IRC Log (2009-12-10)

Philippe|Away: Hey FloNight

[3:57pm] You are now known as Philippe|Wiki.

[3:59pm] randomran: back...

[3:59pm] randomran: i guess we should wait for the others?

[4:02pm] FloNight: Both this week and last week 3 people I needed to talk to called right as I was trying get this meeting going.

[4:02pm] randomran: horrible timing

[4:03pm] randomran: where are the other TF members? think they got lost?

[4:03pm] FloNight: And last week my cat knocked over her water dish. She has never done it before in the 10 years that we've had her.

[4:03pm] Philippe|Wiki: LOL, FloNight ... the worst luck

[4:04pm] FloNight: Philippe, the customer service proposal is timely.

[4:05pm] Philippe|Wiki: Heh, thanks, FloNight

[4:05pm] FloNight: It would be good to get that approach formally worked into a recommendation.

[4:06pm] Philippe|Wiki: Obviously, I think so too, but I'm biased by the fact that I wrote the proposal

[4:07pm] randomran: it's a solid idea. would you want to slot it in under a specific task force? or do you get a special "recommendations from philippe" section?

[4:08pm] Philippe|Wiki: Heh, first I get magic, then a particular section? Nah... I don't get a section. It actually crosses task forces, so I fear it. If you wanna claim it, do it. Otherwise, I'll peddle it other places.

[4:08pm] FloNight: Philippe|Wiki: Have there been internal discussions about doing something structured?

[4:08pm] Philippe|Wiki: About customer service?

[4:08pm] FloNight: yes

[4:09pm] Philippe|Wiki: If there have, I'm not aware of them. I know that Craig Newmark sees that very much as his expertise area, so I would hope that he'd drive some discussions about that, but that's theoretical and hypothetical

[4:09pm] randomran: i was thinking a bit about the internal processes that go on up there...

[4:09pm] FloNight: The press release about Craig and the OTRS people have been using the word recently, so I wondered.

[4:09pm] randomran: one idea i had was to publicize some of the performance indicators that the foundation is using. what are their measures of success?

[4:10pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran: To my knowledge, we don't have any established metrics for that, but I've only worked there for a few months. That's probably a Sue Gardner question.

[4:10pm] amgine joined the chat room.

[4:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: Perhaps if you asked it on your Liquid Threads page, I could point her there

[4:11pm] FloNight: We need to develop evaluation tools including measures.

[4:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: I agree, FloNight. I believe very strongly in metrics as key indicators, obviously.

[4:11pm] randomran: that's a good idea, p. i'll do that later tonight

[4:11pm] randomran: yeah. indicators are really important. especially for nonprofits, where the goals are more complex than "make money"

[4:12pm] randomran: wikimedia could get a ton of donations, while moving backwards, IMO

[4:12pm] randomran: (in theory)

[4:12pm] FloNight: The left user survey is a very rudimentary start at one part.

[4:12pm] Philippe|Wiki: Can I give a quick update on that, FloNight?

[4:12pm] FloNight: yes

[4:13pm] Philippe|Wiki: The survey is floating around internally right now, and was sent to Erik Z, our resident stats geek (I say that in the most loving way possible) for his input. I sent mine last night, and Howie is integrating our feedback and will hopefully post an updated version tomorrow on the wiki.

[4:13pm] randomran: that sounds good.

[4:13pm] Philippe|Wiki: He's also been formatting it for LimeSurvey, and the model should be up soon.

[4:13pm] randomran: i saw his version. it's a good start, but could use some wording changes, and maybe two major question changes

[4:14pm] Amgine: <eyebrow>

[4:14pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran, it's been pretty dramatically reworked since you saw it

[4:14pm] randomran: that's not a bad thing. looking forward to seeing the new version

[4:14pm] Philippe|Wiki: I think you'll be happier with the new one

[4:14pm] randomran: i hope you're right

[4:14pm] FloNight: I saw what Howie had. Erik and you reworked it?

