IRC office hours/Office hours 2015-03-25

Log for Strategy Consultation

[16:00:19] <Philippe> G'morning all
[16:00:36] <Philippe> In the interests of not STARTING my day behind schedule, shall we do this thing
[16:00:48] <KGilbey> Good morning!
[16:01:08] <Philippe> So, for those who don't know, KGilbey is Kim Gilbey, who's helping us out with the strategy process this time 'round.
[16:01:08] * jsco waves hi
[16:01:41] <Philippe> It feel like it's been forever sicne we did a strategy office hours.... which is probably because it has been. For those who weren't around, we did these weekly last time we did a strategy process.
[16:01:50] <Philippe> I spent a LOT of time on IRC. A lot. A LOT.
[16:01:59] <Philippe> But this time is different in a number of ways.
[16:02:05] <Philippe> (Hi jsco!)
[16:02:29] * jpsco waves hi again from another computer
[16:02:48] <Philippe> And not least of those is that this time we have Kim Gilbey joining us. Kim has been so incredibly helpful to us. She's no newcomer to the WMF, since she also did a cultural study for us some years ago
[16:02:57] <Philippe> Some of you may have talked to her at Wikimedia in Washington DC.
[16:03:06] <Philippe> err... Wikimania.
[16:03:12] * Philippe slugs some more coffee.
[16:03:23] <Philippe> jpsco, you're just messing with my brain now, eh?
[16:03:29] <Philippe> Too many of you in too many places :P
[16:03:40] * Finnegan remembers talking to a researcher working on...community building? community sociology? something like that. Was that Kim?
[16:03:46] * EdSaperia waves
[16:03:48] <Philippe> That was very likely Kim :)
[16:03:50] <Philippe> Ed! :-)
[16:04:00] * Thehelpfulone also waves
[16:04:03] <KGilbey> Hi all! That was very likely me.
[16:04:06] <Philippe> Tho! Good to see you :)
[16:04:15] <Thehelpfulone> And you!
[16:04:36] <Philippe> So, Kim, you wanna take a moment and talk about where we are now, how we got here, and where we're going?
[16:04:42] <Philippe> Nothing like a nice broad topic.
[16:04:51] <Philippe> You've got 12 seconds to cover all of those things, go!
[16:04:53] <KGilbey> Thanks, Philippe!
[16:04:55] <Philippe> Hey guillom :)
[16:04:59] <KGilbey> Yikes...12 seconds?
[16:05:09] <Philippe> 15, because you're new.
[16:05:11] <KGilbey> Where to begin...?
[16:05:19] <guillom> hi :) Sorry for being late. Philippe: Thank you for sending the reminder!
[16:05:28] <Thehelpfulone> Philippe, generous as ever
[16:05:30] <Philippe> I live to serve, Guillom
[16:06:04] <Philippe> Tho, it's my middle name. Philippe "Generous" Beaudette.
[16:06:09] <KGilbey> A few months ago I was asked by the WMF to come back to help facilitate their strategy process.
[16:06:52] <KGilbey> Upon arriving to WMF, Lila kicked off a strategy process ... more than a strategy process, I would really describe it as a period of internal discovery and dialogue.
[16:08:01] <KGilbey> Over the past few months, we have been taking the time to get familiar and aligned around where we are as an organization.
[16:09:15] <KGilbey> This has been framed within and around the desire to set a "strategic direction" for WMF.
[16:09:23] <Philippe> So with those things in mind, and to give Kim's fingers a rest, how about we do a bit of level setting about office hours. Basically, despite all the rumors, i do NOT love to talk just to hear myself talk. If you have questions, they're not only vaguely tolerated, they're actually welcomed. Shout 'em out there.
[16:09:51] <Philippe> And i'm delighted to see my friend Wittylama join, because I know from my facebook page that he's got questions. :-)
[16:10:11] <jpsco> Question: What are your favorite answers to the strategy consultation questions which actually discuss trends and thriving wikimedia communities?
