User talk:Serita

From Strategic Planning


RETIRED


This user is no longer active on this wiki.

Welcome to the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic planning process. We appreciate your interest in taking part. You can start by reading our Community guidelines. Check out the links on the Main Page and find an area that interests you. Please feel free to ask me any questions, or you may leave a message on the Village pump.

-- Philippe 20:39, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Love the proposal categorization. Way to model! --Eekim 20:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

Hey Serita,

Thank you very much for that cute barnstar, I gave it a special place on my meta-talkpage. And you are of course more than welcome :-), it's pretty addictive once you start. Best regards! m:Mark W (Mwpnl) ¦ talk 20:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
for reminding me to include barnstars! -- Philippe 00:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Happiness is a warm wiki

Hi Serita! I need to make an extra few hours a day for wiki updating for the next month, so I am sympathetic to the fact that this is a new channel for you.

1- First, thank you so much for your input, it is greatly appreciated. To answer your questions: 1- Process. Yes, the project team has now thought through the process sufficiently that we have identified activities, roles, timelines, and deliverables for the entire strategy development process and are looking to post them for Community input this coming week. We wanted the Community to have something logical to react to, but given your comment re: Content/Quality stub being "too polished" I worry we might get similar reactions to posting the process. It is a fine balance to strike between giving the Community some starting point and appearing too set/decided. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated on how to hit this right balance.

  • You are most welcome! I regret that I've had a very busy week and less time than usual to reply. I think it would be excellent to post elements such as
    • a framework or outline (without trying artificially to balance it to make it look sprung full-formed from someone's forehead - so, with sparse sections and overfull ones)
    • commentary (such as yours here / on my talk page) about the thinking behind important elements. This should not be a lot of effort - instinctive and passionate comments work better than carefully worded ones.

2- Your message around editing the Content/Quality stub couldn't have been more timely. I had that very day raised the concern that these stubs were not getting the kind of traction we were hoping in terms of views, edits, inputs, comments. Clearly, they are sub-optimal in engaging the Community. Their purpose is to provide a place to start collating and analyzing data around Content/Quality, Participation, Reach so that the Community Task Forces set-up in Phase II have a starting point to begin analyzing and defining potential strategic opportunities and priorities for expanding reach, expanding content, improving quality and expanding participation. It is true that the Bridgespan-side of the team is tasked with providing the first development and subsequent synthesis of these fact bases which is why you see large postings, but again, it would be very helpful to us to get your thoughts and input on how we can clarify the purpose of these fact bases, the continuous "work in progress" nature of these fact bases, and how best to frame/layout these fact bases for maximum Community engagement.

It's an interesting problem, because for each of these fact bases there are active community processes discussing them elsewhere on Wikimedia projects every day; they just aren't focused here, or don't feel welcome here yet. Do you have roadmaps for the sets of data and data sources you mean to work with? Here is one way that great wiki collaborations can develop:
  • Teaching by example : one person or group takes on a new large project; defines a bold scope; starts arranging goals and milestones publicly; and shares what they are doing and how, while they are learning how to do it.
  • Sharing small distributable tasks. In addition to teaching by example what they are doing (whether it is making a dot-map or timeline, or graphing a set of data), the first editors tend to run into problems or tasks that need many hands, and ask for help rather than doing it all themselves.
  • Others who are interested in the idea, but don't yet have the drive or know-how, can read about and learn how to do what the first group is doing, and then join in specific tasks, before starting to help with the full-scale effort. The explicit requests for help, and publishing of drafts, are signals to others that collaboration is welcome. Sj 18:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would really appreciate any feedback you can give us regarding our transparency of process, clarity of purpose, and desired engagement with the Community.