[4:15pm] randomran: i think my biggest question right now is how it's going to find the right audience (editors who have burnt out and left)...

[4:15pm] Philippe|Wiki: Erik and I gave feedback, and Howie integrated them, correct. I dont want to claim to sit down and bang out the new language, but I gave my thoughts about what should be changed and Howie banged out new language

[4:15pm] FloNight:

[4:15pm] randomran: i'm glad that a stats geek is looking at it

[4:16pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran, Erik had some ideas for that as well... I'm not sure which will be adjusted and which dumped, but Erik and Howie and Andrew (Werdna) are working that part

[4:16pm] Philippe|Wiki: I think Erik's suggestion was primarily that we shoot for editors with a relatively high edit count for a defined period and then dropped off, indicating that WM was important to the

[4:16pm] Philippe|Wiki: them*

[4:16pm] FloNight: Philippe|Wiki: I was wondering about that, too.

[4:17pm] Philippe|Wiki: And then, I think there will be an email blast to those with emails associated to their account and some marketing to push it around to try and catch others. But that's still being designed.

[4:17pm] Amgine: question re: Erik Z: statistician from what field?

[4:17pm] FloNight: What time frame for being gone triggers being called a "left user"?

[4:18pm] randomran: I'm glad Erik looked at that. there's actually two groups we want to look at. People who had a high number of edits and then left... and then people who joined and left in the first 15-30 days

[4:18pm] Philippe|Wiki: Amgine: He's the data guy for the Foundation. I'm not sure his background, offhand, but he's the one that reworked Ortega's numbers and pointed out some methedological flaws.

[4:18pm] Philippe|Wiki: FloNight: I don't know the answer to that.

[4:18pm] randomran: anyone with the time and patience to criticize ortega's study has to be at least somewhat smart

[4:18pm] Philippe|Wiki: He's wicked smart, actually.

[4:18pm] FloNight: I see that as a key question to sort out.

[4:18pm] randomran: not light reading.

[4:19pm] randomran: sounds like it!

[4:19pm] Amgine: <snorts> I read Ortega's work as well, but that doesn't mean I think the methodology is wrong. EZ's arguments, some of them, are.

[4:19pm] Philippe|Wiki: FloNight: Agreed. I think Usability and Andrew are actively working on that.

[4:19pm] FloNight: ok

[4:19pm] Amgine: (Sociology/Anthropology have very different stats from, say, engineering and phsyics.)

[4:20pm] FloNight: It is bad if we use something and get locked into it for no good reason.

[4:20pm] Philippe|Wiki: Amgine.... I worked for an anthropological survey and research firm before I came here, remember.

[4:20pm] Amgine: <nods>

[4:20pm] randomran: i'm glad that you're looking through it too, then...

[4:21pm] randomran: i've done some customer research surveys. i'd like to think i know what doesn't work.

[4:21pm] randomran: surveys are easy to screw up, so that you don't get any useful data.

[4:21pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran: Sure. That's why we're pushing Howie so hard to get this work up on the wiki so we can get more eyes on it.

[4:22pm] randomran: thanks, p. i'm glad you're on it.

[4:22pm] Philippe|Wiki:

[4:22pm] werdna: damn, I missed the start

[4:22pm] FloNight: randomran: did you work on the recommendations any more?

[4:22pm] Philippe|Wiki: hey werda

[4:22pm] Philippe|Wiki: +n

[4:23pm] aude: hi

[4:23pm] werdna: this is the community health task force?

[4:23pm] Philippe|Wiki: this is it

[4:23pm] aude: the survey is for former editors?

[4:23pm] FloNight: hi werdna

[4:23pm] Philippe|Wiki: aude: yes

[4:23pm] randomran: i was thinking about the recommendations and discussing them

[4:23pm] aude: will it be translated and for more than just enwiki?