[16:10:17] <Wittylama> Ciao Philippe :-)
[16:10:38] <jpsco> I ask because given the questions on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2015_Strategy/Community_consultation it seems like there should be more than 13 hits from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=trend+trends+thrive+thriving&prefix=Talk%3A2015+Strategy%2FCommunity+consultation%2F&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search
[16:10:42] <Philippe> jpsco, way to ask a fantastic question...
[16:11:02] <jpsco> thank you!
[16:11:18] <Philippe> I can tell you tht we had a wonderful time reading through those - and we read through ALL of them.
[16:11:28] <KGilbey> What a great question about the community consultation!
[16:11:38] <Philippe> There were daily meetings of the c-level staff to do exactly that.
[16:12:13] <jpsco> Someone on March 7 was worried about "information getting dangerously social"
[16:12:20] <Philippe> As for favorite answers.... I can tell you that I was delighted by the number of comments that talked about issues that are near and dear to my heart (content translation and interface localization come to mind immediately)
[16:12:32] <KGilbey> As Philippe said, the team spent a lot of time going through all of the consultation responses. At a high level, we talked through the patterns we were seeing in the responses, and are now in the analysis phase of actually analyzing for the major themes and outcomes.
[16:12:39] <jpsco> if that was a trend I am not sure it would be a dangerous trend...
[16:12:52] <Philippe> I'm not sure it would be :-)
[16:13:19] <Philippe> Personally, I don;t shy away from the "s" word....social.
[16:13:46] <Philippe> I think theres something to be said for the fact that we are both a social and information-consolidating/gathering/disseminating network.
[16:13:54] <Deskana> The "s" word is "search" now
[16:14:07] <Philippe> Deskana, I hate it when you're right.
[16:14:14] <Deskana>  ;-)
[16:15:27] <comets> so when is global search coming ?
[16:15:30] <Philippe> Kim is looking for a couple of interesting stats for you....
[16:15:35] <KGilbey> What really jumped out to me was the geographic breadth of the responses ... that was really exciting for the team! From the logged-out users and their IP addresses, it looks like we had 88 countries represented in the 1300 responses. Obviously, for logged-in users, we don't know locations, but the number of home projects.
[16:15:39] <Philippe> Comets, that there is a question for someone from product. :)
[16:16:23] <KGilbey> Great question about search... that was definitely a trend reflected in the consultation and is an active topic at the foundation currently!
[16:16:48] <Deskana> comets: No engineers are working on search right now. That's the short answer. If you want the long answer then send me an email, I don't want to derail these office hours.
[16:17:09] <jpsco> I'm extremely optimistic about the trends. But I have a hard time identifying a small number. I think thriving wikimedia communities are inevitable
[16:17:20] <comets> good enough ..
[16:17:25] <^d> Just to add to Philippe/Deskana there, the infrastructure we built in Cirrus/Elastic is well-positioned to support a global search (and actually, Cirrus supports some rudimentary forms of it). It's just a matter of having people working on the project to see it through :)
[16:17:54] <^d> "Just" :)
[16:18:16] <Wittylama> Is that 'consultation page' still operating, and if so, for how long and where is it being advertised? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2015_Strategy/Community_consultation
[16:18:28] <Philippe> Thanks, ^demon :)
[16:18:57] <quiddity> comets, See also: today's email to wikitech-l which contains info about search dept. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-March/081357.html
[16:19:09] <Wittylama> Followup questions is, obviously, once that piece of consultation is finished, what happens then? I was originally under the impression that "that was it" but was assured that this is only the first step.
[16:19:11] <Philippe> Thanks, quiddity :)
[16:19:43] <Philippe> Wittylama, Kim is typing a response now :)
[16:19:55] * jpsco suspects recommendations will at some point be made, but the continuing strategy process will continue
[16:20:02] <KGilbey> We aren't actively tracking the consultation page currently, and are processing the results from the active two-week period. We plan to report back the results and open a conversation about what we found.