Transparency has been good where something has been published at all; the meta-process is still unclear. It would help if you published data you have for next week's report here on the wiki beforehand.
Clarity of purpose of the whole process is good; there's less clarity about your role, interests, and availability for active discussion or collaboration. You don't yourself need to be an active editor, but someone who understands your work and motivation needs to be an active wiki editor, reaching out to others, contributing to the structure of this wiki, adding internal links and templates and navigation guides. This could be a community group that listens for new output from your research and team and helps display and interpret it as it is published. Sj
Hey SJ. Process contains the meta-process straw man. It will be part of the materials for next week's board meeting. Would love your feedback there. --Eekim 18:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Language

Dear Serita,

I was bold and tweaked the language of some of the priorities you were adding; take a look and feel free to revert if needed. I also commented on language broadly -- I don't mean for this to change any of the goals and guidelines that have already been set using the language of Participation/Quality/Reach: not only do I not want that to happen, but it's not up to any individual to make such a change! -- but I do want to help people see that these are not the only possible key questions, and that any particular jargon amplifies some priorities and hides others. Warmly, Sj 15:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User page sensitivities

Hi Serita. You added a remark on someone's userpage, see http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Sj&curid=394&diff=17778&oldid=2433. For leaving a message to someone on wiki, please do so on the talk page associated with the user page, this case User talk:Sj. Some Wikimedians are very sensitive about "their" user page. Dedalus 21:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Dedalus! Much appreciated... there are so many cultural norms that is very hard to know just how to proceed... and if I knew how to get to your talk page, I'd post a thank you there :) Serita 00:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Serita,
User talk pages are always at User talk:XXXX (where XXXX = the name). For instance, mine is at User talk:Philippe. You can get there by typing that in the search box. :) -- Philippe 02:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Email

Feel free to give my email to your friend. I may know of a related project in Nicaragua that could be of use. Sj 06:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are a professional consultant, aren't you?

OK, that is great, getting paid to help us with this process. What is also great is that you are new to wiki. So, we have so huge problems. One out of three is participation. For example recent research showed that median life expectancy of a newly registered users on Wikimedia projects is 30 days. Some people get really attracted and become very active editors for a long time, many other people turn away rapidly. Could you keep a log or diary for yourself noting experiences that either encourage you to use wikis all the rest of your life or convince you to quit using wikis rapidly? Or does that depend on other factors and actors, like the aim of the project - whether creating an encyclopedia or developing a strategy for example? Share your thoughts and feelings when you like to, with your team and afterwards with wider circles. Dedalus 08:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Totally am tracking, as is the rest of the team... Truthfully, we find it quite daunting to engage as there appears to be "hidden" norms and it is like we are trying to assimilate into something very personal Serita 18:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Serita. I don't think Dedalus was asking whether you were paying attention to the Wiki. I think he's asking if you could share some thoughts on how it feels to edit the Wiki as a new user, now that you've had some experience with that. (Dedalus, feel free to correct me if I'm misspeaking.) Clearly, "daunting" describes some of that, and I'm sure he (and others) would enjoy hearing you expand on that. --Eekim 20:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. We are tracking our adventures in editing as a new user. Rather than just write a rambling email... In true consultant fashion, we will pull together a bulleted list of items --- still to come, and will post on Participation Serita 20:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First convenors resolution

Serita, have a look at First convenors resolution, edit if necessary, and please sign if you do agree. Dedalus 09:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

reach, participation, quality

Sue Gardner posted her set of questions for the strategic planning process in May under the headings of reach, participation and quality. In her talk in BA to wrap up Wikimania she reiterated these three themes, reach, participation and quality, as the pivotal ones in the on going strategic planning process. On ESP you renamed quality to quality content and participation to community. What happened to necessitate the change in lingo? Dedalus 22:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These are three major themes for sure, but they aren't the only ones. What content, not just the quality of content is a necessary discussion given the debates around other Wiki projects. Likewise, while participation is important, issues of community insularity, governance, etc are also important. I'm not replacing these three themes, just adding to them. Feel free to continue to edit and change titles, I'm just trying to be clear as to the entire scope of each strategic priority and the scope task forces will undertake. Make sense? Oh, btw - I left you a note on the Talk page of ESP, but I'm not sure I either put in the right place or you've seen it. Let me know if you've had a chance to read it. Thanks, Serita 23:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rockin' the House!

You've been rockin' the house with your contributions this week. Keep it up! --Eekim 22:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks E!!! Am typing away as we speak! User:Serita 23:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
For navigating your way through the wiki-world with fearless determination. -- Philippe 16:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really pleased with the way this page is shaping up- your hard work shows! -- Philippe 04:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Localization -> Local Language

Much better!! -- Philippe 16:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Serita 16:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Next Steps

Next steps!
It's time to answer some questions! Would you check out the list of questions that were submitted by the community and others and try to answer some? -- Philippe 02:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]