[4:23pm] randomran: but i think the most useful thing we can do now is start to narrow the recommendations down from the list of 7+ that we have

[4:24pm] randomran: i wish bodnotbod were here, because he has put the most effort into those so far

[4:24pm] aude: i was chatting with someone on the arabic wikipedia who has not been active for ~one year

[4:24pm] werdna: I spoke to Howie about it yesterday in #wikimedia. My main concern is that we make sure that we do more than just blast out surveys

[4:24pm] aude: he came back (not sure if he's really back), but noticed many of the people formerly active on arabic wikipedia are not now

[4:24pm] Philippe|Wiki: aude, I don't know. I'll find out. I know it's not wikipedia specific, but I don't know about translation.

[4:24pm] FloNight: werdna: how are we going to find the users that left to survey?

[4:24pm] aude: i have seen that too

[4:25pm] werdna: For a limited number of people, sending e-mail to them and asking open-ended questions / tracking them down on IM / doing a bit of honest-to-god detective work on-wiki is going to be very useful

[4:25pm] werdna: FloNight: I see two main routes

[4:25pm] werdna: the first is by looking at statistics

[4:25pm] aude: i understand that people have just gotten busy with other things, but there may be other reasons

[4:25pm] werdna: crunch data in the database, and see who's done a bit of editing and then stopped.

[4:25pm] werdna: the second is by looking for self-reported or externally-reported left users.

[4:26pm] randomran: those are both excellent ideas werdna.

[4:26pm] FloNight: by time away?

[4:26pm] Philippe|Wiki: Aude: Eekim doesn't know the answer to the translation question either, he's checking that.

[4:26pm] werdna: Looking at whatlinkshere for Template:Retired, searching the arbitration archives for high-profile incidents (although to be fair, most of these people come back)

[4:26pm] randomran: we might want to distinguish between the two, just in case there's a pattern... someone who leaves a note is different from someone who just leaves with no warning

[4:26pm] werdna: all of those sorts of ways that we can find out who's left

[4:27pm] aude: Philippe|Wiki: it would be helpful. i'm sure we can get it into arabic at least, and perhaps other languages would be interested

[4:27pm] aude: in terms of people willing to translate it

[4:27pm] FloNight: Many people are very irregular so it would take a long time to miss them.

[4:27pm] werdna: yes indeed

[4:28pm] randomran: one metric that ortega used was people who joined the top 10% of contributors, and then brought their activity down to something close to nonexistant. not that we need to copy that one. but the overall approach is a good one

[4:29pm] Philippe|Wiki: Aude, it may be that this first distribution is english language only, with the ability to make future releases to other populations. There appear to be tool bottlenecks around localization of surveys

[4:29pm] FloNight: Should we talk to long term editors that take very very long breaks but always eventually come back?

[4:29pm] Philippe|Wiki: and the interpretation of data that's appropriate based on sample size, etc. (For instance, if we get two editors from ar who answer it, is that really valid data?)

[4:29pm] aude: Philippe|Wiki: i imagine we might want to tweak the questions for other languages, or add some different questions

[4:30pm] randomran: flonight: it's a decent idea. even just the need to take huge breaks is an indicator that the community isn't "healthy".

[4:30pm] werdna: not necessarily

[4:30pm] werdna: Phoebe and I were discussing this the other night

[4:30pm] randomran: werdna, also true

[4:30pm] aude: Philippe|Wiki: we can chat later about the survey tools, what's needed, etc.

[4:30pm] werdna: people coming and going is not necessarily a bad thing

[4:30pm] FloNight: Sometimes people need time off to attend to other stuff.

[4:30pm] Philippe|Wiki: Okie, dokie, aude.

[4:30pm] randomran: ... yeah, there are natural pressures that pull people away from wikipedia

[4:31pm] werdna: even a year is a long time to be involved in a single project

[4:31pm] randomran: i think that's an important hypothesis to test with the survey

[4:31pm] werdna: however we'd like it if people enjoyed sticking around

[4:31pm] randomran: yeah... even if people are leaving more for external reasons, it doesn't mean we can't find ways to improve their experience.

[4:31pm] Philippe|Wiki: There will always be valid reasons for x,y,or z... but we're surveying for the norm, not the exception, remember.