[16:20:53] <KGilbey> The consultation was the first step in opening a dialogue about future trends and opportunities for WMF and the projects.
[16:21:38] <ragesoss> One of the big strategic questions we face these days is balancing the needs of our current editors and the future editors that we hope to have. On the one hand, the editing community is the most critical part of what we're doing, but on the other hand, there's no way we can come anywhere close to achieving our long-term goals (sum of human knowledge, etc) without a whole heck of a lot of future users that we're currently failing to attract.
[16:21:38] <ragesoss> So...
[16:21:39] <ragesoss> QUESTION: How does the c-level team talk about and conceptualize that balance, at this point?
[16:22:45] <KGilbey> We are defining the next steps and are committed to creating opportunities for dialogue -- right now we are focused on getting the consultation results back to everyone so we can share in the outcomes.
[16:22:55] <Philippe> ragesoss, shoulda known that we'd hear from you :-)
[16:23:43] <KGilbey> Good question about balancing current and future users.
[16:25:30] <KGilbey> A lot of the conversation at the C-Level has focused on this delicate balance ... some of this hits right to the core of the challenge within innovation strategy -- i.e., how to grow what we have while at the same time pushing into future possibilities.
[16:25:49] <jpsco> well, the WMF can't pay for content improvements, but th WEF can, now, right, ragesoss? So if money were to be thrown at that problem, WEF would be a top contender
[16:26:09] * jpsco is not a c-level executive, but studies them
[16:26:14] <Philippe> <snicker> take THAT :-P
[16:26:20] <KGilbey> lol
[16:26:33] <Finnegan> "throw some money at it" isn't really a winning strategy in itself for most wikimedia issues that we've seen
[16:26:42] <jpsco> hmm, well, wait a second. Since anyone can be the sole proprietor of a lemonade stand, who isn't a CEO these days?
[16:27:06] <Philippe> jpsco, who would want to be? :) I've seen how hard they have to work.
[16:27:07] <Finnegan> (i'd argue that the WEF is actually an example of where throwing money falls down...)
[16:27:38] <jpsco> Finnegan: well, the WMF has been raising and spending a lot of money, and things haven't been getting worse
[16:28:18] <KGilbey> Finnegan...fair enough comment about throwing money. A lot of the emphasis in the Foundation right now is about measuring effectiveness, improving goal setting, etc. Lila is committed to reinforcing the core of the organization so we are better positioned to innovate for the future.
[16:28:38] <jpsco> Finnegan: what do you see as the best alternative to throwing money at the WEF?
[16:28:44] <Philippe> ...and there's harej :-) Good to see you.  :)
[16:29:15] <harej> (the WEF doesn't really receive WMF funding; they have separate backers)
[16:29:31] <Philippe> Do we know that for sure? i haven't looked.
[16:29:40] <Finnegan> jpsco: it's not so much that throwing money can't help, imo; it's that throwing money without sufficient accompanying strategy/training/expertise won't magically make those things appear. So if we want thrown money to actually work for us, we can't just rely on "money exists, therefore this will work"
[16:29:42] <jpsco> I just assumed
[16:30:02] <harej> they received some $100K grant from WMF, barely spent it because they got millions of dollars from Stanton, and refunded (or are going to refund) the WMF money
[16:30:09] <ragesoss> KGilbey: I assumed that this balance was a key topic of discussion, since it has been for years. Can you provide a little more insight into what the contours of current thinking and discussion among the c-levels look like?
[16:30:42] <Finnegan> (anyway, sorry for the money derail. I'm interested in the answer to ragesoss's question!)
[16:31:09] <Philippe> LOL, I was interested in the derail! :)
[16:31:24] <KGilbey> The C-Level conversation has really been evolving over the past few months.
[16:31:34] <Deskana> My question: Is the intended audience of the strategy process the executives? The reason I ask is because so far the strategy process has not affected my team's work, nor the stuff I do as a volunteer.
