research
In the spirit of research, we have a lot of proposals on this wiki. I feel these two categories of proposals speak to our particular task force, though:
Please report your own valuable categories.
I think you covered two of the most important. But there is also value in a few others:
- Category:Proposals for improving usability
- Category:Proposals for reforming policy and governance of Wikimedia projects
- Category:Proposals for reducing in-fighting
- Category:Proposals for editor awards or rewards
In theory, I think we could focus four proposals around four areas. Improve community health by: improving usability, reducing in-fighting, adding social tools, expanding rewards, supporting volunteers, and improving overall governance. But that's more than four areas, and any one of those could be a good focus by itself. That's going to make this challenging.
We may find we can knock a couple of those out because they fit more readily under the work of another task force. For example, under ESP3 they have a key question that specifically asks "how can we reward good contributions?". I only saw that 5 minutes ago and it's my particular area of interest and so I'm somewhat wrong-footed by the realisation that I might be in the wrong group :o/
I'm half-joking... I fully intend to stay with this task force and work with you all. There is nothing to stop me keeping an eye on work going on elsewhere that I'm passionate about nor indeed to rule it out of the deliberations of this task force :o)
I would be surprised if 'improving usability' doesn't have its own task force... I'll go and see if I can find it.
"Usability" would fall under the tech task force. :)
Usability does indeed fall under Tech Task Force, but it's useful to consider usability under this one as well. The tool itself can have a great impact on building and shaping community.
I don't think it would be terrible if some of our recommendations re-inforce or complement what other task forces recommend. Especially things like usability and rewards. Yeah, usability is a technical problem, and rewards can encourage quality. But what would be better for the community than creating a more usable and rewarding experience? Let the foundation understand that many problems are interconnected, and so a set of recommendations can actually target very many problems.
Overlapping recommendations is not terrible. In fact, I'd say it's a good thing, as it emphasizes the need for certain things.
By the way, as a process point, this thread is getting long. One of the features of LiquidThreads is the ability to summarize threads. I'd encourage people to use this feature to help others follow these conversations more effectively.
Good idea. I've kind of avoided it until now, because I didn't want people to think I was trying to shut down the debate. Kind of waiting for a moment of closure or stagnation :)
I fully agree that if two or more task forces come up with similar proposals that it is a good thing, even a great one. The proposals from Strategy will be all the more compelling to the WMF if it turns out that two reasonably distinct groups ended up reaching the same or very similar conclusions.
Returning to research; I thought I would post a message on Slashdot and Metafilter which are two big forums where I might find ex-Wikipedians willing to talk about why they don't contribute any more. I'm not currently a member of either of those forums but I don't mind signing up. I thought I'd mention it here so it may inspire other TF members to do s similar experiment.
Update: I have submitted a question to Slashdot, it has to go through moderation. Metafilter charges $5 to new signups (a one-off charge). Is anyone already a member? It's not that $5 breaks my bank but I'd rather not run the security risks of an online payment needlessly.
Volunteer support is a very delicate job. I have the honor to support authors of (paper) books. It takes a lot of human soft skills to make an author to write a book in the desired way. Lots of authors quit, because of all kinds of human failure. My guess is: writing for WP is as delicate a job as writing a book. Lots of support is needed, and far less technology and threats to delete a text of an author. Most WP police that I know of are very concerned about quality of text, and not concerned a bit about community and human relations (I know this is not true for everybody). This concern for quality should be broadened from only text oriented to community and text oriented concern. Does a robot exist to say thank to to someone who did write a text? JaapB 20:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)