[4:32pm] werdna: nod

[4:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: We're not looking for the fringe cases, we're looking for the vast majority.

[4:32pm] FloNight: I'm interested in the idea of developing a career path to help people stick around.

[4:32pm] randomran: philippe, i totally agree

[4:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: FloNight: Did you see Jennifer Riggs' presentation on that?

[4:32pm] randomran: focusing our recommendations on the majority will have the highest impact.

[4:32pm] FloNight: I talked to her about a long time ago. When she first came.

[4:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: I've got her slides somewhere. I'll send them your direction.

[4:33pm] FloNight: good

[4:33pm] werdna: FloNight: I agree with that too

[4:33pm] Philippe|Wiki: Flo, in your mail

[4:33pm] werdna: I think it's definitely interesting to make Wikipedia both a hobby and a serious means of personal development.

[4:33pm] LauraHale is now known as Laura|Away.

[4:34pm] werdna: Wikipedia has certainly been excellent personal development for me, both personally and professionally.

[4:34pm] FloNight: Many organizations keep people by helping them see the possibilities of a variety of ways that they can help out.

[4:34pm] Philippe|Wiki: Yeah, lattice-based career paths. <nod>

[4:34pm] randomran: werdna... are you involved with the foundation?

[4:34pm] werdna: I'm a contractor.

[4:34pm] FloNight: The key is good matching of job with interest and skills.

[4:34pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran: Werdna is our assigned geek.

[4:34pm] randomran: perfect

[4:34pm] Philippe|Wiki: he does tech stuff supporting strategy, among other myriad tasks.

[4:35pm] randomran: it's very reassuring to talk to smart people in high places

[4:35pm] Philippe|Wiki: Little things, like, say... LiquidThreads.

[4:35pm] aude: in my case, i started out just editing content, but got a bit burned out...

[4:35pm] aude: now i'm doing tech stuff and also involved with openstreetmap

[4:35pm] werdna: yes, if (when) your talk page breaks, go rouse me from my sleep.

[4:35pm] aude: but would like to go back to editing at some point

[4:35pm] werdna: aude: That's what happened with me as well.

[4:35pm] Philippe|Wiki: I usually do, werdna.

[4:36pm] werdna: A lot of people move away from the general community because it's very exhausting unless you find a niche.

[4:36pm] Philippe|Wiki: +me

[4:36pm] werdna: That's *definitely* a sign of an unhealthy community

[4:36pm] randomran: i had a much stronger stomach for it because i'm used to dealing with stubborn people and conflict in my work

[4:36pm] FloNight: I think the wikiprojects have a potential to keep people interested.

[4:36pm] randomran: but i burnt out when it seemed literally impossible to settle any issue. they just kept fighting and fighting.

[4:37pm] werdna: FloNight: yes, wikiprojects are a great way for people to find a niche.

[4:37pm] randomran: a wikiproject made a big difference for me. that caused me to find support, and find things to do that i enjoyed. it was a turning point in my editing life.

[4:37pm] FloNight: The military history project on English Wikipedia is very inviting, I think.

[4:37pm] randomran: it was as simple as someone tagging my user page. it was like an invitation that made me feel welcome.

[4:38pm] FloNight: And huge with 50 task forces, I think.

[4:38pm] werdna: I think there's a core group of contributors who hang out on AN/I, RFA, AFD, and all the policy pages -- that part of the community can definitely burn one out, but fortunately you can usually just ignore it and go on with your business.

[4:38pm] werdna: I think that's a positive thing.

[4:38pm] aude: the other reason is it's hard just to spend a lot of time doing editing for free, when i need to spend more time doing paid work

[4:38pm] randomran: werdna: usually ignore it... but not always.

[4:38pm] FloNight: randomran: I agree.

[4:38pm] Amgine: I left after I watched and reported on organized stalking of users by a religious group whose members were admins using external sites to orchestrate harrassment.

[4:39pm] FloNight: People that can edit from school or work edit more.