[16:31:59] <Philippe> Greaet question, Deskana
[16:32:27] <KGilbey> Much of it has been grounded in recognizing the inherent strengths and capabilities of the foundation and the projects, and exploring what the future might look like.
[16:32:53] <jpsco> Whether money or other resources, I'm sure they're trying to determine the best allocation to achieve the elusive goal of more editors. Is the problem one of resource allocation at all? Maybe there are 25 resources which all have to be allocated correctly to optimize new editor growth
[16:34:35] <Philippe> Kim is typing away, more to come....
[16:34:53] <KGilbey> We talk a lot about the future of knowledge and where we fit. You've already seen some of the outgrowths of these discussions -- a focus on operational effectiveness (new COO), advocacy (NSA), and consolidating community resources (community engagement department).
[16:35:06] <Wittylama> While Desanka has the microphone - I'd like to promote a proposal he wrote recently as an excellent operational suggestion for helping to solve a wider issue of the "balance" between supporting existing and new users: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Deskana_(WMF)/Power_user_tools_development_team
[16:35:26] <harej> Question: Will there still be a c-level chief human resources officer, or will it be subsumed under the COO position?
[16:35:54] <KGilbey> We have been in a phase of strengthening our foundation (so to speak) so we can be more proactive and confident in exploring future possibilities like search and discovery, and being a destination.
[16:36:17] <quiddity> When you say "exploring what the future might look like." - does that mean things like scenario planning ?
[16:36:26] <Philippe> So we're working on a response to Deskana so far.... and then we'll handle harej :)
[16:36:39] * harej is terrified to hear "we'll handle harej" from Philippe ;)
[16:36:45] <KGilbey> To Deskana...the strategy process to date has really been oriented toward getting the executives up to speed and aligned as a group.
[16:36:47] <ragesoss> hahahaha
[16:36:59] * Philippe smiles cooly . I meant what I said, harej. :P
[16:37:19] * marktraceur looks at no topic
[16:37:33] <Philippe> it's a wiki, mark
[16:37:43] <Philippe> Well, technically not, but you know what I mean :
[16:37:52] <jpsco> Deskana: did you answer the strategy question?
[16:38:18] <KGilbey> Getting the execs on the same page laid the groundwork. Now we are starting to get active inputs from the community, the staff, etc. to build out what happens next.
[16:40:13] <KGilbey> About the C-Level HR position. Good question. I have not been in those conversations. That would be a great question to ask Lila as she puts her team together.
[16:40:20] <Philippe> (For the record, ya'll.... this is KGilbey's first office hours. Can I just say, she's surviving well, her heart appears to be holding out, and nobody's died. I call that success.)
[16:40:28] <harej> KGilbey: what can you do to ensure that you get input from as many stakeholders as possible? not everyone is going to want to saunter over to meta; have you considered localized, project-specific outreach questions? how do you reach the stakeholders who aren't inclined to speak up?
[16:40:31] <jpsco> KGilbey: what are the executives favorite trends to address to insure thriving recruitment?
[16:40:44] <KGilbey> lol! I've got to get in shape for this thinking and typing process. haha.
[16:41:27] <KGilbey> Harej -- good question about getting input! We are open to ideas on this!
[16:42:17] <KGilbey> For now, we are talking about how to do some targeted inquiry -- actually identify specific categories (like most active editors, etc.) to reach out to.
[16:43:24] <KGilbey> We were surprised in the consultation that we think we attracted a slightly different group than usual in that we had a lot of people who were new users and/or had lower edit counts.
[16:43:43] <KGilbey> Interestingly, the trends are pretty consistent, though.
[16:43:50] <Wittylama> The impression I got, both personally and talking to wiki-friends who also got the same feeling, was that the decision on strategic direction had already been made - focusing on increased READERSHIP on "mobile" and in "global south". What will you be doing to counter this impression?
