Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Events Outline
Thank you to the design group for all their work on these plans over the past few weeks. You have achieved a lot in a short space of time. I have only two comments. The first is to suggest that you might want to consider renaming one of the 'small events' - at the moment the plan includes 1. Small events, 2. Big events, 3. Small events. I found that a bit confusing - perhaps it should be something like 1. Small introductory events, 2. Big events, 3. Small concluding events. My second comment is just to add that Wikimedia UK and our partners produced quite extensive documentation of the recent online Celtic Knot conference, which I'm sharing here in case it's of use to the design group or the staff at the Foundation who will be organising these events: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_remote_event_participation/Documentation/Celtic_Knot_conference_-_July_2020 LucyCrompton-Reid (WMUK) (talk) 13:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
- Hi Lucy, thanks for your naming suggestion, makes a lot of sense, noted. Thanks also for the reference to the Celtic Knot conference. Would be great to touch base with you and organizing colleagues once our plan is a little bit more concrete, so we can build on your lessons learned. Appreciated. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
"focused on output"
What, if anything, does "focused on output" mean? (Please ping me if responding, I don't watch meta.) - Jmabel (talk) 15:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
- Hi there @Jmabel: Focused on output was envisioned to recommend communicating the concrete result of a Transition event to people, so communities can assess their needs and interests more readily, given limited volunteer time. For example, announcing participation for a call focused on the Interim Global Council rather than'ensure equity in decision-making,' which can be more abstract. This was in reaction to feedback we had previously where some community members found it difficult to engage with strategy or found it too high-level. Would you suggest a different wording for this? Thanks for your question. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
- "communicating a concrete result" is certainly clearer than "output". Making that change would be a good example of exactly what you are telling other people to do! - Jmabel (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
How can we get more online communities involved?
Judging by past experiences in strategy discussions, where online communities felt unheard und dropped out of participating quite soon, I propose letting them influence and shape the agenda. For those recommendations which mostly require actions from volunteers I would go as far as saying, they should also set much of the agenda. Specific proposals which have little chance of being realised in a reasonable timeframe on the more mature projects (as seen by past strategy discussions, where they have been opposed again and again with good arguments, past RfCs on the projects and suchlike) should thus not take up too much valuable time for discussion and not lead to unnecessary antagonisation and opposition. --HHill (talk) 15:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
- @HHill:, this is a good idea, but how do you technically see the implementation?--Ymblanter (talk) 16:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Writing!
This is loaded down with gerunds and passive voice to a degree that makes it (1) bland and (2) difficult to read. Are we permitted to edit this to improve language, or is this only for "insiders" to edit, despite being a wiki?
Again, please ping me if replying, I don't watch meta. - Jmabel (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
- Hi @Jmabel: please by all means get in there and edit! Would really appreciate an editorial review. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I'll take a shot. I'll also list phrases here where I can't even tell what they mean to say, so I can't be the one to clarify them, and someone on the Design Team should.
- "to design for virtual events" - Should this just drop the word "for" or does it mean something other than what that would leave?
"priorities specific to different contexts in the movement requiring resources": "resources" is so general that I don't know what to make of this.I see, it's way below; linking.- "will discuss the recommendations around topics and areas of interest" - I can't even guess what this means.
- "We are hosting office hours" - who is "we"? The Design Group?
- "Ensure inclusivity and diversity in the Transition events." - inclusivity and diversity with respect to what? Or a link to somewhere this is spelled out? In any case I've reworded this as "We intend the community participating in the Transition events to be inclusive and diverse" but it still needs clarification as to what (if anythong) that means beyond "Everyone in the movement should be able to participate."
- "with the Movement Strategy principles at heart" - is there somewhere to link "Movement Strategy principles", since that is not inherently clear to anyone who hasn't been involved?
- What does "Value all contributions in the Transition events" mean. Is that an imperative, and if so to whom? If not, can someone reword that to say what it means? Similarly, "Ensure…" and "Bridge…" on the items following. And then there are a bunch more imperatives; I'm going to leave this next several items alone until someone can tell me to whom these imperatives are directed.
- "online communities" is a bit vague, can someone give, say, three examples?
- "Onboard on individual, organizational and regional levels" - I have no idea what this means. Ditto for "socialize the process and the information". I can think of several meanings of the word "socialize," none of which make sense here.
- What, if anything, does "high energy" mean in this context?
I think I'm going to give up on editing (or even trying to read this) until at least most of the above are answered. - Jmabel (talk) Jmabel (talk) 00:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: Thanks a lot for editing. I will start answering, and I hope the colleagues will help me.
