Grants talk:IdeaLab/Backlogs

How to measure backlogs

Not sure how it is planned to measure the backlogs, it seems like this will be done by adding templates, but that fails if there are to few that add and maintain the tagging. This is a subjective measure, that breaks down if nobody maintain it.

I guess different types of backlogs must be identified, and an objective measure for each of those backlogs. — Jeblad 07:25, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Comments from PEarley (WMF)

Hello @MER-C:

Thanks for submitting this - looking at administrative (and non-administrative) backlogs is a very important area. Agree that a better understanding of backlogs is relevant to community health, and it’s something that hasn’t been measured in a systematic way. It looks like most backlog listings are category-based, which is a challenge to look at. As @Jeblad: mentions above, we’d have think of some solutions.

I notice you mention you don’t have the capacity to take on a grant-based research or development project yourself - that’s understandable. So, two questions:

• Do you know of any other users who might be interested, or have the time to make this into a funded project?
• If not, the Community Health initiative (where you’ve already been very engaged - thank you!) is undertaking a Community Health Metrics kit project. This idea is just of the type of thing that could be included in the kit, and we have some Foundation technical resources to apply to it. We’d love to have your opinions on the best way to measure these backlogs. We’ll be starting a community consultation September 17. I’ll give you a ping when the consultation page is live.

Regards, Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 7 September 2018 (UTC)