[16:43:54] <Philippe> (I want to give a shout out to quiddity, who spent hours on the cosultation)
[16:44:46] <quiddity>  :)
[16:45:03] <KGilbey> Right now the trends from the consultation that we are talking about include the focus on translation, language, search, mobile apps, device interoperability, etc.
[16:46:12] <Deskana> mobile apps \o/
[16:46:19] <KGilbey> Wittylama -- I'm not sure the focus is only on readership for mobile. In fact, a lot of energy within the foundation has been around how to bridge the editing issue into mobile.
[16:47:46] <Ironholds> We're doing global south work?
[16:48:08] <KGilbey> We are definitely honing in on the key issues, but I don't believe that the strategic direction has been made. That said, one of the differences with the strategic thinking in the organization is that we are looking to create a more agile, adaptive, responsive strategic "mindset" -- less of a formalized, rigid, 5-year declaration.
[16:48:16] <guillom> KGilbey: If people are asking about the balance between editors and readers, it might be worth mentioning the former track teams?
[16:48:17] <Wittylama> As I said, it was the impression that many people got (myself included) which doesn't necessarily correspond to the author's intention. Nevertheless, the catchphrase for a long time has been about "editor retention" but the money and focus of recent activities at the WMF seem to be going towards "readership growth"...
[16:48:42] <KGilbey> GREAT point about the track teams!! And a great reminder...
[16:48:57] <Ironholds> track teams?
[16:49:11] <KGilbey> At the end of last year we created two internal "track teams" of WMF staff to focus on discovery and understanding of content contributors and readers.
[16:49:13] <quiddity> imo, The question of "how to have discussions, or even just get non-overwhelming feedback, from 100,000+ people", is one of the most difficult questions there is (both on and off the internet).
[16:49:20] <guillom> Ironholds: They haven't really been discussed publicly AFAIK. Hence my plug now :)
[16:49:39] <Ironholds> ahh
[16:49:55] <Philippe> I want to just give a time-warning here and say that both KGilbey and I are due to our next meetings before long, so we need to begin to wrap here. But this is just the first in what I think will be a series of conversations like this one. If there's one thing that I know we can count on from the WM community, it's that you'll have opinions, and I'm really glad that you're here to express...
[16:49:57] <Philippe> ...them. And I'm glad that people like KGilbey make time to show up and take questions from this group. While we wrap up and KGilbey types her responses to the last couple of questions, I want to say thank to you all for taking the time to show up today :-)
[16:50:06] <KGilbey> This was a step toward increasing what I think of as the "strategic intelligence" of the organization -- and the teams did a great job! They have recently finished their initial reports -- and came up with insights about both what we know (and don't know) about content contributors, and recommendations of how we can expand our understanding.
[16:50:15] <Finnegan> KGilbey: that's really interesting, actually. Is there anywhere public where we can see the work of the track teams? I'd like to see what they've come up with
[16:50:41] <guillom> Finnegan: https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/7_Amazing_Facts_about_Wikipedia_Readers._Number_3_Will_Make_You_Cry and https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Let%27s_talk_about_bees:_What_a_single_Wikipedia_article_can_tell_us_about_Wikipedians as a start :)
[16:51:35] <KGilbey> Finnegan -- we are figuring out best next steps for the track teams and absolutely want to get their work out and available.
[16:52:06] <Ironholds> Is the readership track planning to reach out to readership specialists/experts/researchers/etc more or is the research considered "done" for both groups?
[16:53:42] <KGilbey> Absolutely...both the readership team and the content contributor teams intend to get insights from external experts (the CC team has already started this).
[16:54:02] <Ironholds> cool!
[16:54:10] <KGilbey> The first phase for both teams was to really just get a cogent understanding of what we know, and what we need to learn about these different groups.
[16:54:44] <Ironholds> gotcha. So they're planning on doing more outreach to experts within the WMF first?