- Online communities - these are just project communities (like Commons community or Punjabi Wikipedia community). It might include the developer community as well., but generally this term (I am personally not quite fond of the usage) mean to identify editing volunteers who are not necessarily affiliate members and can not use affiliates as channels to influence the strategy (implementation).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
- I would be really interested to hear suggestions on better term for this. The ones most often used are "project communities" (which might be a better one) and "online communities". As I have heard it to be used quite often, having a better fitting term might be really helpful. --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 11:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
- Office hours - in principle, the design group. We have five (?) WMF employees, I guess they will organize the process, and whoever else from the group is present can also join in answering questions. I am not yet sure whether I myself can be present, I will need to check my agenda.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Soo...
Are we like what? Two years into this and our plan is to plan to plan a plan still? GMGtalk 23:04, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
- @GreenMeansGo: At this level I can answer this question. The strategy is one thing, the implementation of the strategy is another thing. The strategy says "we need to improve the user experience". This was finalized in May, I guess? Earlier this year, anyway. Great, we all want to improve user experience. What are the specific steps to improve the user experience? For example, UCoC is supposed to be one of them (whether it would work or not is a different story). Well, that one was pretty specific, and we have already a committee working on it. Fine, anything else to improve the user experience? Do we all understand the user experience in the same way? Is the understanding of a typical member of Wikimedia Pakistan the same as the one of a typical member of the WiR Wikiproject on the English Wikipedia? Do we have a common denominator? If we do, can we make the next step and introduce the measures? Who would decide? Who would propose the measures? Howe can we exclude things which are clearly non-starters? In principle, all of this could have been part of the strategy exercise, but I am personally happy it was not, because then the project communities would have no say in what is going on, and we would have a disaster of a similar scale to the rebranding one happening every month.
- Having said this, I think your comments on em.wp that the language is very unspecific and difficult to digest are pretty much to the point. We are still going to have two sessions, and I hope the language issue will be sufficiently addressed.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
- Don't get me wrong. If anything, your participation lends some level of legitimacy maybe, because I don't expect you'll be pulling any punches. And I don't really have anything against any person at the Foundation. Those I've had the opportunity to sit and drink coffee with all seems like really nice well-meaning folks.
- But there seems to be two levels of activity here. There are things the Foundation does because it decided so, and they don't really pretend to give a damn about the community. And then there's whatever these things are, where we have a committee that meets, and drafts several hundred words of mostly inanity, and like a Babushka doll infinite regress, ultimately decides that what we really need are more committees and more meetings to decide what to do.
- I'm not necessarily against inaction. In some ways, doing nothing and just keeping the lights on is often the best thing the Foundation can do. But I'm not a big fan of wasting inordinate amounts of volunteer time so we can pretend to do something while doing nothing at all. GMGtalk 11:45, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear GreenMeansGo, thank you for elaborating your standpoint and to Ymblanter for your response. I do agree with the view that volunteer time should not be used in vain. I also agree that we have struggled to ensure that the language we use is accessible and facilitates peer review, which needs to be worked on. However, I disagree with the diagnosis of the approach of WMF in these consultations and we need to clarify this to get to a constructive conversation.
- In my understanding there are 2 initiatives that are moving forward where Wikimedia Foundation has a coordinating role, namely Universal Code of Conduct and Okapi. Both of these have a history of discussions and debates in the movement and would have probably been in one way or another discussed again with or without movement strategy. Both of these initiatives are also somewhat controversial and so it makes sense to provide a clear and concrete platform that focuses on these discussions. I am unaware of any other initiatives that are moving forward and for which "the decision has been made". I don't understand how the narrative of "done deal" is helping a constructive dialogue around the recommendations overall - perhaps you can help me to understand the value of building and using such narrative?
- Regarding the aspect of the slowness of the process, it is related to the fact that in order for these recommendations to be useful in any way, there has been a need to map longstanding problems and challenges across the projects, communities and affiliates, also to understand better the needs and expectations of stakeholder groups so we can develop and build the movement. There are certain struggles and complexity which we face in these global conversations, which I have highlighted in my response to another user on different talk page and will not repeat here. You are welcome to join that discussion to bring your perspective and insights. Overall, the slowness comes from the fact that we are not making a strategy for one organization or one project. We are truly trying to build a movement strategy and because of the complexities this process is slow. However, I do feel that despite of the shortcomings we are making progress. However, transition events and implementation will be the key, in my perspective, because here we will be finally moving from theory to practice and having a good representation of diverse voices and space for constructive multilogue will be the key. Some of the questions that we need to define and tackle are the ones that Yaroslav has highlighted in his response.
- I hope sharing my perspective is helpful in some way. Thank you for your engagement and for sharing your concerns! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Why should members of the community participate at all?
The foundation has decided to change everything and the endorsement by users was "low" to say it friedly. Why should somebody work on a strategy that ist not theirs?
What I have read can be interpreted in such a wide way, that everything could be enforced on this basis. Whenever there was some kind of voting the alternatives were yes or yes, like last weekend in Belarus.
Why should someone participate in something already finalised? Bahnmoeller (talk) 12:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)