on, so the best support will come to projects that are clearly organized and run and know what sort of support they need. [that's equally true when recruiting new contributors.]

Sj15:31, 3 March 2010
 

Hey Bodnotbod... glad you're trying to figure all of this out. I definitely think it's more valuable to compare our recommendations to the WMF document than it is to compare our recommendations to each other. (Keep in mind that the WMF document might have been edited by some of us, but they might not be aware of it.) The priorities and the gaps will tell us a lot. Hope you will summarize your findings for the rest of us.

As for me, things are pretty busy. I'm still trying to help out with the community health survey, but RL is top priority. As for this process, I've been kind of stumped, but you've already helped me figure out some things I can work on. In particular, I'm going to see if I can work out an implementation plan for everything -- including social features. You know my personal view on things, but I know that we came to a good compromise, and I'm sure that we can involve the community in making sure that social features are not abused. (As with every other recommendation too! Anything done badly will end badly.)

Randomran20:39, 25 February 2010
 

Know that Randomran has a close to level Zero participation in the English wiki since he got caught by the Strategic planning wiki ;)

Let see where we are going.

KrebMarkt21:36, 25 February 2010
 

Heh :) Well actually, I pretty much gave up Wikipedia a year ago. The strategic planning wiki called me back, because I think there's an opportunity to do some positive work here. Big picture stuff that gets lost in the day-to-day battleground that is Wikipedia.

Randomran22:00, 25 February 2010