[16:54:49] <Ironholds> That makes sense.
[16:55:03] <KGilbey> The research isn't done for the groups...I see this as really just the beginning. The teams may morph and change, but this was a first step in really highlighting to us an opportunity to consolidate what we know, start to build a clearer picture, and identify what we need to ask and explore.
[16:55:08] <Philippe> ....and on that note, let's wrap it up. :-) Thanks for coming everyone. And thanks, KGilbey, for being here and chatting with this group.  :-)
[16:55:48] <guillom> Thanks indeed! And congratulations KGilbey on your first office hours.
[16:55:50] <KGilbey> Thanks everyone!
[16:55:58] <Philippe> See ya'll laterz!
[16:55:58] <KGilbey> lol...whew!

Log for VisualEditor

[18:44:21] <Elitre> Hi all. Just a reminder that in 15 minutes the 7th VisualEditor triage meeting will be held on Hangouts (with a side chat here). See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal#How_to_join_the_triage_meetings for details.
[18:44:26] <halfak> AndyRussG, --> #wikimedia-research
[18:44:47] <AndyRussG> halfak: ah cool! thx much :)
[19:00:17] <Elitre> Welcome everyone to this week's VE triage meeting (the last one in this quarter). As the topic states, please see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal for details. We're on a Google Hangout as in the past weeks.
[19:01:03] <Elitre> If you're following the video chat (are you?), you have a choice between seeing James' screen and the room - just click on the relevant little boxes at the bottom. I see Damon in the room as well.
[19:02:07] <Elitre> As a reminder, this is what's on the agenda: reviews of release criteria, of resolved blockers and of nominated blockers, then a short discussion about other business.
[19:03:13] <Elitre> we're now looking at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/aNtxnLS5U9LI/#R .
[19:05:15] <whatami> James says that most people don't care about most of the tasks that were finished.  ;-)
[19:05:29] <Elitre> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/sprint/board/1015/ is the page to look at now.
[19:05:42] <Elitre> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93754 is being accepted.
[19:06:19] <Elitre> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T68628 Remove nowikied spaces at the beginning of a paragraph unless the user manually inserted them is being considered.
[19:10:15] <Elitre> They're discussing this bug, which was proposed by Sherry, but might have been fixed in the meanwhile.
[19:11:23] <Elitre> (There's also a chance we might be talking about two different bugs here.)
[19:11:25] <subbu> Elitre, I would say T93824 no longer needs to be a q3 blocker since we found the reasons for T93854
[19:11:45] <subbu> grr .. i meant: since we found the reasons for T93754
[19:12:02] <Elitre> Ok, I'll say this later. thanks, subbu.
[19:13:32] <Elitre> done, subbu. and the team will investigate more about that Sherry's bug.
[19:13:42] <subbu> thanks.
[19:13:50] <Elitre> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93315 "RT-testing: Update roundtrip-test.js to use the v2 API"
[19:14:56] <whatami> Back to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T68628 : I can't reproduce that now, in the same article/same account/same browser. The bug was reported (by me, from my own volunteer editing) in June 2014, and a lot of things have been fixed since then.
[19:19:00] <Elitre> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93785 was nominated for next quarter.
[19:19:08] <whatami> I don't think that James_F has talked about the burndown chart yet. That's https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/sprint/view/1015/
[19:19:36] <whatami> It suggests thtat they are slightly ahead of schedule.
[19:20:47] <Elitre> thanks for the link, Sherry.
[19:21:03] <Elitre> Everyone, thanks for coming. Please read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Portal to learn more about upcoming triage meetings. Also, if you're interested in conversations around VisualEditor, please come to the office hour on Friday. It's probably going to be the last one on IRC for a while. Find details at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours .Talk to you then!
[19:22:11] <whatami> And today is the last of these bug triage meetings that will have an IRC component.
[19:23:02] <whatami> But anyone is still welcome to join the meetings; the link for the video call is still the same.