[4:39pm] randomran: amgine: that sounds sadly too common

[4:39pm] aude: the tech work leads to more opportunities, including possible opportunities with the foundation and elsewhere

[4:39pm] randomran: <-- edits from work. ssh

[4:39pm] Amgine: It is. Some of them are funded by external organizations.

[4:39pm] • Philippe|Wiki edits from work

[4:39pm] werdna: aude: yes, definitely.

[4:39pm] FloNight: aude, I think fewer women edit because they have fewer jobs that blend with editing.

[4:40pm] aude: if wikipedia was around when i was in high school and college, i would have had more spare time and been more involved then

[4:40pm] werdna: It's a tight-knit group doing as a volunteer the kind of job that the Foundation pays people to do...

[4:40pm] aude: as i get people get older, priorities change

[4:41pm] aude: also when i was unemployed for a period of time, my editing went up and then down again when i started working again

[4:41pm] werdna: aude: yes, even moving out of home seems to add a lot of overhead time that could otherwise be spent on hobbies.

[4:42pm] FloNight: So, how are we going to turn these ideas into recommendations ?

[4:42pm] randomran: FloNight: good question

[4:42pm] randomran: FloNight: we came up with 7 areas of recommendation last week. i think Art Unbound pointed out two more: setting targets, and doing research

[4:43pm] randomran: FloNight: it would be helpful to cut that list down to 5... it may be too soon to focus it down to 4

[4:43pm] FloNight: We had already talked about evaluations which fits in.

[4:44pm] randomran: FloNight: yeah, evaluations i think are tied to setting goals and targets

[4:44pm] FloNight: yes

[4:44pm] randomran: whether we do it now in chat, or whether we do it in LT... we need discuss which areas of recommendation are worth working on

[4:45pm] FloNight: I need to look over the other task forces most recent work.

[4:45pm] FloNight: I haven't looked since early in the week

[4:46pm] Philippe|Wiki: Offline met earlier today and is starting to come to recommendations.

[4:46pm] randomran: we actually have a criteria for deciding which proposals are good: priority, impact, feasibility, desirability

[4:46pm] FloNight: We need to make sure that we are not over lapping and duplicating, and leave out an important area.

[4:46pm] randomran: by those four measures, i'm almost positive we can weed out a few areas that we should leave for some other time

[4:47pm] randomran: yeah i've been thinking about that. we obviously don't want to leave anything out

[4:47pm] Philippe|Wiki: As long as we don't fall into the trap of assumign that we should only look at things that are IMMEDIATELY feasible.

[4:47pm] randomran: but i'm not sure that it's bad to duplicate, though

[4:47pm] Philippe|Wiki: I like using feasibility as a measurement, but I'd like to think that we can look at long term feasibility as well.

[4:47pm] FloNight: Strategic Planning needs to be big picture.

[4:47pm] Philippe|Wiki: nod

[4:47pm] randomran: yeah, i don't htink feasibility has to mean "easy". it just has to mean "what are the chances it wil work?"

[4:48pm] Philippe|Wiki: Good. That's what I like to hear

[4:48pm] randomran: feasibility is a lot of things. risk, realism

[4:48pm] randomran: i have opinons on this, but i think we'd be smart to discuss it as a task force

[4:48pm] randomran: i'm almost positive we can get it down to 6 just based on common sense... but we'll see..

[4:48pm] FloNight: Planning will have phases of implementing stuff.

[4:49pm] FloNight: And it might need to build on each other.

[4:50pm] Amgine: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-limited.

[4:50pm] FloNight: SMART!!

[4:50pm] randomran: hehe

[4:50pm] Amgine: <nods> Often used in project evaluations.

[4:51pm] FloNight: Amgine:

[4:51pm] Amgine: I bet wp has an article about 'em.

[4:52pm] Amgine: heh, they have different words than I... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

[4:52pm] randomran: FloNight, since we're having trouble getting all the TF members out at the same time... maybe we should discuss the 7 (+2: targets/measurements, & research) at the task force talk page

[4:52pm] FloNight: We're going to have to.

