research

I was there for the IRC strat meet last night. I mentioned that we may lack data to answer some of the questions posed to this TF. Eekim said that we should pass on thoughts on what data we're lacking. I think we could do that in our weekly reports which ask us what resources we need to best carry out our work. So if, like me, you're struggling with the questions, write down what data you feel you need to move forward and suggest it for inclusion in the weekly report.

In IRC there was also a lot of discussion about ideas for 'social networking' features. Two or three people were pretty hostile to moves in that direction. A lot of concern was expressed about anything which would enable users to talk off-wiki amongst themselves because it might lead, for example, to group-think and issue driven groups to weigh in on polls and discussions and get them out of balance. User:Werdna (the tech guy behind liquid threads) felt this was being overly paranoid. My personal view is that things ought to remain on the projects for all to see and I'm not in favour of enabling back room cliques to form. By all means enable users to hold conversations more easily and to message each other, but I think things should remain visible to all users so that every user is responsible for the "paper trail" they leave behind them.

You may think, well that sounds like what we already have. But in my view things could be improved. For example, if I want to post a message on 10 people's talk pages - as far as I'm aware - I have to do that manually ten times. I would like to be able to post to a group of users. Something like this must already be available on MediaWiki because Signpost surely doesn't deliver "by hand" every copy; so it could be just a matter of opening up that mechanism to users (with, of course, a way to withdraw the right from anyone using it to spam). But, anyway, this is all a bit of a digression...

Here's the IRC log, however please note that the log ends when Eekim left the room and that substantial discussion on social networking happened after that point.

Bodnotbod16:10, 4 November 2009

The critics raised a very good point. Ideally, we want the social networking tools to be used to make it easier to bring people into the community, and to identify articles that need work. But the example you used -- messaging ten specific users with the same message -- can often be canvassing. Organizing people to get involved is good, but organizing people to push an agenda or a viewpoint would quickly ruin Wikipedia. I'm not sure how we can get the benefits without all the problems.

Randomran16:18, 4 November 2009

Argh! I wrote a long reply to you, Random, but my browser and then computer crashed before submitting. I'll reply properly but, briefly, I agree with you about canvassing and I don't currently see how we can both improve ease of communication without making canvassing easier too. But who knows, someone might think of a way.

Bodnotbod20:02, 4 November 2009

I hate it when that happens. Take some time and think it through. I haven't abandoned hope. Maybe the key is that we have to build the social network around the expectations of the community. Maybe you're allowed to create a group with an interest in Atheism, but you're not allowed to create a group devoted to pushing a POV at every single religious article. Maybe mass-messages have to become a subject of scrutiny. Maybe even the friendlist itself, if people insist on befriending people based on POV, rather than general interest. We can make it work, but we have to be very realistic about some of the policies around consensus-building and battleground behavior.

Randomran01:11, 5 November 2009