Five proposed goals

Five proposed goals

We've spent the past nine months exploring the questions, "Where are we now?", "Where do we want to go?", and "How do we get there?" Along the way, there has been a ton of great research, analysis, and discussion on this wiki. I feel like there's good convergence on where we want to go in the next five years, and I've taken a first pass at articulating it at Strategic Plan/Goals. I'm planning on spending some more time writing there, but in the meantime, please take a look at those five movement goals and offer feedback and refinement.

In addition to these goals, there have been many recommendations and proposals. One of our next steps is tying these recommendations to the goals. Because the goals emerged from the recommendation discussions as well as the research, I don't think there will be any problems with this. The important thing is that the prioritized goals will help us evaluate recommendations and determine whether or not to devote significant energy there.

I'll be posting some more thoughts on these topics this week. In the meantime, would really like to hear people's thoughts and questions.

Eekim21:37, 12 April 2010

I like these five goals. Some things I noticed:

  • "Stabilize the Infrastructure": You write "Our current infrastructure is not as stable as it could be" Maybe my understanding of the word "stable" is wrong. I understand this sentence in such a way that the wikimedia projects are off-line. Well, in the Netherlands some weeks ago our data-center went off-line, but I would say: although the infrastructure is rather stable, we need more redundancy ...
  • "Encourage Innovation" Do you mean only technical innovations? If not, maybe you can add something about innovations concerning the content. For example, Wikinews and Wikiversity have to innovate. Editors from India, China, etc. will have an influence on the content and the way it will be shown to the readers. For example, if the readers from these countries will use Wikipedia mainly by mobile devices than shorter articles will be better articles. Another point is that video or even 3-dimensional graphics/video might change the way we present our content. As far as I understand, the point "economic recession" belongs to innovation in financing Wikimedia, so that, for example, more chapters have to help finance Wikimedia. Well, I don´t know how to write all that in one sentence. I hope you do.
Goldzahn05:51, 13 April 2010

I think these points are both correct. "Reliable" is probably a better word than "stable," per your first point.

Would you be willing to add these points to the goals statement? We can refine and edit from there. Thanks!

Eekim18:28, 13 April 2010

I like these goals. But almost all of them are outcome oriented. More readers, more diversity, more capacity, more interface updates. What about process? The process goals are the backbone of the outcome goals. The closest thing we have to that is creating a stronger growth path. But I think we could dig in a little bit more.

Some of that can be done by integrating the current goals -- making sure the goals all line up and help each other. Improved interface could mean improved diversity. But I think we need to add a few more things to help us get where we need to go.

  • Behind increased capacity, there's a need for increased financing.
  • Behind increased diversty and growth, there's a need to reduce community conflict.
  • Behind increased readership, there's a need to improve article quality.

Just brainstorming at this point.

Randomran21:29, 13 April 2010

These are great! Can you take a pass at integrating these into the goals?

Eekim23:30, 13 April 2010

Finally found some time to take a stab at all three. Hopefully they will help.

Randomran16:42, 17 April 2010

Thanks, Randomran. A few comments:

If you were to order these movement priorities, where do you think increased financing ranks?

What exactly is "community conflict"? It seems like conflict is an inherent part of any deliberative process. Perhaps the focus should be on hostility or stagnation? If stagnation, do you think this could fall under the "Encourage innovation" goal?

Eekim00:12, 27 April 2010

Truthfully, I have no idea about financing. I know it's a concern that some people have raised. And then there are people who say "don't worry, things are fine". I also don't know how much it would cost to fuel some of these initiatives. I really don't know.

As for community conflict, you raise a good point. We need to be specific. If I had to break it down:

  • Debate is good, conflict is natural. It helps us figure out what's best.
  • Conflict is bad when it becomes hostile (e.g.: personal attacks) or stubborn (e.g.: no interest in actually building a consensus).
  • The community does a decent job of dealing with hostility, although it looks like they often look the other way for active contributors.
  • The community is worse at dealing with stubbornness. (According to the survey.)
  • Stubborn control of articles seems to drive off new users, and otherwise frustrate all but the most "dedicated" volunteers.
  • Stubborn control/filibustering of policy limits the community's ability to adapt and respond to content and behavioral trends.

When I distilled it down, I said "reduce conflict and hostility". But obviously something got lost in the translation.

Randomran16:54, 27 April 2010

I incorporated the goals you suggested into the other priorities. I made finance an explicit part of operations, and I incorporated some notes on community health in the two participation priorities. I removed the quality goal you added, as I think that's covered implicitly by the theory of change and the reach and participation priorities.

Eekim14:08, 4 May 2010

Makes sense. I made a few small amendments. Hopefully it's still on track, and the point is still clear.

Randomran19:10, 4 May 2010
 
 
 
 
 
 

(deleted - wrong place)

Randomran21:38, 13 April 2010
 

I´ve changed as little as possible. Please correct my changes, because I can read and write only intermediate English. Thanks,

Goldzahn23:21, 13 April 2010

Great changes, Goldzahn. Your English is just fine! It was helpful to do it this way, as it's easier to improve the English than it is to add other people's ideas from scratch. Thanks again!

Eekim23:34, 13 April 2010
 
 
 

I am surprised that increasing the content quality is not a goal in a situation when people are laughing about the quality of articles. It also does not fit into any other goals as far as I see.

Yaroslav Blanter19:43, 15 April 2010

Found the explanation below.

Yaroslav Blanter20:08, 15 April 2010