[4:53pm] randomran: see if we can get it down to four

[4:53pm] randomran: and if not, then work with five or six, and pick the best ones after we've had more time to work on them and discuss them

[4:53pm] randomran: use the criteria (SMART, or PIFD) to guide the discussion too

[4:53pm] FloNight: I was sure that we would pick up two more tf members this week. They seemed interested.

[4:54pm] Philippe|Wiki: I'd like to, if I may, clarify one thing that seems to be a little unclear from a project management standpoint...

[4:54pm] FloNight: ok

[4:54pm] randomran: do it

[4:54pm] Philippe|Wiki: We're looking for recommendations by mid January, which you all are certainly on track to hit - they'll be presented, which you know...

[4:55pm] FloNight: ok

[4:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: at that point, the Board or some other set of folks appointed by them will attempt to massage them into a strategy

[4:55pm] FloNight: ok

[4:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: ...and some of them may come back to you for more clarification or work, or suggestions.

[4:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: So although we'll have recommendations in by January, it's likely that there will be some back and forth

[4:55pm] randomran: we can handle that, i think

[4:55pm] FloNight: I see

[4:55pm] randomran: back and forth can only help

[4:55pm] FloNight: ok

[4:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: I just didn't want folks thinking we were done in January for sure.

[4:55pm] FloNight:

[4:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: I think the work will CHANGE in January.

[4:56pm] randomran: how do you mean?

[4:56pm] Philippe|Wiki: Just what I described above... less theoretical and more practical "HOW do we do this? WHO will do it?"

[4:56pm] Amgine: Instead of researching/creating suggestions, we move to researching/supporting suggestions.

[4:56pm] Philippe|Wiki: Exactly.

[4:56pm] Philippe|Wiki: Thanks, Amgine

[4:57pm] FloNight: When is the set date for the Strategic Planning process to be completed?

[4:57pm] randomran: that makes sense

[4:57pm] Philippe|Wiki: The current timeline has the project totally finished in July. That's when the money runs out.

[4:57pm] randomran: that makes our work a little easier too. we can be a bit more general in mid january, and come up with an implementation plan later on

[4:57pm] Philippe|Wiki: Not toooooo general, please Needs to look like you've put some thought into it and have an idea how to do it

[4:58pm] randomran: got it

[4:58pm] Philippe|Wiki: I think that the task force role in the project will very much move into a "promote massive community buy-in" type mode beginning in January

[4:58pm] werdna: Philippe|Wiki: heh, "that's when the money runs out"

[4:58pm] Philippe|Wiki: Where you sell everyone you know on these proposals for community health.

[4:58pm] werdna: Philippe|Wiki: wait, so I only have until July to fix all the LiquidThreads bugs

[4:58pm] FloNight: We need to start doing that now.

[4:58pm] randomran: i'm not sure that the community wants to get healthy

[4:58pm] Philippe|Wiki: werdna, my patience runs out long before July

[4:59pm] randomran: the community is off its medication and loving it

[4:59pm] werdna: Philippe|Wiki: so when do you start job hunting?

[4:59pm] werdna: randomran:

[4:59pm] Philippe|Wiki: July

[4:59pm] werdna: O RLY

[4:59pm] Philippe|Wiki: My job ends when the money runs out

[5:00pm] Philippe|Wiki: One last little housekeeping item?

[5:00pm] FloNight: Philippe|Wiki: I emailed you this week about the on community health related on wiki discussion I saw because I'm concerned that getting buy in will be a big problem.

[5:00pm] Philippe|Wiki: Yeah, FloNight I agree.

[5:01pm] FloNight: We need to convert some of those people now,

[5:01pm] randomran: whew... i have no idea how

[5:01pm] randomran: to tell you the truth, i think the best thing we can do is just come up with recommendations that will have buy-in. that's part of "feasibility"

[5:02pm] FloNight: (not the specific ones I pointed out, but the people with their own ideas)

[5:02pm] Philippe|Wiki: Last housekeeping item: Sue Gardner is posting (literally, as we speak) a narrative of the editing history of Wikipedia. She very much wants folks to edit it. It'll take the usual format (discuss on the talk page, edit the article, etc). I'll get the link to you if she gets ti up before this finishes, but otherwise, watch VP

[5:02pm] Philippe|Wiki: randomran: Let's not rule out the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) just because it's hard.

[5:02pm] FloNight: ok

[5:02pm] Philippe|Wiki: If it's worth doing <shrug> It's worth doing. But that's certainly one criteria you can use!

[5:02pm] randomran: p: I never rule out anything. only try to take it into account to make the proposal better.

[5:03pm] aude: Philippe|Wiki: where is the narrative? on enwiki? on strategy wiki?

[5:03pm] Philippe|Wiki: If we've got five great, very feasible things and one REALLY great but totally hard thing.... you get to weight that. And I'm glad it's you and not me.

[5:03pm] randomran: i know social features will have a huge challenge due to cabals and canvassing and the like... but i see that as part of making a good proposal for social features.

[5:03pm] Philippe|Wiki: aude, it's not up yet. She's posting it now. But it'll be on strategy.

[5:03pm] aude: okay, i'll look for it

[5:03pm] FloNight: randomran: There are loads of good people with good ideas on wiki.

[5:03pm] randomran: FloNight: true

[5:03pm] aude: forgot there is a VP on strategy wiki (or that's what it's called there)

[5:04pm] FloNight: Some of them very motivated, but they are not into Strategic Planning.

[5:04pm] randomran: obviously i like that I'm on the task force... but i think the process for picking the task forces could have been a little more democratic/merit-based

[5:04pm] randomran: just from a buy-in standpoint

[5:05pm] FloNight: everyone can help

[5:05pm] randomran: absolutely

[5:05pm] Amgine: The strategy from concept to implementation has not been community/organic, randomran. Which is fine. It's a way to do things.

[5:06pm] FloNight: I want us to keep inviting people. Once we get an outline of the recommendations, maybe it will draw more people in to discuss something concrete.

[5:07pm] randomran: i think that will help. so long as we don't go off on tangents or backtrack

[5:07pm] Philippe|Wiki: FloNight: We'll do a massive amount of publicity once we get to recommendations, but anything you can do to get people in before that is, of course, even better.

[5:07pm] randomran: even if we can get people focusing on the four areas of recommendation that we've worked out... that would help ensure we get community buy-in without losing that focus.

[5:08pm] randomran: truthfully, i'm surprised the strategywiki is not more active

[5:08pm] randomran: in my experience, there were a ton of armchair quarterbacks who had a specific vision for wikipedia

[5:09pm] Philippe|Wiki: doh, i keep meaning to figure out where we are in the grand scheme of things, and keep forgetting. We have something like 1000 active editors (defined as five or more edits). A lot more than that who have viewed or done a drive-by edit.

[5:09pm] FloNight: randomran: I found that although people discuss wanting decisions to come from the Community, it is very difficult to get anything done from start to finish if no one is designated as in charge,

[5:10pm] Philippe|Wiki: Yeah, roughly 3000 accounts created either locally or based on SUL login. So, about 2000 more sets of eyes than people who are active editors.

[5:10pm] Amgine: People prefer to follow/implement than to lead.

[5:10pm] randomran: FloNight, i'm glad you're a facilitator.

[5:10pm] Philippe|Wiki: Yeah, FloNight has done an amazing job

[5:11pm] FloNight: Well, thank you all

[5:11pm] FloNight: I have a good group

[5:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: Anyone want to say anything else before I post the log?

[5:11pm] randomran: if people weren't so hostile to hierarchy, i would really like to find a way to incorporate facilitators into some of the tougher decision making at wikipedia

[5:11pm] randomran: yeah, i guess we should wrap this up

[5:11pm] randomran: survey on its way...

[5:11pm] randomran: sue gardener is posting something about editing history...

[5:12pm] Philippe|Wiki: Gardner

[5:12pm] randomran: oops

[5:12pm] FloNight: yes we need to call it a day.

[5:12pm] werdna: I think it's good to say not "We're having a chat about strategic planning", but "We're having a chat about how we can improve the community's health"

[5:12pm] werdna: People are interested in the issues, if not the process

[5:12pm] randomran: and the TF is gonna work on getting that list of 9 recommendations down to 4 ideally... but 5 or 6 would be okay at this stage.

[5:12pm] Amgine: <stretch, yawn, slides into #Wikimedia-office to the next irc mtg>

[5:12pm] You changed the topic to "Planning the next five years....".

[5:12pm] werdna: (I know I find a lot of the process behind strategic planning boring, but I fundamentally like the idea and I like working with people on ideas)

[5:13pm] Philippe|Wiki: crap, thanks for the reminder, Amgine.

[5:13pm] Philippe|Wiki: Frank Schulenburg (Head of Public Outreach) in WMF Office Hours today

[5:13pm] randomran: i think that's all

[5:13pm] FloNight: Like every thing else, werdna some people are drawn to planning and other people hate it.

[5:13pm] aude: when are office hours?

[5:13pm] Philippe|Wiki: 15 minutes, aude

[5:13pm] Amgine: 2230UTC

[5:14pm] FloNight: I like processes so I like it.

[5:14pm] randomran: me too

[5:14pm] Amgine: <needs a coffee cup>

[5:14pm] aude: hmm... i'm off to a meeting but will try to come on irc again

[5:14pm] Amgine: I hate process. I'd rather just do something.

[5:14pm] Philippe|Wiki: OK, I'm posting the log

Bodnotbod: emits howl of anguish!

So sorry, FloNight and Randomran, my fellow Task Forcers. There was a TV programme that started a half hour before the meeting and as the opening credits rolled I thought "ooh! The Task Force IRC starts after this! OK." And, damn, at some point during the programme it just completely went from my head. I was sitting *right* *here* at my computer! Using it even! It wasn't until 2am in the morning as I struggled to sleep a little switch flipped in my mind and said "oh, by the way, there was that meeting you missed..." I let out an audible groan and yearned for time travel.

I don't think I had too much I wanted to ask at IRC and I can't think of anything I would immediately respond to in the above; just to say that I note that we're now getting on with choosing our recommendations. As previously stated, I went ahead and began Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health_1. I'm struggling to fill out the rest... but I shall make that my focus for this afternoon. And I'll join you in discussing which of our possible recommendations we should develop and which ones to jettison.

Once again, many apologies, I feel so silly that I'd just forget like that; I enjoy talking things over in IRC too so I'm annoyed with myself. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, so onwards and upwards!

Bodnotbod, no problem. Glad it was nothing serious that kept you away. I had several important phone calls that keep me from posting last minute reminders about the meeting, I'll try to that next time.

It happens :) We should start to move ahead by narrowing down the recommendations this week. I'm sure we can get a lot done without real-time chat.

Have you any thoughts about the process for the 'narrowing down' stage? One way would be to write up ALL the 9 (or however many) to the best of our ability and THEN narrow them down. The other way is to narrow them down based on what we have so that we can focus on writing detailed recommendations on the ones we decide are best. I think the first way would be the *ideal* but given the likely number of man hours we have, I think the second way is by far the more realistic.

Some of the recommendations on our current 'long list' I still feel pretty ignorant about, so I'll try and educate myself a bit today. I'm finding that writing the actual recommendation for my own favourite area, rewards, is proving to be very tough. I will try and get JCravens to help me as it is an area she's really knowledgeable about.

I think we should aim for the second approach -- narrow down as much as possible and focus our time and energy on making four great proposals. But really, something in between would be okay. We take the list down to 5 or 6 recommendations, and get to work on them, and if we find that one isn't producing realistic/effective/palatable ideas, we scrap it. We'll be down to four by January.

Sounds like a plan Mr Random.